My Husband and I have built a Baufritz house and it has been completed just over a year now. We chose a turnkey option although Baufritz are happy to provide just the shell.
From start to finish, I can honestly say that that I cannot praise them enough.
I designed the house based loosely on another Baufritz house. The architect was happy to take my lead and make the plans work. At every stage, their can-do attitude ensured that any problem was solved swiftly with the minimum fuss.
When considering a self build, our biggest worry was the budget getting away.
Baufritz gave us an initial price based on a number of questions and options. Once we decided to go ahead and obtained planning permission, we were flown out to Germany to see the factory and chose the internal fittings. The final price is then set depending on our choices which was pretty close to the original figure. That price is agreed and fixed. We paid not a penny more despite materials prices soaring between signing and the build. Baufritz dealt with demolition of our bungalow, groundwork’s and all preparations. They insist on using their own contractors in order to guarantee standards and scheduling. We were given a detailed schedule and they completed it 6 weeks earlier than estimated.
As somebody has said, Baufritz are not cheap but you can see where every penny goes. The quality of the materials are top draw. Skirtings and doors are solid oak the quality of workmanship is second to none. Nothing was left to chance and on the rare occasion a hitch arose, everyone, no matter which trade, worked together to deal with the problem.
The German work ethic blew me away. Arriving at 7.30am, they would plan what had to be achieved that day and would work until the scheduled tasks were completed, no matter what that time was. Nobody left the site before 5pm.
how does the house perform? Without heating, the super insulated rooms and heat recovery system maintains a steady 19-22 degrees. We have an air source heat pump which gets little use.
We installed solar panels with battery storage, so once the batteries are charged, surplus power is sold to the grid providing credit to take us through the winter months.
Our plan was to build a super insulated, easy to maintain home to take us into our retirement and we are very happy with the result.
