Patricias plan was to downsize and build and live sustainably at the same time. When she sold her large family home, she planned the ecological conversion of her old barn in the garden with the help of her neighbor.
For 12 years, Patricia lived with her five children and her parents in a large house in the Überlingen district of Bambergen, in the hinterland of Lake Constance. The children have now moved out and only she and her mother still live there. To become debt-free before she retires, she decides to sell the house and move into the barn at the back of the garden.
This means she doesn't need a building plot or any additional space. What's more, everything in their new home should be made of wood, non-toxic and deconstructable. "We all have to do something for the climate," Patricia is convinced. The ecological footprint must not get any bigger. Her vision: minimalist living on just a few square meters, preserving the old beams and everything that is still good about the barn. And it would be helpful to keep the ancillary costs low once the house is finished. As she only uses the barn at the back of the garden as a storage room anyway, one day it will be clear: that's exactly where she wants to live.
Patricia gets talking to her neighbor Fred Böhm. The experienced civil engineer wants to implement a project with his craftsman friends that is sustainable and innovative through and through. Building a house that pays for itself in terms of energy within a few years. This includes not only the energy needed to build the house, but also the energy needed to dismantle it one day.
They tackle this and within four months a house is built that Fred describes as revolutionary. The solar panels on the roof produce so much energy that they can recoup the energy consumption for the entire construction project within three years. Apart from the construction and dismantling, Patricia generates so much energy via the roof that she not only has enough electricity for hot water, heating and her e-bike, but can also feed quite a lot into the grid. With its 30 kW photovoltaic system, the house produces five times more electricity than Patricia needs for hot water, heating and domestic electricity.
The couple check every detail of the building for sustainability. Most of the wood, Douglas fir and silver fir, comes from the Black Forest, with a small proportion from the Lake Constance region. 20 percent of the wood is reclaimed wood, 80 percent is new.
No glues or varnishes were used, the wood was not glued but screwed to a stud construction with tongue and groove. The banisters were welded together by a craftsman from leftover metal and coated with beeswax. They left out the tiles on the roof, as producing them would have consumed far too much energy. So they placed the solar panels directly on the roof. That works too, as tiles are not really needed. The outer façade consists of a weatherproof film that shields the house from wind and rain while keeping the energy inside. This saves heating costs, especially in winter. In addition, all the craftsmen who worked on the project came from the region. That was also important to the couple.
In the end, the old barn was turned into a semi-detached house. Patricia and her mother each live on 55 square meters over two floors, without a cellar and therefore with limited storage space. If you exclude the garden and parking space for the car, the entire construction cost 375,000 euros. That's 3,125 euros per square meter. For the Lake Constance region, says construction engineer Fred, that's cheap. And the result is a house with a good energy balance, a real showcase project that should inspire others to follow suit.
A film by Aita Koha (editor), Gabriel Beyer (camera), Elisabeth Drobny (sound), Jens Wernstedt (editor).
00:00 Old barn becomes solar house
00:32 Kitchen and dining area
03:18 Office
04:27 Technical room
07:37 Terrace
09:58 Guest house
11:58 Bedroom
13:42 Bathroom