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One of the trickiest quests in is the distinction between an apartment building or semidetached house or detached building.

If you are able to walk in front of each structure then it becomes almost trivial, though this luxury doesn’t always exist, because the access can be gated. Thus one needs a clear telltale sign.

Does the building only have one doorbell and one mailbox, then it is a detached building.

Does the building have multiple entrances and each only have one doorbell and one mailbox, then it is a semidetached building. It can be that units of the semidetached building were mapped separately, then each unit is a house building.

Does the building entrance have more than one doorbell or more than one mailbox then it is an apartment building.

One thing that can speed up the process is getting familiar with the various doorbell and mailbox models.

Some doorbells might have two buttons, but one of them is just the light. Or it could be that one is a local business bell.

Some mailboxes might have an extra slot for newspapers or a local business.

An advanced additional info is counting the amount of street cabinets with the service being trash. This will have local discrepancies and should only be taken into consideration when the telltale signs failed.

It has been brought to my attention that the statement

Does the building have multiple entrances and each only have one doorbell and one mailbox, then it is a semidetached building.

is false.

Does the building only have two entrances, then it is a semidetached building.

Does the building have more than two entrances, then it is a terrace building.

For more concrete mapping of each unit, checkout the key house (wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Ke)


Thanks to @amapanda for pointing this mistake out.

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@barefootstache Oh, i always map all units of a semidetached building as such, no matter if it is one or two. I do not use the house value if it is mapped in 2 units.

@Strubbl a similar situation is also by the terrace building.

@barefootstache huh. In common speech in Britain & Ireland a “semi-detached” (or “semi-d”) is a house which is connected to only 1 other house...

@amapanda based off the wiki you are correct. And any configuration that shares more than one common wall is considered a terrace.

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