Everything ok, but what did it cost?

One of the difficulties when planning to build a house is knowing what is it going to cost. Can you afford it?

I remember when I was looking for information about costs, it was not easy. There is quite a bit of information in Finnish but almost none in English. That is actually one of the main reasons I wanted to start this blog, to give more information in English about what it takes to build your bad/good dream home in Finland.

But you know what, building a house is good for learning Finnish too, because many of the building contractors don't speak English :).

Even with packages "ready to move in" the price is not telling the whole story.
These package prices do not include:
- concrete foundations or pillars if needed,
- potential design of foundations
- land work preparations (gravel, stone, road),
- sewage and electricity connections
- rental cost of hiring a lift truck to lift the tiles/ house elements into place.
- fees of the foreman, HVAC foreman
- garden lights
- removal of construction waste
I would say that these extra costs can range between 50 000 - 80 000.

In the link below I prepared a breakdown of the actual costs for our house and land, hope you find it useful and looking forward to your comments!
http://project-eco-house-finland.blogspot.fi/p/breakdown-of-costs.html

pictures of our kitchen and living room

One of the wishes for the house was to have big enough open space (living+kitchen) as that is the place where family usually spends most of the time. The whole space is about 50m2.

Here are some pictures.

ok, not the straightest of panoramas

We have bought the kitchen cupboards and sink from Ikea as for us it was the best & by far the cheapest option for massive wooden doors (black).We did spend quite a lot of time putting the cupboards together.
The kitchen appliances we bought from Gigantti at a house fair (http://project-eco-house-finland.blogspot.fi/search/label/appliances).
The sink tap is Hansgrohe Talis S² Variarcand bought it from Germany over the internet (www.armaturendiscounter.de) together with other taps. It is possible to take it off and open the bigger window if needed and also it has pull-out spray.



The  white quartz kitchen tops we bought from a company from Estonia (http://www.liidukivi.ee/) that were the cheapest and also came to take the measurements on the spot. Delivery and installation was fast. They speak both English and Finnish in Liidukivi company.

Window wall has ply-wood board of pinetree ordered from Puukeskus. It was difficult to find suitable one since it cannot be very thin nor too thik and have no holes. This wall will have black-painted linear illustration inspired by the photo under (Hugo Boss shop in Shanghai) once we have time and energy to make our own design and finish.


The kitchen hood is model IH-55 from Savo and it is suitable for external blower on the roof (http://www.savo.fi/index.php?page=194&lang=2&usertype=2). It is sort of Finnish thing of having the hoover on the roof and Savo is only one of the few companies that have such suitable model of hood. It is not the cheapest but we enjoy that there is very little noise in the room when the fan is on.

Total costs for kitchen were:
2300 the quartz stone tops
5300 Ikea cupboards & drawers (about 25 of them) including pull-out and corner cupboards, oven, 78 cm kitchen electric plate and double sink (there was at the moment we bought the kitchen a 10% discount offer)
2800 appliances (fridge, freezer, dishwasher, kitchen hood and sink tap)

The white quartz price of 2300 is the price for:

- 4 stone pieces including installation: 30mm worktops thickness 847x619mm,1518x619mm, 2055x1014mm and 1083x618 mm

- 1 cutout for cooking top, 6 corner radiuses R10 + 2 corner cutings

- Visible edges straight polishing

- measuring, transport and installation
Average price about 530 euro/ m2 of white quartz.

Appliances deal made with Gigantti

We were at the fair last weekend and bought 4 appliances from Gigantti. They had offered a lot better deal compared to Expert who made us an offer for AEG stuff. And also had better sales person. Of course at the fair you have to kind of decide more or less on the spot so I was wondering if we got a correct deal or not, but after getting home and checking the prices on the Internet it was indeed a good deal. Anyway at the fair I asked the sales person "So I can call you on Monday if it seems that the special prices you offered us are not that special? Yes sure", he replied.

Cheapest prices on the Internet for the stuff we got are: 
EUF29420X - Electrolux freezer metalic- 1036 euro 
ERE38520x - Electrolux fridge metalic - 1026 euro 
D5257S -  Asko dishwahser metalic - 916 euro 
EDD2400RH - Electrolux drying cupboard - 484 euro 
Total 3462 euro on the Internet

We got offered 2550 euro for the whole package so not too bad thinking that the appliances have on them "made in Sweden" :). They will deliver the appliances when we need them somewhere in September/ October.

Freezer

 

Freezer

Fridge

Fridge

Dishwasher

Drying cupboard

 

 

Heating solution chosen

Now that the house drawings have been finalized I posted them under section "House package" http://project-eco-house-finland.blogspot.com/p/house-package.html

We have now chosen a (water) heating solution based on:
- NIBE latest generation ground source heat pump F1245 6 Kw with 180l water tank incorporated in the same unit.This pump is being advertised as reducing the heating bills by up to 80% i.e. one 1kw energy is used to produce 5kw of energy. See product page here http://www.nibe.eu/Domestic-heatingcooling/Ground-source-heat-pumps/Product-range/NIBE-F1245/
- the heat collector will be in a ground probe/ energy well to 130m underground
- water based floor heating in the whole house - the water circulation temperature in the loops should be only 30/35 Celsius compared to radiators which would need more like 50/55 Celsius.
- air-ventilation unit Enervent Pingvin ECO EDE-CG with heat recovery efficiency of over 75%
- cooling in the summer using the cooling from the ground source pump connected to the air ventilation unit
- during very cold days we can also use the fireplace

 As the house will be well insulated this solution should be sufficient for the house heating and warm water needs (or so we have been advised). If in the future it makes sense, the NIBE pump also allows the possibility to add solar panels to heat the water and/or add additional water tank.

 The rough price breakdown (we agreed a total price in the end) was:
Heating system:
- NIBE 1245-6 ground source heat pump and installation - 8600
- energy well 130m - 3900
- floor heating main house 160m2 - 3000
- floor heating storage 23 m2 (including pipe in the ground bringing the warm water from the house to the storage 40m) - 2000
Total 17500

Ventilation and cooling system and installation:
-  air ventilation with heat recovery: 11000(damn expensive machine based air!)
 - cooling (based on ground source heat pump - 3000
Total: 14000

Besides the above we also got from same company (Nord Energy) the water and suiwage materials and work on the inside the house for about 8000 euro.