|
Okay I’ve been considering this thread for a while now, wasn’t sure how I should start… 1) Wait until the project is finished and make a megapost when it’s all done or 2) post it in increments, diary style. Well I’ve decided on the 2nd option, otherwise I won’t be posting this until sometime next summer or spring and it will be a gigantic megapost that will probbly sprawl and meander even worse than this one will... First, bringing you up to speed. We’ll start from the beginning, in april 2013 I found out my fiancé was pregnant. After the initial shock I started looking at our apartment that we had lived in since 2009, two bedrooms, a livingroom, kitchen, toilet, balcony, about 790 sq.feet. Not really big enough for us and a kid. But! The surprises hadn’t run out just yet! At the first ultrasound checkup we where told they where twins (identical - they where born on friday the 13th in september, 10 weeks too early, ATM of writing they’re out of the incubators and are doing well by all respects given their situation). That cinched it, this place has gotta go. It’s time to become a home owner! Part of me was happy because I want to move back out the country from whence I came and have a big yard with a big garage with tools and stuff, even a little wood shed where I can go and be all manly and chop firewood, all that stuff you can’t do in a city. OTOH it’s an added financial burden since nobody is rich enough to build a house without a loan. We sold our apartment and moved into a rented place (wasn’t as fast as that but lets try and keep it short). Then we went house hunting. At first we looked at used houses but they where mostly from the 70s/80s and could have hidden problems, not to mention they mostly used oil furnaces or other less economic methods of heating, as well as a less efficient design and technologies. The idea of buying used was quickly discarded in favor of building new, it’s not really any more expensive and the savings from modern building methods and materials are substansial over the lifespan of the house. I want the most technologically advanced and energy efficient solutions in my new house, I aim to make the cost of heating the place to not be that much more expensive than our old apartment. After a lot of searching and talking to various house builders in the area we decided to go with the house model “Peippo / Bofinken 137” (link in swedish) from a local company called Hartman. Our reasons for going with them was they where one of the few that actually responded to our requests for offers with more than just a standardized response and actually seemed to want to sell their product. The process here is as follows: The house built by this company for us, it will be built to almost completeness, then we take over and do the final interior work, all the heavy lifting and things requiring electricians and plumbers is done by them and included in the price. All the interior stuff such as the floors, kitchen equipment, fireplace etc etc is also included in the price. Something only this company could offer. The main attraction was the completeness of this builders package. It’s always been a problem for house builders, all the unpredictable costs that can run away. For instance heating, even with the most complete solutions from other companies they do not include a heating source in the price, so it’s up to the customer to fix it on his own dime. Here it’s all included in the price and it’s the best heating option you can get with modern technology IMO. It’s called a ground heat exchange pump (Nibe F1245) combined with hydronic floor heating. I can give more info on what this is later if anyone wants to know more. Another factor was that we where able to get things like the bathroom pre-assembled which is important here, due to strict regulations on areas like the bathroom which has to be made by someone with the right certificate/education in order to prevent shoddy building and use of improper techniques. With another company we’d have to hire out that to a 3rd party for our own money and it could get expensive. However this builder could get their own guys to do it for much cheaper than us hiring someone. This holds true in a bunch of other areas for the house as well. And even if it’s not the best price then it’s at least an unknown factor written off and something you can budget for. I value that highly, death to open ends! Some specs on the house: The house is 137 m2 or 1475 sq.feet and the actual living space will be 121 m2 or 1300 sq.feet. It has 4 bedrooms, kitchen, a “scullery”, livingroom, two bathrooms and sauna. We customized the package in the following ways: -Enlarging the back terrace and extending it so that it wraps around one side of the house. -Swapped the electric sauna heater for a wooden one, this made it neccessary to replace the wall against the sauna and living room with a brick wall and also the livingroom fireplace has to be moved a bit to the side, on the plus side that has left a nice spot to keep a minor amount of wood stored. -Tiled floor in the kitchen. Here you can see the builders own picture of how it ought to look when done, I like the color scheme and we’ll be going for the same style.  I guess this will be smaller than the average american house but it’s average in finland and I don’t see the need for a bigger house, the very cold winters make big houses a money sink as well. If you really plan badly you’ll end up like my cousin who got electric floor heating (this is bad because you can only ever use electricity to heat the floor, with hydronic floor heating you have a choice of methods for heating the water), so during winter he’s spending like 800 euros a month keeping it warm. With hydronic heating and the pump we should pay under 100 per month in heating costs during the coldest months and hardly anything at all during summer/spring/autumn. Garage  The garage is a pretty simple affair of 43 m2, unheated, one primary room for the car and tools, one part that’s just a roof and two smaller storage rooms. The smallest one I will make into a hobby room, I’ll insulate it and fit a small heater in there to keep it warm and the rest of the garage cold. A heated garage for the car isn’t good for the car either (causes moisture buildup from melting snow and ice every time you park it in your warm garage), I use the in-finland-mandatory engine block heater instead, optionally you can put a heater inside the car and hook it up to a timer to start an hour before you leave for work and the interior will be toasty as well. Ok that covers the basics I guess. In my next post I’ll post more about the yard itself and what we had to do to get it ready. So anyway, you can ask me any questions about building a house in Finland, or just building in general (I'm no expert though). Might be interesting to see how laws and building techniques varies from country to country as well. Maybe this will help someone looking at building their own house as well. I am guessing we have certain... artic considerations to take into account here though that you probably wouldn't bother with in other places. e: formatting touch-ups. His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Oct 16, 2013 |
#
?
Oct 16, 2013 11:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 13:41 |
|
|
So that’s the house done with, moving onto the next problem, where to put it? We’ve lived since 2007 in the city of Vasa in Finland but I grew up in the country and I’ve always wanted to go back some day. My workplace is out in the boonies too (yet I work in IT), I would cut my commute in half by moving to the rural municipality of Malax, which is also where my fiance comes from (well her parents came there from vietnam in the 80s). It took a month or so before we could settle on a lot and we almost bought this one place for too much money but the seller backed out at the last minute. But then we found a nicely sized lot that’s 2,340m2 for sale by the municipality in an area that’s being developed by them and private contractors. Nice location and daily bus routes into Vasa so my fiance won’t need a car to get to work and we can keep getting by as a 1-car household, infact she will have a shorter walk to and from the bus than when we lived in Vasa. The lot was just a piece of “unbroken” natural land. Me and my dad spent multiple days cutting down the trees and seeing where the garage and house could fit. We had it mostly cut down in july, I have some pictures of this somewhere on my mobile phone. Until then here are some of the early stages of construction: Seen from the road:   What you are seeing here is the view from where the corner of the house will be, a ditch has been dug up to the corner of the yard, sewage, electricity etc. will be hooked up there. You will also note the strange things drilled into the ground near the camera, those are blasting charges, or at least where they will be put. More blasting charges:  Turns out the bedrock was very close to the surface and we’re gonna have to blast to get down to the depths the pipes require (+2 meters, to avoid freezing in winter, we also added extra insulation on top of the pipes afterwards to be safe.) That’s a lot of rocks   We’re saving the biggest rocks for landscaping the garden later on. I want to make a rock wall that will separate the south-west area of the yard into a lower portion, with a stone steps down into it. That area will be turned into a playground for the kids and whatnot.  The ground waterflow is copious, we’re in a hilly area and we’re in the middle or so, so water flows down from the north and the blasting had probably created lots of cracks in the bedrock that allowed it to flow even more freely so we had some issues getting all the water away. Permits & The Law At the same time as we where starting doing the work on the yard we also had to get a building permit. This required meeting some legal requirements. They where mainly: -Get a person that will act as an independent inspector during the construction phase, it will be this persons job to spot check the builders progress and report any flaws or errors. -We also get a “construction diary” from the government with lots of checklists for you to tick off as the construction proceeds. The person you hired also needs to put his signature on multiple places, approving this part of the construction process. -The municipality will also perform their own inspections during the construction to see that things are built to code. The main reason you need all these certificates and stuff to build is not just to make sure that the people doing the job are competent but also because you can kiss any home owners insurance good bye unless you can prove you haven’t cut corners on your house when building it. In the next post we'll be seeing the foundation being built.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2013 11:54
|
|
|
Laying the foundation: Finally we can start actually building stuff! The ground has been cleared, water, sewage, electricity are in place - Now we just wait for the foundation guys to come and set it up. Took a few days, I never even met the guys who did it, I was at work and every day I’d go there and see how it progressed. Our houses concrete foundation:   Here’s what the yard looks like from the road in it’s current condition:  The latest work has been filling in the foundations with gravel to the specified height, then compacting and vibrating it all down, we have also been laying down drainage pipes.  The black stuff that’s sticking up is a sort of plastic that we’ve wrapped around the foundation to work as a moisture barrier. From the height of the foundation now you can see we’ve filled on a lot of earth. You can’t see it either but undernear the ground, 2 meters out from the foundation there’s insulation to protect the house and foundation from freezing, we also added extra plastic covers on top of the insulation because even though it’s supposed to be water proof, people say it’s not gonna be so forever, so we’re being proactive on this. Here’s also the foundation for the garage in it’s current incarnation:  .Okay that’s as far as we’ve gotten for now. We’re being held up by a slow rear end plumber at the moment before we can move onto the next phase, which is laying down the floor, which will be a concrete slab with floor heating pipes running through it.  Yard seen from north-east, around 5:20, winter darkness is coming faster and faster now. Edit: This is far as I've gotten, I took the last pictures just yesterday. Won't have much to post about until the plumber gets his rear end in gear but I'll answer questions as best I can while also spending almost all my off hours at the hospital with my boys. Oh and we're having to move to another rented apartment because the place we live in now- Mold! 
His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 11:57 on Oct 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2013 11:54
|
|
|
Awesome to see you posted this HDS! Place looks amazing so far, and it's really interesting hearing how house building goes in Finland. Canada's full of lovely contractors and cut corners(I've gotten to see a house actually split in the middle from improperly prepped ground).
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2013 12:13
|
|
|
Nice job! Will be watching.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2013 14:42
|
|
|
Thanks for taking the time to post this. Please include as many technical details as possible in the future. I also like reading about what lengths you folks in colder climates go to to cope with the weather.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2013 16:59
|
|
|
Well if you want some technical stuff, here's a schematic that shows a cross section of the foundation and wall, as well as the plinths that the terrace will be supported on. As you can see it's insulated from the side, from below and outside, even the plinths are standing on small pieces of insulation. The guy who prepared the yard called it overkill, but the good kind. I'll post stuff as I find something suitable to share.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2013 19:31
|
|
|
I can't even throw together a model airplane kit and here you are building houses from scratch. Very impressive. Quick question: Will you be taking any advantage of the load bearing properties of drywall?
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2013 23:24
|
|
|
His Divine Shadow posted:Well if you want some technical stuff, here's a schematic that shows a cross section of the foundation and wall, as well as the plinths that the terrace will be supported on. How are the walls going to be constructed and insulated? Timber frame with traditional insulation or spray foam or are you going the passivhaus route with concrete filled insulated forms?
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2013 01:43
|
|
|
Congratulations on the twins! Are there plans for a French drain to keep all that groundwater away from the foundation? Also, are you using municipal utilities? Or do you need to have your own well and septic tank? (There's some kind of utility vault in one of the photographs taken from the road, can't make out what it's supplying.)
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2013 02:06
|
|
|
The_Franz posted:How are the walls going to be constructed and insulated? Timber frame with traditional insulation or spray foam or are you going the passivhaus route with concrete filled insulated forms? It is a timber frame house and it uses the traditional insulation design where you got an outside and inside wall and filler space between, with some extra additions like moisture barriers and whatnot. The cross setion shows a simplified version but it's pretty close to how it looks, the seller showed us real life cross sections of the walls and such when we where still shopping for houses. We have something called energy certification in finland to determine how effective a house is and every new house has to get one of these, this model has been given the grade B (A = best grade), I believe all the houses from this manufacturer meet B grade, C grade is minimum for new houses after 2012 I believe. We could have chosen the "energy plus" package but even the dealer said the additional benefit doesn't outweigh the extra cost in his opinion and the standard model was pretty effective already.  There's also solar power package but we didn't opt for it either, the ground heat pump is really a form of solar anyway. We might consider it in the future though, they should only get cheaper and more effective. I found this cross section of a piece of outer wall on the manufacturers site just now, shows how the wall is made:  EDIT: I found my own energy certificate papers now so I got more technical stuff to shoot at this thread. This house should according to the certificate require 113 kWh/m2/year to heat, for the interior that's then 113*121 = 13673kWh per year. The ground heat pump should provide around 9500kWh per year so our actual energy needs aren't 13600kWh but more like 4000-5000kWh per year in heating costs. Of course we're also installing a wood fired masonry heater in the living room and we have many years of free wood from felling all the trees that where on our yard, so during the winter months we'll be using firewood to heat the house as well, this will stop the heat pump from automatically using grid electricity to supplant the heat from the borehole, which on its own won't be enough when it's -20 or -30 celsius. Edit 2: Not sure which fireplace design we're going with, liking this design but we might go for something modern and white too:  Or maybe this one: 
His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Oct 17, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2013 05:11
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:I can't even throw together a model airplane kit and here you are building houses from scratch. Very impressive. Fortunately I don't have to consider such things myself, house is designed and planned by someone competent, I won't even have to put it up myself I'll just stand there and watch people do it for me  All included in the price of the house.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2013 05:13
|
|
|
Groly posted:Congratulations on the twins! Thanks! And yeah we don't use a french drain though, we have these underground pipes that have lots of holes in them, they lead away water into four separate collection wells that are at every corner of the house and garage, the wells are all connected and each one is at a different height so all the water flows into the lowest well and from that through another drainage pipe that leads to the ditch at the road. Here's the original plan we got, we did not follow it entirely and routed the pipes differently, but close enough:  We're also hooked up to municipial water & sewage, it's what you noted in the corner there. LAAATE EDIT: I just wanted to note we probably do use a french drain, I mistranslated what it was at first but I've looked at what it is and it seems they're the same things. His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 13:27 on Oct 21, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2013 05:29
|
|
|
Why aren't you pushing for an A rating for efficiency? You should ask your builder about numbers instead of his opinions with respect to efficiency and determine the cost/benefit for yourself. edit: I deleted my bit about geothermal because I saw that you already mentioned it TATPants fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Oct 17, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2013 06:45
|
|
|
TATPants posted:Why aren't you pushing for an A rating for efficiency? You should ask your builder about numbers instead of his opinions with respect to efficiency and determine the cost/benefit for yourself. Hmm I'm not actually sure their Energy Plus package (which is mainly a different form of insulation for the walls) would have brought it into the A rating or not as we didn't ask. But we did ask about the math and their standard energy saving package already gives a lot of savings and pushing for the Plus package would have added a lot more to the cost for a few dozen euros saved per year. I would rather add a solar array later on to provide more energy than put money into this area. So, the ROI wasn't good enough and we have a budget we have to keep. quote:edit: I deleted my bit about geothermal because I saw that you already mentioned it It's not actually geothermal, it's actually a form of solar as it uses the ground water which is always around 4-6C all year round, the ground water is heated by the sun and not the earths interior. So it's a roundabout form of solar. Think of the ground water as a massive solar heat sink. We're also doing some extra cheap insurance to the ground heat pump by adding extra insulation over the pipes and the borehole (which will be anywhere from 120-180 meters deep). This should improve efficiency beyond the standard setup. Edit: Also we also got an air ventilation system that uses a heat exchanger to extract heat from the indoors air as it's vented out of the house. I don't think it's a matter of great savings here but it's part of the standard ventilation package. His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Oct 17, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2013 07:04
|
|
|
It seems crazy that it would cost the same to build a house as it would to buy it. Did you have to take out a loan or anything to get to do it? Is it more expensive up front, but cheaper over the long run in terms of mortgages, etc., or just cheaper/comparable up front?
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2013 09:23
|
|
|
themrguy posted:It seems crazy that it would cost the same to build a house as it would to buy it. Did you have to take out a loan or anything to get to do it? Is it more expensive up front, but cheaper over the long run in terms of mortgages, etc., or just cheaper/comparable up front? It's more expensive in the long run. when we where still considering buying used we looked at a house built in 1984 in the same size class but with a 2nd floor, it was 180k with yard, garage and house. Though we didn't like the location, heating method (oil/wood boiler) or really anything about it. We'd rather spend more now and have a house that costs way less to heat and run and won't be needing repairs, etc. in a good long while. The house & garage package we're buying are about in the same price class, but you have to add costs for stuff like -Buying land -Hiring people to prepare the land for the house building company (they won't do it) -Building permits and fees (small stuff though) -Hooking up electricity/water/etc We have a budget of 230k, so far it's looking good and I think we might keep within it barring any unforeseen expenses. The worst was so far that we required blasting which ended up costing 2400 euros. We got more than 230k to spend since we've got saved up money from before and also made a slight profit from selling our old apartment. We're also saving a bit thanks to the guy we hired to do the digging and stuff, he's thrifty and takes advantage of things like nearby construction projects. He got us the blasting people who where nearby to work on our yard, they had proper equipment for serious blasting on a larger scale than we needed, so they did it all very fast. If not for the luck of having these guys nearby the blasting could have been like 5000 euros instead if we would have had to hire some smaller company without the same oversized equipment. Likewise they're building a new store complex a few kilometers away and have lots of earth they need moved away, we need filler for the yard and lots of it, so we take it from them for about a third of the price of buying from a gravel company. Stuff like that helps keep costs down.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2013 09:45
|
|
|
Is the space between the ceiling and the roof useable as an attic? And would the insulation be above the ceiling, under the roof, or a combination of the two? And will the trees be allowed to grow back in once construction is complete? Or is the intent to have a yard to the east and get more sunlight? (It doesn't look like everyone is so worried about forest fires that they have to keep a moat of grass/rocks around the buildings, and the statistics seem to back that up.)
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2013 03:09
|
|
|
Groly posted:Is the space between the ceiling and the roof useable as an attic? And would the insulation be above the ceiling, under the roof, or a combination of the two? It will be kinda usable for storage, accessible from the outside with a ladder, not suitable for living in. The floor of the attic will be layers of various materials with insulative properties and moisture barriers and also ducting will go there. The floor, sides and roof of the attic will all be insulated. quote:And will the trees be allowed to grow back in once construction is complete? Or is the intent to have a yard to the east and get more sunlight? (It doesn't look like everyone is so worried about forest fires that they have to keep a moat of grass/rocks around the buildings, and the statistics seem to back that up.) The trees we have left are the ones we want to keep, we'll plant some apple and pear trees later, maybe plums, not sure where exactly. But no more trees on the property than that. We definitely want the sun to shine on our backyard which will face east, that's where we have our terrace as well. The way it is now we'll have the morning, afternoon and evening sun there, but late evening will only shine on the south and west face.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2013 09:44
|
|
|
I think you should contact Malax local tv-station, they will most likely be super interested in your construction endeavours. In the past they have released gems such as this (in Finland-Swedish): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1WqC9Z7Lhk
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2013 11:23
|
|
|
Those videos are part of why we moved here. edit: Hopefully I will have some more updates in the following days, should be getting some material deliveries and there will be people coming and actually starting work, believe they're putting up the walls and roof now. Plumbing and casting of the concrete floor plate was postponed because of the winter weather, plate can't dry if it's exposed to sleet and snow, better to let it be "inside". His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Oct 21, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2013 11:33
|
|
|
What's the expected ambient temperature inside the house when it's built? How cold does it get outside in winter, and how hot in summer? I live in Australia (though one of the cooler wetter areas where overnight in winter it can drop to -2C to -4C and in summer it can get up to 30+C during the hottest part of the day), so always interested in trying to keep energy costs down. I also watch a shitload of Grand Designs and want a passive house so bad I'd almost sell my left leg to have the chance to build one--too bad convincing Australian builders to do new and different things is like teaching a camel to tap dance. I'm particularly keen on eco-technologies in house building, e.g. recycled newspaper/wool insulation, straw bale or rammed earth building, passive house technology, etc. Sounds like you've got some of this already on board, like the ventilation heat exchanger, hydronic underfloor heating etc. In a more general sense, how did you learn about the process of buying or building a house? I'm pushing 30 now and have only vaguely heard of friends buying a house or selling a house, but generally it seems like a mysterious process that noone ever really spells out. I feel incredibly sheltered about the whole thing. How did you go about finding your land to buy? Did you go through a real estate agent or something, or is there a unique process to your country/province? How did you select the land, what factored into it apart from general locality? E.g. Land geography etc. Did you have a land surveyor or similar person do an assessment before committing yourself? Thanks for this thread, will be watching with great interest!
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2013 12:13
|
|
|
nyerf posted:What's the expected ambient temperature inside the house when it's built? How cold does it get outside in winter, and how hot in summer? I live in Australia (though one of the cooler wetter areas where overnight in winter it can drop to -2C to -4C and in summer it can get up to 30+C during the hottest part of the day), so always interested in trying to keep energy costs down. I guess we're looking at keeping it 20-24C in the house, plus hotter when we use the fireplace. If it was only me and my GF we'd keep it 19-20C but little babies need to use their energy to grow instead of on keeping warm. Outside summer temperatures can (for a few days per year) top 30C but this year that didn't happen even once, think 28C was the max, I'd say it varies between 12-24C during may-september. Winter temps here have been down to -38C in this area but they average 0 to -25C, coldest months being january and february with temps of -10C or so being the most common. quote:I also watch a shitload of Grand Designs and want a passive house so bad I'd almost sell my left leg to have the chance to build one--too bad convincing Australian builders to do new and different things is like teaching a camel to tap dance. I'm particularly keen on eco-technologies in house building, e.g. recycled newspaper/wool insulation, straw bale or rammed earth building, passive house technology, etc. Sounds like you've got some of this already on board, like the ventilation heat exchanger, hydronic underfloor heating etc. Yeah I'm definitely interested in having an energy effective home. I don't know about stuff like recycled newspaper etc. though, performance/efficiency is more important to me. quote:In a more general sense, how did you learn about the process of buying or building a house? I'm pushing 30 now and have only vaguely heard of friends buying a house or selling a house, but generally it seems like a mysterious process that noone ever really spells out. I feel incredibly sheltered about the whole thing. I didn't know jack about building a house and I am still terribly uninformed about the whole thing. Fortunately my parents built their house and could answer questions, albeit somewhat outdated. I googled the poo poo out the internet for a month or so and registered on all the local building and family forums and read old debates between people that talked about what heating sources where best, which companies to avoid, etc. I was also lucky that the guy I hired to set up the plot was experienced in this and very willing to talk and offer tips and advice, hard to shut him up even I met an ex-coworker who is now building too and he felt exactly like you do, I tipped him to hire the same guy as well.quote:How did you go about finding your land to buy? Did you go through a real estate agent or something, or is there a unique process to your country/province? How did you select the land, what factored into it apart from general locality? E.g. Land geography etc. Did you have a land surveyor or similar person do an assessment before committing yourself? I found the plot via the municipality's website, I also put out ads on the local craigslist equivalent and looked at some private options as well. But I went with this plot because it was in a good area and very cheap (4,30 euros per square meter, 0% VAT), the location was also ideal, bus station, stores & schools are all nearby, yet it's far out in the country all the same. Municipal sewage and water ready to hook up where also important factors because there's a lot of changes going on with having your own sewage wells and the like now, apt to get expensive, you avoid all that stuff with municipal facilities. And like in most of Malax they got a solid fiber optic internet "back bone" so I will be pulling a cable straight into my house, the hookup is just across the road, already got several empty pipes laid down that go into the house. So they just need to pull it into the house when it's done. I didn't do any surveyor checks, I talked to the neighbors who had built their houses, as the engineers at the municipality and I got a pretty good idea of what to expect, i.e. there was a big risk of bedrock being near the surface. But finding that out wouldn't really have changed my thoughts on the plot as it was just a nice location and nothing else offered was half as good for the same price. So I just factored in 5000 euros for eventual blasting jobs in the budget, turned out I needed half that amount.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2013 13:02
|
|
|
Is it easy to get permission (zoning/planning permission) to build a house on land there ? In the UK its very hard to get permission to build on a green fields site like yours - for most areas its effectively impossible. The land price also seems amazingly cheap. I'd expect to pay at least 250 euros per square meter here for land with permission to build on it, and I don't live anywhere especially expensive.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2013 15:18
|
|
|
Baconroll posted:Is it easy to get permission (zoning/planning permission) to build a house on land there ? In the UK its very hard to get permission to build on a green fields site like yours - for most areas its effectively impossible. It was rather straightforward to get a permit there, the area was pre-designated by the municipality for building small homes and rowhouses on. They also want everey person they can get to live here, same dilemma that faces all small places, though this place is doing quite well. In the middle of a local baby boom right now. And Finland is larger than the UK while having only 5 million people so we dont lack green areas and the demand is lower. Which explains the prices. Some of the private develpments near the sea where 2-3 times as expensive. A beachfront property near Vaasa can go for near half a million OTOH.
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2013 05:17
|
|
|
Those blueprints with finnish overlays on swedish original makes my head hurt 
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2013 13:22
|
|
|
Yeah it's a bit of a mess, the company mostly works in finnish but they got swedish speakers in the local office and they're trying to serve me in swedish since that's my native language, but since 99% of their stuff is finnish from before it's a bit of a mix. I appreciate the effort on their part though. They will want to do it if they want better market penetration in the areas north & south of Vaasa though.
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2013 13:38
|
|
|
You should probably put "in Finland" at the end of the thread title to attract more people. It's a bit of a different process from the one in North America. Most of Swedish builders have the house prebuilt at the factory and then assembled on your site. Because of the climate their walls are also considerably better engineered. Here's some more info on the differences between Swedish and American practices: - foundation http://blog.lamidesign.com/2008/10/letters-from-sweden-foundation.html - swedish wall cross-section http://blog.lamidesign.com/2010/12/letters-from-sweden-closer-look-at_31.html - comparison to american framing http://blog.lamidesign.com/p/swedish-platform-framing-info.html - installation http://blog.lamidesign.com/2008/06/letters-from-sweden-deliver-and-set.html Especially cute short assembly video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtvAGglblV4
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2013 15:47
|
|
|
Yeah I wanted to do that but I forgot and then I couldnt edit it afterwards. I should ask a mod.
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2013 16:17
|
|
|
Hey an update. Got a material delivery last night. Roof trusses:  Lotsa timber and other stuff I dunno what it is:   Unlike most other house suppliers here, the walls and stuff like that are not pre-assembled at factory and shipped as elements. They build it from scratch at the site instead.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2013 08:39
|
|
|
Small update, mostly photos. Walls are up, as are the rafters. Not much to add really, it's starting to look like a house.   
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2013 09:06
|
|
|
Why does the first house picture (in Finland) have a ladder on the outside?
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2013 17:01
|
|
|
Maybe it's so that the owners can go up and shovel snow off? Purely a speculative observation. Amazing thread OP, I love watching houses go up from scratch; it's especially interesting to me as you're in a different country. Can't wait to see the interior design you have in mind once the house itself is completed.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2013 17:55
|
|
|
Well, to get access to the roof for whatever reason. Mainly chimney sweeping I guess. Shoveling snow off roofs is rarely something that is needed. Retrieving frisbees is probably more likely.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2013 18:03
|
|
|
His Divine Shadow posted:Well, to get access to the roof for whatever reason. Mainly chimney sweeping I guess. Shoveling snow off roofs is rarely something that is needed. Retrieving frisbees is probably more likely. Yeah, chimney sweeping. Most houses here in Sweden have a similar setup and they always go to the chimney. Our house has a little hatch next to it instead that you can access through the attic.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2013 19:56
|
|
|
Would you happen to know the size of the studs and the spacing between them? Are there standard sizes for wood products in Finland?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2013 04:37
|
|
|
iv46vi posted:Would you happen to know the size of the studs and the spacing between them? Are there standard sizes for wood products in Finland? Sorry, no idea on that. I can look through the blueprints later and see if they mention it. I guess there must be standard sizes but I've never considered it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2013 09:02
|
|
|
Cool, that'll be interesting to know, especially what's a tuba-foh equivalent in metric. Also of you get a chance to take some pictures of framing details for corners and doors/windows that'd be fantastic.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2013 13:17
|
|
|
iv46vi posted:...tuba-foh equivalent in metric... A what now?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2013 14:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 13:41 |
|
|
He's talking about a 2x4 (inches), i.e. the girth measurements of the standard wooden plank used in US housing construction.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2013 14:06
|
|