我实际上还没有在柏林找到任何硬件商店，类似于新罕布什尔州的奥布彭，也没有在美国一些小城镇中仍然存在的妈妈和流行硬件商店。德国最大的家庭装修商店连锁店叫做OBI，这是世界第三大公司，仅次于Home Depot和Lowe。我听说柏林的米特（Mitte）部分有一个obi，但包豪斯（Bauhaus）是我在城镇周围骑自行车时看到的家庭装修商店。实际上，这家瑞士零售商的一个新分支机构正在距离我们的公寓不远。DIY显然在柏林还活着。

几个星期前,我有机会拿起few items at Bauhaus. Since I was not in a rush, I decided to tour the store with my camera, taking photos of things that seemed notable, particularly as compared with the product selection at home improvement stores in the U.S.

The rest of this post contains lots of photos interspersed with brief notes. If visiting the Home Depot doesn’t give you the shivers, you might find something of interest herein.

This billboard greeted me in the parking lot:

I dig a woman who hangs her own Sheetrock.

Bauhaus gets points for the adaptive re-use of a pre-War industrial building. Inside, riveted steel beams and trusses are still helping to hold up the roof.

This particular store rivals its American cousins in size. This judgment is based not on square footage, but on how tired I was after walking through it for an hour.

Near the entrance was a display of self-contained vertical wood splitters. Who is using these in the city?

电源工具显示看起来很熟悉，尽管以德国品牌（Metabo，Bosch，AEG）为主导，并且特别强调了锤钻：

All buildings, everywhere, even the masonry buildings in Germany, have issues with moisture. The store has a large area devoted to waterproofing and water management products.

This dimpled plastic drainage mat is similar to the one I installed under the new slab in our basement, just before we moved to Germany.

No U.S.-style concrete blocks (CMU’s) here, but lightweight aerated concrete blocks are readily available:

There are masonry lintels for sale.

The insulation aisles include one dedicated to rigid EPS foam blocks, and another to the accessories and stucco products necessary to finish them. I have seen weekend warriors installing foam and stucco on the exteriors of their masonry houses.

The EPS foam aisle:

EIFS配件：

Metal starting strips to support the first course of rigid foam installed on exterior walls:

Plastic expansion anchors used to fasten rigid foam to a masonry wall:

更多的EIFS配件：corner beads and plastic mesh for window returns:

该商店提供了各种灰泥产品，但没有木质覆盖板，木瓦或纤维水泥壁板。

绝缘区的几个过道显示矿物质羊毛瓦。

这家商店还出售（令我惊讶的是）玻璃纤维棒。

There are nice displays with information and materials for air sealing:

更多的air sealing materials:

These “Fermacell” sheets are sandwiches of EPS foam filler between two slices of a hard, Homasote-like board.

这些木板也用于混凝土地板的顶部，作为成品地板的底层。我见过的大多数房屋的结构地板都是铸造混凝土 - 强壮，但并不是特别绝缘或舒适。这些板被覆盖在混凝土上以形成地下。安妮特（Annette）告诉我，德国建筑法规对楼层之间的良好衰减有要求。除了增强隔热层和舒适性外，这些“ Estrich”底层地板系统在最大程度地减少声音传输方面起着重要作用。

A closeup of the Fermacell sandwich panels:

该主题的一种变体包括我认为是EPS颗粒或类似的东西（想想豆袋椅子填充剂）。这些颗粒以大型袋子出售，被倾倒在新建筑的结构混凝土地板上，或翻新，平放，然后用一层互锁的Estrich亚台层覆盖。

Here is a display for the overlapping subfloor panels:

The store had an aisle for gypsum drywall, but I didn’t see any cement-based tile backerboard; just these lightweight foam, fiberglass-mesh-reinforced panels as a substrate for tile. I know that such boards are making inroads in the U.S., but most tilers I know still use cement backerboard. The fiberglass-reinforced panels probably work great, but I am afraid that they are too light weight to inspire confidence.

The tile section of the store was what I might have expected, although substantially larger that I have seen in American home centers. When setting tiles on a masonry base, I have occasionally thought it would be useful to have a masonry-reinforcing product that is something between expanded metal lath, and the 6×6 welded wire mesh that is typically used in concrete slabs. Like this product, with a grid that is roughly 2 ½” x 2 ½”:

Wide masonry walls necessitate not only wide window sills on the outside, but also potentially wide interior sills or stools. These prefabricated stone stools are available in marble and granite:

The dimensioned lumber was all metric, of course. The framing lumber tended toward squarer cross sections, rather than the rectangular 2×6’s and 2×10’s that we build with in the U.S. Not sure why. Most of the lumber I have seen being used in and around Berlin is for roof framing. Here is a display explaining the standard lumber dimensions:

专门用于窗户的区域并不大，但是我看到的备用窗户令人印象深刻。我在德国没有看到任何双吊窗。他们都是倾斜的。一旦您弄清楚硬件的工作原理，这些窗口就很棒。它们非常紧密地密封。

All of the interior doors I have seen in Germany have had rabetted edges. Solid wood doors are rare. Door hardware tends to be robust. I haven’t seen any round knobs; just levers.

Some jamb and casing systems:

Hinge systems and strike plates:

Like the tile area, the section devoted to flooring was quite large. However, there wasn’t any solid-sawn wood flooring. All of the flooring was some version of laminate or engineered wood flooring — “floating floor” systems.

In the U.S., I have seen two or three possible underlayments for floating floors: a flimsy closed-cell foam, a rubber mat, maybe rolls of thin cork. The displays in Bauhaus offer fourteen different types of underlayment — along with information to guide the selection.

I didn’t see any stone countertops on display, but there were lots of prefabricated counter sections with different types of laminate finish. I couldn’t figure out exactly why the store needed an edge-banding machine, but I was impressed that it was there.

Behind the edge-bander was an aisle with Leimholzplatten, panels made up of three cross-laminated layers of solid wood. They are available in a dozen different species, including bamboo, acacia and paulownia.

A view of the bamboo panel edges:

I am not sure why these panelized wood products are not more prevalent in the U.S. They are great for furniture and casework, and even for interior finishes. They are more durable than plywood, and easier to work with.

累了吗？在我的巡回演出的这一点上，我开始放慢脚步，但是我只在商店的一半。我决定跳过美化/园艺区。

Automatic awnings to shade your windows in summer, and to allow light in during the short winter days that are now upon us:

Umm…hand miter saws, anyone? My grandfather owned one. I think the last one I saw was in an antique store in Swanzey, N.H.

Slings! I cherish and selfishly guard the collection of four specially-ordered picking slings that I have in the U.S. Turns out that if you have an upcoming crane project in Berlin and you need a few extra slings, you can just pedal over to Bauhaus to view the store’s sling-o-rama:

Jeez, we haven’t yet gotten to plumbing or electrical. Time to dig deep and pick up the pace.

Annette has never “gotten” the fin-tube baseboard radiators (convectors) that are so common in New England. They are hard to clean under and inside, the covers always come loose, and the fins get bent. Germans prefer these more solidly-built wall-mounted units:

当我和安妮特（Annette）在新罕布什尔州的阿尔斯特德（Alstead）建造了木材框架之家时，我们从德国进口了浴室的氢气加热毛巾 - 温暖器。它仅在途中略微损坏。如果我们曾经在柏林需要一个，那么难度就不会在采购中，而是在决定大小和类型时：

德国的管道排水/垃圾/通风/排气系统（DWV）系统没有与PVC水泥一起粘合；垫圈配件简单地压在一起。Tedd Benson几年前开始推广该系统，作为美国开放建筑的潜在构建基础

Fittings for domestic water systems come in at least three flavors here: pressure-fit gasketed fittings (“Steckfitting”), compression fittings, and soldered fittings — with plastic and copper pipe to match.

Let’s skip electrical, lighting, paint and appliances, because this home center tour is going from exhaustive to exhausting. Just a couple of other areas to note.

Options for ventilation ductwork in the U.S. are limited. We have flimsy flexible duct that is simple to install, but not durable or particularly safe, and we have rigid metal duct that can be a pain to work with. I like the thin-walled rigid plastic duct system that I saw in Bauhaus. The display suggested four different levels of “duty rating,” with spiral metal duct available for the most demanding applications.

此显示显示薄壁塑料通风管：

Nice bathroom displays. Most modern toilet installations in Germany are wall-mounted, presumably for ease of cleaning under and around. The flush tank is hidden in the wall. Most activators are dual flush.

当然，在这家商店里有更多的东西可以展示和讲述，但是到目前为止，我已经准备好一天了。

我拿起三个items on my journey through the store: a 14mm/15mm wrench for our bikes, a packet of shelf rest pins, and a utility knife.

Although tired, I was looking forward to biking back to our apartment. Before leaving, I grabbed a quick bite at the bistro located near the store’s exit.

No fried egg sandwiches or Italian sausage grinders here. I treated myself to a delicious cheese sandwich on that dark, nutty whole grain German bread, and pedaled home through a gray drizzle.

Andrew Dey’s background includes carpentry, contracting, and project management. For the past six years he has provided construction consulting services to clients in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts. He is passionate about retrofitting existing buildings — including his own house — for greater energy efficiency. His blog is calledSnapshots from Berlin.