November 2022

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,...

Prof. Dr. Harald Funke and his team at the Department of Aerospace Engineering at FH Aachen - University of Applied Sciences have received the German Gas Industry Innovation Award in the "Efficient Application Technology" category for the co-development of their H2 micro-mix burner, which enables hydrogen to be burned in gas turbines with low emissions, safely and in a CO2-neutral manner. Already in...

A property owner cannot be held responsible for all accidents that happen on her property. This has now been decided by the Frankfurt am Main Higher Regional Court (OLG, Ref. 17 W 17/22). In this case, a neighbor walked across a rain-soaked stone path covered with leaves and branches to the owner's terrace to talk to her. On the way back, she fell and...

The Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) draws attention to the harmful effects of the radioactive gas radon, which can occur in any building. In the study "Recording how the German population deals with radon as a basis for risk communication and strengthening protective behavior" with 3,000 respondents, the Bfs had previously found out that although radon is known, the knowledge...

The risk of a real estate bubble is highest in Frankfurt am Main, Zurich and Munich after Toronto. This is the result of a study by the major Swiss bank UBS. According to UBS, real estate prices in Frankfurt am Main have more than doubled in nominal terms. Between mid-2021 and mid-2022, however, growth in the two cities was only around 5 percent. The major Swiss bank...

Reducing dependence on raw material imports and strengthening domestic raw material production - this is what the German Construction Industry Federation (HDB) and the German Building Materials Association (bbs) call for in their joint position paper "Ensuring security of supply of raw materials, building materials and energy - further increasing resource efficiency". The associations fear that...

How can apartments and houses be designed to be barrier-free and energy-saving at the same time? The energy advice service of the consumer advice center provides several tips on this. For example, owners have design options with regard to entrance doors, balcony and patio doors, bathrooms and smart homes. When converting the entrance door, it is important to ensure that new steps are as...

Private landlords may not recklessly rent out their property to relatives at an exorbitant rent. This has now been decided by the Frankfurt am Main Local Court (AZ: 940 OWi 862 Js 44556/21). In this case, a private landlord had rented out his 53 square meter 2-room apartment to his cousin and his cousin's family for 810 euros per month. The local comparative rent was allowed to...

The Initiative Pro Massivholz (IPM) has a funny way of pointing out the advantages of a closet made of solid wood: "The natural material wood is inherently antistatic and therefore does not attract dirt or dust, which means that choosing a solid wood closet plays into the hands of those who hate cleaning," explains Andreas Ruf, Managing Director of IPM. In addition, the...

In a study, the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) recommends creating a social package instead of the additional tax cut on gas. In this package, the one-off energy price lump sum of EUR 300 should be replaced by a regular "Energy Price Lump Sum Plus" of EUR 80 per month for taxpayers with a net salary of no more than EUR 3,000 and EUR 40 per month for...