wolfi

Ah, those privacy regulations!
I also found them strange but since houses are often built with one side just 50 cm from the neighbour, there has to be a limit.
So when planning a building you have to be careful considering which rooms go in which direction.
Here in the village most houses are "long buildings", just 5 or 6m wide - except the street direction where you usually see two or even three rooms.
My wife's sister has one of those. The middle room is the living room, to one side is the main bedroom
- with the entrance to the bathroom!
So from the guest bedroom you have to pass by the hosts to get to pee at night - unless you go outside through the kitchen and the dining room and use the old outhouse, really strange ...
The kitchen also has no windows of course. So if you need fresh air you leave the door to the dining room wide open and the cooking smell ...
I could never understand this, these people who built the house had enough money but they invested it in "looks", not practical use ...

Jack_Russells4ever

One door is the entrance to the house, one door goes into the bathroom, one door goes to a sleeping room off to the left and the final door goes off to the right into another room that now houses the kitchen. Everyone one of those doors except the bathroom one is almost directly in the center of the wall.

Peter_in_Hungary

In villages the traditional way of building was a long building down one side of the plot. The living part was at the street end with work rooms, barns and animal housing as you went down the plot. When needs changed the building would be extended to the rear and the area next to the living area converted. Around here plots are not usually wide enough to extend sideways without blocking access to the rear of the plot.

Often the long buildings (as above) would have the entrance in the centre with that room used as the everyday living room (that was the only one heated in the winter) and a bedroom of to one side and the 'clean room' off to the other. often there would be a larder or store at the back of the centre room and this is what is sometimes converted to a bathroom. Originally there would have been an outside wc (compost type with a bucket of ash and sometimes limewashed with blue limewash to keep flies away) There would have been no water in the house but water brought in by the bucket and the kitchen would have 2 buckets - one for clean water and one for dirty water. Further down the long building there would be a 'summer kitchen' were serious stuff was done like weekly laundry, preserves and processing the poultry and annual cottagers pig This summer kitchen kept much of the mess out of the main house. Many conversions to modern style living have to contend with the historical baggage of a former life style which is why room configurations may seem strange..

Jack_Russells4ever

Peter, yes we are learning this about our long house. Problem is most modern people no longer live like they did in 1910 when according to paperwork we have found our house was built. The full length south facing porch on our house is the best feature, sadly just about every other feature is no longer of value such as the smoke room and another store room. We have a room added at the back that did not continue on with the original architecture style and was poorly done and almost certainly never had planning permission. Sometimes I think it would almost be easier to buy a vacant lot and start from scratch building a new house. I am pretty certain at some point we may wind up taking down the addition because it is an eyesore. We have our eye on another property in the village that is rumoured to be coming on the market. We are going to start saving for whatever eventuality comes along whether it be an renovation or buying another property. We would certainly keep this one no matter what, the barn is what sold us on this property.

Peter_in_Hungary

That's what I meant by the historical baggage of a former life style.

Planning permission (and building regs) are a fairly modern phenomena.

Vacant plots within a village are not often available, but certainly an option can be to buy a village house in need of lots of repair - and call in the bulldozer!

wolfi

Peter, you've described it perfectly!
The house I bought 21 years ago (when it became legal for a foreigner ...) was at least 50 m long. We had the last 20 m taken down (the stones were reused partially ) and had a terrace built there. First we used a kind of tent in summer but then we had a wooden roof built for our new "Summer kitchen" and also electric cables were installed - and a "ceiling ventilator", really nice in this year's hot summer.

FenTiger

Atleast 50 metres long .... then you reduced it by 20 metres .... that's still 30 metres long!!!

Ceiling ventilator - do you mean an electric ceiling fan?

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wolfi

Fentiger, yes a ceiling fan of course (we call it a ventilator in German).
Re the length of the house (maybe it's just 25 - 27m):
Like in many other houses the front part is wider - with two adjacent rooms facing the street.
The aft part of the house is just 5.50 m wide, there's a dining room, a kitchen and toilet and then - what was room for corn and potatoes, stables, chicken space, pigsty etc now has room for the stairs to the new apartment under the roof - which was elevated.
And then we have two garages and room for all my tools, lawn mower etc
One mustn't forget that the old interior walls are also almost 50 cm.
PS:
My wife told me that there was a kind of standard plan for these houses in the villages - sometimes rooms were added later.

FenTiger

A property my wife likes has similar layout at the front. Currently it's a bit mish-mash and if we buy this house we'll re-instate the old kitchen where it should be but I've yet to see it. Walls are 35cm thick. Ah, well, have to wait until I view it myself if it's suitable. We only want something big enough for the two of us.

Peter_in_Hungary

A 50cm thick wall implies a stone/rubble wall or stone for the first part then adobe bricks ( vályogtégla) with no damp proof course (DPC) a 35cm wall implies 30cm fired clay blocks (known as B30s B being the loading strength 30 being the depth) There may be a DPC but don't be surprised if there isn't. A 35cm wall might have some adobe content. The use of adobe bricks is area dependant e.g. around my area there is no adobe but a lot of stone because that is the material commonly available within easy transport distance.
Adobe bricks can be a very problematic building material.

wolfi

Peter you're absolutely right re adobe! We have had troubles already, now are thinking what to do. Maybe we'll ask a company in that advertises procedures against "wet walls".
One of our neighbours left his house for a winter without fresh air or heating - some rooms where full of mold when they came back around Easter.

FenTiger

I haven't forgotten to ask for a survey.

fidobsa

Yes, if anyone is interested in living on the Croatia side of the Croatia / Hungary border there is such a derelict property for sale 2 doors from me at 1800 Euros. It is so overgrown you can't tell there's a house there!

Peter_in_Hungary

I would approach companies that advertise procedures against wet walls with caution. I have yet to hear of one that offered treatment with a money back guarantee that was worth the paper used to write it! IMO there are very few wet walls - or damp problems that need specialist treatment. Mould will only grow when the conditions are right, which generally means sufficient moisture. Damp on walls as shown by mould is because the wall is at a temperature below dew point allowing water vapour to condense or not to evaporate. The fix is to either increase the temp. of the wall or decrease the relative humidity (RH) in the air so that the wall stays above dew point. Ventilation is important and often mould will be seen behind cupboards and other furniture or in corners because there is reduced air flow in those areas so they can be colder. Showers are very good at increasing the RH dramatically as is drying washing indoors. RH can be reduced by increasing the ventilation, running a dehumidifier or increasing the temperature. In some houses installing heat reclaim ventilation unit can work wonders.

Sometimes the dampness can come from the outside where rain water can penetrate the wall. This is often because of poor rendering, bad guttering or too high a ground level outside. A lack of roof overhang can also be detrimental. The Hungarian trick of having gutter down pipes ending at ground level next to the wall is a disaster as is the practice of having a meter or so of concrete next to the house as a path. A french drain around the house will lower the ground water next to the house and can improve matters - but the french drain must have somewhere to discharge otherwise you just create a moat.

Before getting 'specialist' help you have to understand where the damp is coming from. The specialist firm will invariably diagnose the problem as one that can be solved by the product they are selling - regardless of the actual cause.

Your neighbour who left his house for a winter without fresh air or heating - to return with some rooms full of mould when they came back around Easter I would suggest could have avoided the problem by providing either fresh air or heating and preferably a bit of both.

wolfi

Peter, thanks for this in the name of everybody here - should all read this.
These problems are well known - we have digital hygrometers (really cheap nowadays) everywhere and in some rooms that special salt (Calcium chloride) that takes water out of the air. Heating also is important.
Btw we bring that salt from Germany, there are often special prices, much cheaper than in Hungary - and gave some to our other neighbour who has similar problems.
What's crazy in a way:
You have these problems in new houses too! Seems that the building standards are not good enough or builders use some "shortcuts". A large building used by many doctors, opticians etc just had the lower floor redone because of this. My wife had felt that peculiar smell of dampness some time ago already ...
PS:
It's not only a Hungarian problem, my sister near Munich has it too so her husband put up hygrometers in all rooms and checks them every day, especially in the lowest floor - the Souterrain as we call it in German.
Btw thanks for that warning re the companies, I wasn't sure, now I am.