It’s endless!
Ok, good to know, I’ll ask Sophie to add that to the questions to the architects.
OK, I’ve added this; it’s in the same document, you can have a look
Good idea, we can make that suggestion under the new post then
Still not sure we are talking about the same thing! I’m not talking about room size but appartment size. Never mind!
This is not a detail, so I’m grateful you insist. I looked at the “small units” post again and scrolled through the RRU once more, and I think that my conclusion is that the “small units” post is confusing, in that it presents units of 35 and 55 m² net (studio and one-bedroom apartment), but that based on the RRU these could actually be smaller, such that 35 and 55 m² become the gross surfaces.
That being said, in the correspondence that Julien had with the architects on the financial estimate, at some point they recommend us to stick with net surfaces, because this is what is commonly used, and also what’s going to go in the notary’s deeds. So that would mean that in the calculation guidance we keep things as they are, i.e. we make people estimate the net surface, then have them multiply that by 1.25 to arrive to gross m², and then multiply that by a 4000 +/- 10%. Does that make sense?
Hey!
Thanks for your answer!
I understand the confusion no!
So what I understand and think we can do is this:
The numbers that I have at the moment could indeed be the minimum gross surface for an apartment (and I personally wonder if they could be less, we’ve asked the architects about that), but for clarity purposes, we should include net numbers in the new post on estimating the size of the appartment.
So the post would become:
Net surfaces for minimum size
The architects recommended to work with gross square meters for price estimations. See picture (Yellow my question, Green the answer)
Apparently we didn’t, as per Julien’s post 
@Julien: this is exactly the reason why we insist so much on documenting everything on the forum. This way we don’t loose information that is dug deep into the mailbox.
So!!
Julien and I worked on a new calculator tool that includes a calculation of the price (internal link) and I’ve adapted the posts accordingly (internal link).
Did we do it now??! 
Waw! That looks great! This is a fantastic step forward! 
Two questions, one technical + 1 organisational: (ping @Sarah and @Julien)
I don’t understand why there is a 15 m² (net) difference when going up one bedroom. Isn’t the minimum surface for a bedroom 10 m²?
Do you think it would be feasible to upload the document your shared above as a post on Edgeryders? If yes, I can add the link in the presentation for Wednesday.
Good point… Doesn’t really make sense indeed. Maybe the thinking was that you need more room to be comfortable when you are more people? Which would indeed indicate that these are not minimal but standard appartment sizes…
We’re waiting for an answer from the architects on this…
Yes it was the idea to make it a post and to make it as quicly as possible !
I think I’ll do that, and for the appartment sizes I might keep the “waiting for confirmation”, and think of what to do for the appartments (I think I will put a minimal and standard size, will report back soon 
Yes but only 9 for the extra ones after that…
That makes sense. For financial estimation purposes however I think the minima are the more interesting. For the presentation I’m working on a format like this: Login – Nextcloud
Could you maybe fill in the minimum surfaces, so I can complete my table in coherence with your calculations?
On a different topic: I’m afraid that nobody is going to find your documents on Nextcloud, as this is more a finance than a buildings issue. Would it be ok for you to move them to Team Finance’s folder? Login – Nextcloud
With that said @reef-finance: Sarah and Julien have done a lot of work to help people estimate the cost of their units (see posts above). Maybe this would be something for you to take over when you have the capacity?
Ok!
The numbers of the architect don"t actually always match the RRU minimum and are not consistent in terms of how much they add to that minimum…
So Im not sure anymore whether to include them.
I think I will include the minimum surface as per the RRU, indicating this doesn"t include corridors, which may add a substantial amount.
So it would go:
Studio: 29 net, 36 gross
One bed room: 49 net, 61 gross
2 bed room: 58 net, 72 gross
3 bed room: 67 net, 83 gross
4 ber rooms: 76net, 95 gross
I don"t think I’ll round these up or down in the post as the idea is to give the absolute minimum. But I guess in the presentation you can probably round them as the objective is just to give an idea…
For info about corridors, I’ve just measured my Mum’s and it is 5,5 m2 for a 2 bedrooms! Not nothing! We can certainly re-arange our appartments to not have it or at least minimize it, but I think people should be aware of the fact that it is not a negligeable expense…
5 m² for a hallway does not seem unreasable. In the estimation for the presentation I have added 5 for a two bedroom, and 5 more for a three and four bedroom. To make matters simplers I also went with 10 m² for extra bedrooms instead of 9.
The result you can see below. All in all it matches with the size of the architects’ apartments that we visited. My own apartment is 70 m² net, so that also matches.
What do you think?
Yes yes!
I didn’t have time to do it, but I’m gonna!
I’ve created the final post : How to estimate the size and price of your appartments
@Lee : you probably also have to update this link in different places, I noticed for ex. that it would be needed in “things to do when joining”
The confesseur post also needs to be updated, but it’s not a wiki. @Lee could you make it a wiki or update it ? Instead of the text in section 3, it should be :
See this post about size and price and price estimation (internal link)
On the website of Immotheker you can do a financial simulation of your lending capacity. If you are eligible, you can also do a simulation on the website of the Fonds de Logement, which will have more generous conditions.
Seems good!
Done!
Hi again @Lee and @reef-building
Trying to finalise this so that I can put it out to the group…
There is a little problem though, which is mainly that the calculator gives minimum appartment surfaces that are smaller than the standard/minimum surfaces advised by the architects (see this post). I’ve made a little table that summarizes the differences here. I don’t really understand why there is such a difference… And the weird thing is that even using the standard room size that they suggest, it’s still smaller than what they said was the standard for social housing.
What I’ve done to deal with it for now:
I’m really not sure I’m thinking clearly about this anymore, so my questions to you:
Let me know what you think!
Hi @Sarah,
Thanks so much for taking this on and for being so thorough.
I am not sure I have the answers to your questions above. For what it’s worth, this is how I would interpret the differences:
The difference between the RRU and the social housing minima seems to follow from a new law called “Good Living”. I didn’t have the time to read it all, but I think it says that starting from 2023 the social housing minima will overrule those from the RRU. This is a web page that seems to have some valuable information on that: L’impact du « Good Living » sur la création / régularisation de logements (Bruxelles) - Gautier MELCHIOR - AvocatGautier MELCHIOR – Avocat
The difference with the architects’ calculator I would explain by the fact that the calculator is there to help us estimate the surface that we need, without there being a link with the legal minima. Could it be that the confusing bit is that we should mostly be looking at column C (standard surface) to see how much we should add to the minima, and not so much at column B (minimal surface)?
So if the above would make sense, then I think our instructions are these:
I’m not sure I’m helping here 
so happy to get your thoughts.
Thanks Lie!
So from what I understand, this Good Living will actually be the new RRU, so applying not only to social housing but to any new building. Appartently this will happen in 2024 only. I found another source with more details.
And indeed, here are the net minima:
35 m² pour un studio ;
55 m² pour un logement 1 chambre ;
70 m² pour un logement 2 chambres ;
85 m² pour un logement 3 chambres ;
100 m² pour un logement 4 chambres ;
So for some of it slightly different than the numbers they initially gave.
Indeed in the original table they sent, there was only column C (standard surface). We added column B (minimal surfaces) so that people could work out what could be the minimum size of an appartment (in relation with the confesseur conversation). It still doesn’t add up though even when using the standard surfaces, but it doesn’t matter…
After reading the texts about the new reglementation , I wonder if that column with the minima should be there at all… In the new text, they mostly refer to the overall size, and don"t say much about the size of each room (in general a room where people have 'prolongated stay" has to be more than 8m2, and bedrooms 9m2, but they don’t say much more than that). But I’ll leave it for now, and we’ll check with the architects whether we should be going with the new Good living plan or whether that’s not set in stone yet. I’ve made a note in the calculator that these might change.
Yes that sounds like a plan. I’ve adapted the post accordingly, but just used the advise from the architects instead of looking at the minima for social housing.