Construction industry

Improvements to the framework conditions for new construction, special depreciation for affordable rental apartments in tight housing markets and more incentives for home ownership - this is what the German Building Materials Association, the Federation of the German Construction Industry, the Central Association of the German Construction Industry (ZDB) and the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts call for in their position paper...

Builders can now also have so-called energy-plus houses built. The portal "effizienzhaus-online.de" points this out. Energy-plus houses are houses that not only save energy, but can also produce energy. The principle of energy-plus houses is based on more efficient building use and therefore...

In two workshops, more than 80 people from 65 German municipalities discussed how cities can make themselves climate-proof and better protect themselves against extreme weather events. The twelve recommendations for action from the project "ExTrass - 'Urban resilience to extreme weather events - typologies and transfer of adaptation strategies in cities'" were presented in a policy brief.

A landlord may not simply turn off the hot water to his tenants, not even in summer. This was decided by the Frankfurt Administrative Court (case reference 8 L 1907/22.F). In this case, a landlord had cut off the gas supply to his tenants in the summer due to the Ukraine conflict and the associated supply bottlenecks and price increases. The landlord stated that his tenants...

The German Engineering Prize 2022 was recently awarded to the Stuttgart-based firm "sbp - schlaich bergermann partner" for the light rail bridge in Stuttgart-Degerloch at a ceremony. "The winning project, the light rail bridge in Stuttgart Degerloch, is characterized by an imaginative design that strengthens public transport in a major city," said...

If owners need additional space in their property, for example for a home office, a hobby room or an apartment, this can often be realized in the basement. The FMI Mineral Wool Industry Association points this out. However, owners should consider various aspects of the basement extension in advance, namely the building physics, the structural requirements and the...

According to a survey by the Bauherren-Schutzbund, more and more modernizations are being postponed or abandoned altogether. In August 2022, only 34.3% of homeowners surveyed with a 15-year-old or older property said they wanted to have modernization measures carried out. Around half a year earlier, the figure was 50.2 percent. In addition, more than half of...

Interested parties can apply for the German Timber Construction Award, which is endowed with a total of 20,000 euros, until Sunday, January 15, 2023 at deutscher-holzbaupreis.de/online_einreichung/. The prize is awarded to buildings and building components that are predominantly made of wood, wood-based materials and other renewable raw materials. Architects, builders, among others, can take part...

Numerous cities and municipalities apparently want to beat climate change. According to the Federal Ministry of Housing, Urban Development and Building (BBSR), 286 project outlines from 235 municipalities were received for the federal program for adapting urban areas to climate change. The amount of funding applied for is around 983 million euros. This means that the amount of funding applied for is around 5.5 times...

Anyone thinking about building a house should obtain comprehensive information about it in advance. To ensure that nothing goes wrong with the project, the Bau Praxis portal provides "25 tips for better building for private builders". These range from obtaining "basic factual information" to "checking the ground conditions" and "personal contributions". At the beginning, for example, model houses can be viewed,...