Costs

Actual costs of our building project

No house is alike, but hopefully below does give you an idea of the costs involved. Bear in mind that our home is made, I would say, of better materials and installations than the usual houses packages "ready to move in".
In the house package price below:
- insulation of the house is from special wooden fibre (double the price compared to glass wool)
- there is no plastic in the wall structure
- the outside wooden panels are wider and thicker which gives the house the "log-house" look and supposedly will last longer
- tiled roof instead of metal sheeting
- wooden log panels on the inside of the house
- wooden panels for ceiling
Other differences to take into account are the installations:
- ground source heat pump
- air-conditioning
- wood-heated sauna (double chimney needed)
We did some work ourselves, such as painting and smoothing surfaces, wallpapering, painting the house on the outside (2nd time) etc. A lot of our time has gone also in getting offers and coordinating that things happened.

Our initial plan was that the house would cost like 250 000 however it was 313 000. The main cause of the difference was wrong budget. Basically the house package seller  has "helped" us prepare too low estimates so that total budget still appeared to fit the 250 000 mark.

We had massive cost overruns in sewage, land and foundations preparations, reason being that a lot of stone has gone into our 60 meters long road  etc. so we spent 30 000  euro more than expected. Also we did not expect the foreman's fee to be 10 000 but more like 3 000. These were basically contracts for which we did not have a fixed price.

On the bright side, we had negotiated fixed price contracts contract for foundation, electricity, HVAC, inside plumming and carpenters.
See also link to my other post: http://project-eco-house-finland.blogspot.fi/2013/03/everything-ok-but-what-did-it-cost.html


Expense items Amounts euro
land 3000 m2 117 000
cottage removal 2 000
land research (drilling holes) Maaperätutkimus 1 000
Total land 120 000
permits 4 000
road, foundation & land preparation 26 000
roof stairs, snow protection, water drainage 4 000
foundation (concrete slabs, standing on metal pillars, concrete flooring base level) 31 000
foundation insulation & water drainage 4 000
house package 104 000
house package assembly 22 000
Elisa ADSL cable 1 000
electricity 12 000
fireplace and assembly 5 000
double chimney Schiedel 3 000
masonry and tiling work and materials 10 000
geo-thermal well (hole in the ground) 5 000
ground source heat pump & installation 8 600
water-based floor heating main house 160 m2 3 000
air ventilation with heat recovery 11 000
cooling (based on ground source heat pump) 3 000
other HVAC, water, sewage, materials and work inside the house 12 400
inside furniture and materials 3 000
kitchen 9 000
staircase excluding assembly 2 000
various materials from hardware stores 7 000
carpenters' inside work and materials 10 000
designer's fee (Pääsuunnittelu) 2 000
foreman's fee (vastaava työnjohto) 10 000
garbage collection 1 000
Total House 313 000
Warm storage/ Car port
drawings and materials list 1 000
land preparation 4 000
foundation 5 000
materials 11 000
carpeters' assembly work  8 000
floor heating 23m2 including pipe in the ground bringing the warm
water from the house to the storage 40m
2 000
Total Storage/ Car port 31 000
Grand Total 464 000
Floor area m2 (kerrosala) 164
Useful/ Net floor area m2 (huoneistoala) 150
Price / House floor area m2 1 909

7 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing this! Very useful information for me! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, I have been search for a breakdown like this and it's very helpful!

    We would like to build a 250sqm house in Turku, so I expect building costs will be approx ,€500,000. But is it possible to get a mortgage for construction works? Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, Happy to see that you find it helpful. You need to contact different banks for their mortgage offers. The amount you can borrow is usually based on your family's income and the value of the house that will be built.

      Delete
  3. Thanks for sharing your experience.
    How about buying an old house and rebuild it from scratch. What are the procedures?

    ReplyDelete
  4. You are awesome. I having been searching for something like this for months. THANK YOU!

    Do you mind if I ask where you built your house? Was it Helsinki?

    ReplyDelete