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Is a typical German home any different from a typical American home? Well, let's go and find out. One of the things you'll notice is that most German homes are built from brick or concrete or concrete blocks versus wood. That also
Explore key differences between typical German and American homes, from construction to interior features and lifestyle habits.
Key Takeaways
- German homes prioritize durable materials and energy efficiency.
- Living arrangements in Germany favor renting and multi-unit buildings.
- Functional design elements like inward-opening windows and rolling shutters improve comfort and insulation.
- Basements play an important role in storage and utility functions.
- German homes reflect a practical, minimalist approach to space and furnishings.
What the video covers
- German homes are primarily built from brick, concrete, or concrete blocks, unlike American wood-frame houses.
- Most Germans live in rented multi-unit buildings rather than owning single-family homes.
- German homes feature unique interior elements such as removable shower heads and toilets that drain into the wall.
- Windows open inward with multiple locking and ventilation settings, including rolling shutters for insulation and darkness.
- German bedrooms typically lack walk-in closets, using large wardrobes instead.
- Radiators under windows create efficient heat circulation, often with manual thermostats.
- Basements are common in German homes, used for storage, laundry, and housing heating systems.
- Basements remain cool year-round, ideal for food storage and drying laundry near heating rooms.
- German home decor tends to be simpler and more modern compared to typical American styles.
- The video highlights cultural and architectural differences that influence daily living in German homes.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Construction Materials
- 00:47Home Ownership and Living Arrangements
- 01:29Bathroom Features: Shower Heads and Toilets
- 02:56Window Design and Rolling Shutters
- 04:49Bedroom Storage and Wardrobes
- 05:36Heating Systems and Radiators
- 07:22Basement Uses and Features
- 10:02Laundry and Heating Room Integration
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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makes them last a lot longer, makes them a little bit more expensive, but also insulates them better both with heating and without. Let's step inside and see what it looks like on the inside. Even just getting into the front door is a
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little bit different because you will not find a movable door knob, but a lock and a handle. So, you're going to need a key to get inside, otherwise you'll have to ring the doorbell. Let's do that.
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Most Germans, but one-third of Germans only own a single-family or live in a single-family residence. Everybody else lives in multi-unit buildings that have maybe up to 10 units or maybe even more depending on where you are in bigger
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cities or in more rural areas. But most people in Germany actually still rent versus own. Oftentimes you come in a hallway and then there is a half bath right off the hallway. And what's interesting about German sinks is that
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most of them don't actually have an under cabinet sink. It's just the sink and you'll look at the pipes.
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I'm not quite sure if this is more of an architecture feature or something that Germans do, but it stays in the home, so I'm going to cover it in this video. And that is removable shower heads. The idea that
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you have a fixed shower head that comes out at a given height, and if you're really tall, you have to bend your knees to wash your hair. Or if it's really high up and you're a rather short
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person, and you have to kind of find where the water comes out. Seems a little bit foreign to Germans and I have to say that I love shower heads because you can also take it off and move the water on your body wherever you
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need it and it also makes cleaning your shower or if you're showering in your bathroom a lot easier. I'm not sure [clears throat] if this is a little bit TMI but a lot of especially newer German toilets don't drain into the floor, they
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actually drain into the wall and what I love about it is that you can wipe underneath and there's no weirdness going on around it. You can just it's very clean and actually very sanitary.
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Also, windows can be very different. Obviously this window has just been put in but it's very typical and you can see how they need to finish the wallpaper here. But the first thing is and this is all hard to show. I'll show you
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another window but first of all you can lock it which on the second floor I don't know if that's that necessary.
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However, this came with locks but you can set it to this setting and then you can open the window. They open inside, they don't open to the outside, they open to the inside and then the next thing and this is something that trips
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up a lot of Americans is that you have another setting here and you can crack the window. I've known Americans who think like wow the window is coming to get me but no it is this and is actually
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really practical because you can still use the window sill underneath and it just cracks it and lets just in a little bit of fresh air.
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And the other thing is the Rollladen rolling shutters which I absolutely love. And there is another setting.
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So the advantage of the rolling shutters is first of all, you can darken the room.
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You can darken it somewhat so that a little bit of light shines in and if you let them roll all the way down, then it's completely pitch black dark in the room. Great for kids and great if you want your room really dark. You don't
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need darkening or light blocking curtains. The other thing is it insulates against the heat or in the winter the cold. As you can tell, we're here in the winter and there's a lot of snow outside and also the sound. So, it's a lot quieter
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because it's another layer. Most German windows are now mandatory to have double pane glass windows, but it also keeps the sound out. So, that's the windows. And as we're stepping into people's bedrooms, there is another thing that's very different and that is that most
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German homes don't have any walk-in closets. So, where do they keep their clothes? They keep them in big wardrobes. If you, for example, go to IKEA, you'll see that because IKEA sells to the European market and as
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actually as a Swedish company, so they know what Germans need or what Europeans need and you actually keep all your clothes in these big wardrobes. If you move, you have to move with all your big wardrobes.
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I am here in a plant-loving home. Plants in every window sill, but hey, it's super green. Another thing that is typical for German homes is radiators and people don't have, I mean, 150 years ago they used to have
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stoves in the corner or what do you call them? Heaters, coal, wood-activated burning heaters, but these days pretty much everybody has radiators and they sit underneath the window. And why? Because, as you may know from high school or
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whenever, warm heat rises up and if you have, in the winter, the warm heat rising up in front of the window where the cold air is coming in, then you're creating a circulation inside the room and it actually moves the warm air into the
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room versus the cold air sitting there and maybe even leaking to the outside. So, that's the radiators. They most often have a thermostat and you can set it to a comfort setting and obviously there are newer homes with Wi-Fi
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controlled and so forth, so forth heaters, but most Germans still have a little thermostat, a little dial that they move and then they adjust the temperature. Something that I'm super envious about and I'm going to move down here while I'm talking to you guys is
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being able to walk into the basement. And the basement is often a dug out area right underneath the house. Sometimes it's a partial basement, but it is underneath the house. It is concrete, so it has a concrete foundation and concrete walls.
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It needs to be watertight because obviously the water would flow into the walls and if it's not built super watertight, it would move into the basement, but there are different rooms in the basements and I'm going to take
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you there now. It is slightly damp, I want to say, but it's also cool.
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And it is a storage that I'm so envious about. I would love, particularly this one, this food storage where you can store your drinks, you can go shopping and buy a ton of stuff because Germans tend to have smaller
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refrigerators, but they can store a lot of their food in this particular room in the basement and you can just keep it forever. You can store potatoes here, roots in the winter and even in the summer it stays really nice and cool
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down here because as we know, warm heat rises up to the top of the house. So, the basement is always really cool and did I say that I'm really envious? I'm really envious of anybody who has a basement. Typically, it has a what we
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call "Waschkeller" where you do your laundry and it's really far away from everything. You can hang the laundry down here. Obviously, it would take a little longer, but if it's combined and there is actually a dryer or washer
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going behind me. So, if you're wondering about the noise, that is what that is.
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But, you can often have your laundry machine in your heating room where you have your furnace and the furnace emits heat. So, that is where the laundry actually dries a little faster. But, this is where the laundry happens. In
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this particular home, the heating room is a separate room from the laundry room. Oftentimes, it's combined. There is a heat pump behind me which is a fairly new technology and it's very efficient, but I can tell that in this
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room it's already quite a bit warmer than in the other rooms and that's why a lot of people combine the heating room and the laundry room and want to be able to dry their laundry. And you can tell
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that there is heat coming out because there is a little register to let warm air come out of this room. Another thing that you won't
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Traditionally, it hasn't been very hot here and if it gets hot, it usually cools down pretty quickly. But, nowadays, we've have had really hot humid days here in Germany and then Germans just open the windows, create a draft, cool off otherwise, hide in their
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basement. Who knows? [laughter] But, yeah, they don't have air condition traditionally. And while some homes are older, for example, my mom's building was built in the late 1800s, 1890-something rather, this is a much more modern home, but German homes tend to be much more
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simplistic versus American homes. And the decor is often a little bit more modern, a little bit more simple.
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It's a lot more practical and not quite so decorated and ornated. And I'm not talking about nobody does that, but I'm talking about in general typical, if you were to say the stereotypical German home looks like this and this is what it
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is. I am going to make another video about how Germans really live and what is different in German homes, the way they decorated and they use their furniture, and that is not so much about the architecture or the building itself. If you have any
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questions or things that you'd like me to cover, let me know in the comments below because I'd be happy to show you in a German home because I always love sharing German culture and traditions with you guys.
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Let me know if you have any other questions. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.
Topics:German homesAmerican homeshome constructioninterior designhousing differenceswindow designbasement storageradiatorshome insulationliving culture
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