Above 1200 Sq/FT Swiss Garage / Workshop / House Build

[JDMjunkies.ch]

The Swiss "JDMJ" Garage / Workshop / House Build

Hello all My Name is Nils and i'm from Switzerland. Some might know me for my online activities at my blog www.JDMjunkies.ch where i post about my various car projects.

Like most here i've been reading for many years but finally i have something to post too. This forum is probably the reason you can see what you can see here soon. Thanks for that

The project: A combined underground garage / workshop with two houses on top of it. Thanks to some nice circumstances i'm able to build together with my soon-to-be parents in law, which will save me a lot of money.

The plan is to build a classic swiss concrete Underground garage with two concrete / brick houses on top. one for us (marked red), the other one for my parents in law. Sinec this is a garage forum i will concentrate on posting about the garage here.

Nothing has been confirmed by the goverment yet, so i guess it will take another few months until we can start. but for the time beeing i wanted to show you the plans:

the almost finished drawings by our architect (rotated by 90°)
Top level:


Ground level:


Underground level (with garage for total 6 cars, of which 4 are for us, plus the workshop with a two-post lift, and an additional "prep-shop" plus storage room for spareparts. that's it so far. will keep you updated

 

[Bib Overalls]

One basement and two houses? That is something you don't see very often. Looking forward to see how this all comes together. Remember, we like pictures. Lots and lots of pictures!

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

One basement and two houses? That is something you don't see very often. Looking forward to see how this all comes together. Remember, we like pictures. Lots and lots of pictures!

yes that's exactly the plan Since it's built at a hillside, part of the garage is the groundlevel of our parents-in-law house, while we have two additional levels on top of it. sounds strange but it's a great solution in a countrly where property prices are on a premium. you have to get inventive to place all you want on such a small property. Actually those are two properties connected to each other. and since i wanted the big garage this was the best solution we could get

Will post lots of pictures once everything starts, i promise

 

[iampepa]

hey,

sounds like a great plan. Looking forward to see some pics of your build. i hope the will confirm your plans.

Greets from Austria
Peter

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

hey, sounds like a great plan. Looking forward to see some pics of your build. i hope the will confirm your plans.
Greets from Austria
Peter

Thanks Peter, I hope too. You know the european law - if you follow the rules it's normally not a big deal, but just takes it times

Btw, i haven't mentioned yet:
We have decided to build a "ecological" house which doesn't consume a lot of energy and produces a lot of it by itself.
- Collection of raintwater for watering our garden
- Photovoltaic (Solar) elements on the roof
- Air source heat pump for heating system and Warm water
- "ECO-garden" - part of the garden will remain uncut so bee's and insects can enjoy

In addition to that we plan to build a "smart home" where everything can be controlled through a centralized PLC system by Smartphone, Tablet, etc. (heating, lighting, Blinds, garden-watering, Power points, etc..).

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Got the latest renderings from the outside views from the architect. Will have minor changes with the windows in the ground floor and in colors but otherwise that's it - i hope
the "black hole" is the underground garage entrance. the white double garage already exists (as you can see in the plans and images in the first post)




Note solar panels on the roof pointing to the south (where the sun goes)

 

[Stretch-22]

That looks like a really cool build! I like this idea with the large underground garage. My wife always tells me you can't have a garage bigger than the house.... I think this solves that exact problem by slightly hiding that the garage is huge. Good luck with the project!

 

[TomcoPDR]

This is going to be ****

 

[BajaScout]

Nice! I would recommend changing the grass to snow so you can see the winter view.

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

That looks like a really cool build! I like this idea with the large underground garage. My wife always tells me you can't have a garage bigger than the house.... I think this solves that exact problem by slightly hiding that the garage is huge. Good luck with the project!

Was the verysame problem here. Site is too small for a big garage and a big house, but when the Architect came up with the idea to combine the garages of the two houses into one big and put it underneath the house i was sold keeps us the "Big" (For swiss standards) garden too

This is going to be ****

I hope it's going to end like the plan is

Nice! I would recommend changing the grass to snow so you can see the winter view.

haha yeah, just got the first real snow this winter.. still don't think it's worth to pay the architect just to change the colour in the drawing. Most important stuff is below the ground anyway

 

[Krokodil]

Looking forward to this build!

 

[gilr]

I have a question about access to the 2 car space; it appears that it may be a very tight turn to park in the 2 car section, have you modeled this to see how difficult it may be to park in that section? That dividing wall between the 2 car section and the 4 car section may make it difficult to park. Otherwise this is a great idea. I love hiding the garage like this.

 

[ambenz]

Cool built...interesting to see what the building, electrical, and plumbing codes are for your country.
Does your area call for high pitched roofs that are snow load rated?
I am wondering if the land has city sewer, water, electric, and natural gas, or will you be running a septic system, water well, solar and wind, and heating with propane or wood stove?
Since your still awaiting plan approval from your local government, do you think all your plans are possible considering local codes?
Should be an interesting build!
I would hate to see the concrete bill!!!
Good luck with living next door to the "In Laws!"

 

[rturbo 930]

I've been following your 240Z restoration, guess I'll follow this one too! It's quite a bit different from most builds, especially from an American perspective. Should be interesting.

For those of us who miss seeing updates to the concrete underground, maybe this will fill the void.

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Looking forward to this build!

Me too

I have a question about access to the 2 car space; it appears that it may be a very tight turn to park in the 2 car section, have you modeled this to see how difficult it may be to park in that section? That dividing wall between the 2 car section and the 4 car section may make it difficult to park. Otherwise this is a great idea. I love hiding the garage like this.

Thanks for your Input. I've thought about this too, but due too some circumstances there are no different possibilities. However the place where the bicycles are positioned now is an additional place for another car and since we only have two daily driven cars and the rest are "sunday cars" we will put the daily cars wherever they're easiest to Access and store the other in the less comfortable Slots shouldn't be a too big Problem though

Cool built...interesting to see what the building, electrical, and plumbing codes are for your country.
Does your area call for high pitched roofs that are snow load rated?
I am wondering if the land has city sewer, water, electric, and natural gas, or will you be running a septic system, water well, solar and wind, and heating with propane or wood stove?
Since your still awaiting plan approval from your local government, do you think all your plans are possible considering local codes?
Should be an interesting build!
I would hate to see the concrete bill!!!
Good luck with living next door to the "In Laws!"

I think we have a different System than USA. i don't know the "Codes" but here everything is based on european, swiss and local Law.
Roof must be between 25 and 45° angle but can differ depending on the area. and of couse it must be snow load rated since we can get a lot of snow even in my place. Oh and you must secure the Roof against "Roof-avalanches" too
Since switzerland is a very "compact" Country almost every house (except a few up in the back-County mountains) have electricity and / or gas. Ours will be connected to electricity, plumbing etc. No gas needed though (all electric). But for ecological reason's will add solar Panels on the Roof, collect rainwater for watering the garden and use a Air source heat pump for heating and Warm water. Very enviromental-friendly and as most new houses are built in central europe These days.
Plans are made by an architect who has a lot of knowledge with the local regulations and i've studied them well too. shouldn't be a big Problem in my opinion. otherwise i wouldn't have done it this far
And yeah i already got a number for the concrete costs and it's by far the biggest Task on my list

I've been following your 240Z restoration, guess I'll follow this one too! It's quite a bit different from most builds, especially from an American perspective. Should be interesting.

For those of us who miss seeing updates to the concrete underground, maybe this will fill the void.

Ah, thanks mate - a Long-time follower. will wait with this to put it on the blog until it has been confirmed by the goverment
Indeed builds in europe are very different to what i see here built by most of americans. Not that the american builds are bad. but the circumstances and Needs here are totally different, so the whole construction is different too
Honestly i don't think i can compete with the "concrete Underground" build. that's way bigger and a different Level than ours...

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

You may have noticed a lack of updates. It took us a few months to find a suitable financing solution for the in-laws. Due to the very strickt law regarding financing by a Bank in switzerland, it was a bit tricky even if they have enough money, but finally found a solution.
But now w'ere back on track.

Today the final plans arrived from the Architect, which we will bring to the goverment by next week for approval. This will take approx. another 1-2 months but I'll explain you that process while at it during the next weeks.

Meanwhile we have to handle some other stuff for the Project too.

This is how it will (should) look at the end. Note the one part in the upper right picutre with a higher Roof in the undergorund Garage. this is made so the Workshop lift will have enough space to lift the car


Here you can see the two houses (darker red) with the Garage (lighter red) below. The house on the bottom of the drawing will be ours.

 

[dubjager]

Very cool. Love the concept and looking forward to seeing all the eco stuff put in... of course the garage as well!

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Very cool. Love the concept and looking forward to seeing all the eco stuff put in... of course the garage as well!

Haha i hope at the end there is enough money leftover for all the eco stuff

We now even decided to have an additional "natural meadow" part in our garden with grass that won't be cut and a special mix of flowers and grass to support insects and bees. The advantage of this is that these small little helpers will help us to keep the garden clean and kill all the small bad little lice and stuff in the garden and it looks and smells nice too

But honestly - the garage is the most important part

 

[gasman23]

Interesting plans
Close to the Bodensee, nice environment over there

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

So this past week we made the official submission of the documents and project plans to the goverment for approval.

In switzerland we have a unique procedure:
Once the documents have been submitted to the goverment, you have to put Posts on the future construction site, which show the neighbours where the house will be, how high it gets, etc..
During the 30days approval process, everybody then can view the plans at the goverment and make official complains about the project.
These complains (if there are any) will then be checked and either accepted or not. This procedure takes another few weeks. Usually Complaints only are accepted from direct neighbors and if they have a serious reason for the complaining.

During this period the government will also check the plans and either approve it or ask for some changes. But since we studied the rules thoroughly before making the plans, i guess they won't ask for any changes.

So here we go, the posts are up and now we have to wait for at least 30 days and see if some complaints come in, and if the goverment approves it.

 

[Captain]

Hello Nils and congratulations on an excellent design!

I have never seen the pole/post system of neighbourhood pre-approval, but it does give the neighbours a clearer picture of the future house. If it is all within the correct rules they won't have anything to complain about . . . we hope.

As you have two houses with a combined access to the garage space below, what happens if the inlaws ever sell their place? Are there separate titles to each place, or is it a combined system?

I will be following your build with much interest, particularly the eco design elements and how you will be handling rainwater.

Looking forward to updates.

 

[anth]

Nils! Great to see you here, I didn't realise you had a thread on GJ. Can't wait to see how your house(s) and garage take shape.

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Hello Nils and congratulations on an excellent design!

I have never seen the pole/post system of neighbourhood pre-approval, but it does give the neighbours a clearer picture of the future house. If it is all within the correct rules they won't have anything to complain about . . . we hope.

As you have two houses with a combined access to the garage space below, what happens if the inlaws ever sell their place? Are there separate titles to each place, or is it a combined system?

I will be following your build with much interest, particularly the eco design elements and how you will be handling rainwater.

Looking forward to updates.

Thanks

Well it seems we already get delays because of complaints of the goverment. Problem is that it's a bit complicated with the current law. it will be replaced with a better law soon but nobody knows when and the current one differs a bit depending on the Point-of-view. so we'll see how long it takes until we can start.

The two houses including their basements have two different titles and are built on two different, but neighbouring "cells" (See very first post in this thread).
Each part has an official allowance and Agreement with the other part to use certain parts on the other "cell" for drive-through, walking and usage of Basement-Areas that theoretically belong to the other "cell". It's written down in the goverment books upon purchase of the site and illustrated with a special Situation plan / map, which illustrates who is allowed to use which Areas of the Basement and for what.
It was a bit complicated but now everything should be clear and once one part of the house is sold it will include the "usage" of said Areas.

I'll check out some cisterns for collecting the raintworter during the next weeks. we've slightly changed the plans and now i want to have the pump for watering the plants inside the house instead of inside the cistern. we'll see.. It will be our first desicion we Need to make.

Also i have some vacation next week so i hope me, my wife and father-in-law are able to clear the property a bit. still some old fences, trees and stiff there that Need to go... Luckily my father-in-law is a former forester and has all the Tools and knowledge. Some cash saved again

Nils! Great to see you here, I didn't realise you had a thread on GJ. Can't wait to see how your house(s) and garage take shape.

Thanks mate, me too. really hoping we get approval soon.. still a lot of paperwork. it's switzerland after all

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

The Dude responsible for construction at the government somehow likes to delay things, it seems. Allready one months is gone and not even a desicion is made if the plans will be released to the public for the approval-procedure or if changes are needed.
The fact that it's vacation season here doesn't help either...
I guess it will take another few months until we have the "OK" to start.
Nevertheless we decided to use our vacation days to clean the future construction site a bit:
Here my wife is removing an old fence that was installed on site:

Also removed quite some Concrete tiles that were used in the gardening area previously:

Then installed the red-white posts / poles to see where the underground garage will be located (As far as we can leave the plans as they are currently). This was done mainly for my father-in-law, so he knows where they won't dig out a hole and where he has some "safe" space to store things during construction

Also makes it a bit easier for us to picture how big everything will be

Hope to get some good news soon...

 

[MG David]

A seem to remember way back that new houses in Switzerland had to have atomic shelters in the basement. Is that still the case.

 

[GoldCar]

Hallo Nachbarn

Nice plans

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Subscribed!

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

A seem to remember way back that new houses in Switzerland had to have atomic shelters in the basement. Is that still the case.

No, this rule is gone about 10 years ago. These days you have an option to either build your own one or buy a place in a public bomb shelter. However i think this is more of a "tax" these days and less of a serious purchasing of a bomb-shelter-place. It's a bit confusing.

Hallo Nachbarn Nice plans

Bonjour les voisins. Merci Beaucoup

Subscribed!

Thanks guys. hoping to have some progress soon..

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Bad News. the Local government rejected our Project plans.

Main reason is that there must be a Minimum space of 10meters between two houses with the current law.

Fun fact is that this law is obsolete already. a few years ago the village has been integrated into the next bigger community (the next bigger village) and now everybody is working on to take over the construction law from the bigger community to have one uniform law. That law doesn't include a Minimum space between houses, if the neighbours both agree on that. so it's a bit of a joke now that they declined it, but it's the law, even if it doesn't really make sense in this case.

We asked for a Special permission due to this fact, but the guy there declined it. It's unknown when the new law is coming, so now we have to discuss the next steps.

Either we wait until the new law comes (ist planned to come in 2017, but nobody knows), we change our plans completely (not really possible, due to the small space we build on the possibilities are quite limited), or we find a loophole, which we currently cannot find.. we'll see and i'll Keep you updated.

what a bummer...

 

[GoldCar]

Oh ****, I am really sorry for you and wish you a lot of courage to face the "good thinking persons" of the administration of town planning...

 

[Captain]

Yes what a bummer indeed.

Two sayings come to mind;

"Oh well, back to the drawing board"
or
"Where there's a will, there's a way"

Let's hope you get past this hurdle without too much stress.

Good luck.

 

[95riosnake]

That is definitely a total bummer. This project was looking really awesome and I was looking forward to seeing it move forward. Don't give up on it, seems like waiting for the new law will be the best option. I know if it were me and the new law would mean not having to compromise what I see as an awesome design, I would rather wait than accommodate antiquated laws and not end up with a finished product that I was happy with.

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Thanks for all the Kind words, guys. really appreciate the Support

On Monday we'll have a Meeting with the architect again (which is more or less the main planner)

Our current plans are either
- Wait until the new law Comes and have the house built as planned. However nobody can really tell when the new law Comes and how it will be at the end. The new law may probably collide with a few other aspects of the house which would be OK with the current law.. If we get good Information about how and when the new law Comes and it's within a reasonable time, we'll stick with that.

Or the other Option:
- Modify the current plans. I studied the current law thoroughly over the last days and we may have found Options that fit the current law by slightly moving a few walls and make Connections between the existing Garage and between the two planned buildings.

We'll also have to check if we just can "plan" to do this Connections but never build them when the new law Comes during the build-period.

We'll see what our architect suggests, at least we have some Options and we still hope to build something close to our current plans more or less.. depending on a lot of factors. will Keep you updated

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Fingers crossed!!

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

OK, we had a meeting with the Architect yesterday and this is what we came up with:

- After having a closer look at the local law and the "higher" building law, it is quite unclear, since there is no special law for our case. In there newer upcoming version there will be, but the government person still relies on the old one which is the current one.
There is a huge possibility that we are right but there is also a possibility that we're wrong and our complaint will not be accepted.
- Since this law is for a very small village with approx 50 houses, this case never happened before.
- Still the law is obsolete and due to be replaced soon by a new one, but it's unclear when it comes. might take up to 2 years and we can't wait that long.

So fare we wern't able to find a suitable plan B, so we try to stick with what we have and force them to give us right with a lawyer. This might go wrong in worst case and for sure will take up a few months, but they have the chance to change their mind now before we take the construction-lawyer.

According to our Architect, this is not an unccommon procedure in places where there are incompetent government-people at the lowest lever of government, which is responsible for this.

We wrote them a letter with detailed explanation of the situation. Swiss construction authorities work like this.

In the local government, one person is responsible for construction. In small villages it is most possibly a farmer, or someone that doesn't have a lot of an idea about construction and law. If you're not accepting his conclusion (which we did not) you write a letter and the whole local government has to come to a conclusion together. In most cases the others don't have a clue of construction either (even less than the other guy), since they're not responsible for this part of the government, and will just agree with whatever the construction-responsible person says. (which is what happened so far).

Now if you explain to the whole committee the situation in details, and that they might be wrong and you will take a lawyer, some of them might start to study the law-books a bit deeper by themselves and come to a different conclusion. Especially when they know that they might be wrong and all of them get personally liable if the refuse us the right to build a house based on wrong interpretation of the law-book. Also it will be automatically taken to the next-lever government (of the Kanton in switzerland), which means it can end up embarrassing for the local government if proved they were wrong...

However the biggest problem ist that the current law is so old, this case never existed before and it's quite unclear in our case. its based on a lot of relating articles and since some of them make no sense in our case it's tricky...

Well that's our plan so far. we'll see.. i'll keep you updated, but don't expect big changes very soon. "Mills of governments are turning slow" as we keep saying in switzerland.

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Little update: The Project is now officially announced to the public, which means all the neighbours have 30 days time to make complaints. However we talked to most of them beforehand and it seems like they support our Project.

Still this does not mean that the Project is automatically granted by the government, we're still working on that. but one by one

 

[jabin]

Congrats! moving forward again!

 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Little update:
After 5 months of fighting with the government about some small Details, they realized and admitted that they intially forgot to give us all the "Codes" and regulations needed to design a house in that Special area. They clearly stated it's their fault (luckily).
Problem is we now spent about 20k on designing and approving a house to wrong regulations and rules. Currently two things are going on:

1) We try to get some informations from the local government about how the house has to look. It seems like the definitions are quite vague. They were made in the early 90ies with a reason that now doesn't make a lot of sense anymore, since the surrounding and political Situation has changed quite a lot.

2) We try to get back the Money we spent so far from the government. at least a part of it. it was their fault. We try to avoid a lawsuit but so far the local government hasn't shown any signs of willingness to handle things uncomplicated and fast.

I guess in a few weeks we should have at least answers to one of the two Points and i'm pretty sure this won't be the end of the Story.


Depending on how the new house(s) has/have to look we have to decide if it makes any sense to us spending 2M on a compromise or if we rather buy / build somewhere else.

I somehow lost the Motivation a bit. Still dreaming of my house and Garage, but it really *****. After more than a year of work we still have nothing except bills...

 

[E12-535iTurbo]

Damn! Good luck with keeping motivation. I hope you'll be able to build your dream house.

 

[Jawn]

Just came across this... I love your plan, it's a shame it didn't work out. I hope the government works out something satisfactory to you.

BTW, I love what I have seen of Switzerland... wife and I spent part of our honeymoon in Lauterbrunnen and surroundings.