Many faced the need for major repairs in the old house. What is the best way to start and what exactly to pay special attention to, we will consider in this article. Before starting a major overhaul inside the premises, it is necessary, first of all, to pay special attention to the presence of traces of freezing or flooding. If these traces are present, then you must first eliminate the cause of their occurrence, that is, repair the roof, restore the waterproofing of the basement of the building, etc.
Step 1.
If we are repairing, then only capital.
If you are going to renovate an old house, adapt it to new modern standards, lay new wiring and utilities, and also plan rooms in a new way, then you need to be mentally prepared for the fact that a major overhaul is a kind of second building. As a rule, this is how it is necessary to do with old buildings.
Of course, it is very difficult to come to terms with the inconsistency of the premises with modern standards in terms of convenience, functionality, and comfort. Very uncomfortable kitchens with stove heating, cramped rooms, narrow corridors, uneven walls or steep stairs. If you have already decided to start a serious repair, then there will be no turning back.
In this case, half measures are inappropriate: just plastering and painting the walls is not enough. Just think, what’s the point of spending money on repairing walls if inside them are old aluminum wiring and utilities from old rusty steel pipes? The same situation is with floor coverings, if it is laid on decayed boards. Carrying out this kind of repair, it will soon turn out that there are no simple jobs, everything requires significant physical and financial costs.
So, for example, before painting the walls, it is necessary to remove the cracked plaster, peel it off, level the walls and apply a new layer of it. And if at the same time cracks in the walls are still found, then they will have to be additionally strengthened.
One more example:
You wanted to equip the attic instead of the old abandoned attic. The idea is very good, “with little blood” to increase the living space of the house, but even in this case you may encounter a number of problems. First of all, it turns out that the old ceiling is simply not designed to carry heavy loads – heavy furniture, walls, a bath or jumping children. In this case, even before the start of the repair, it is necessary to properly strengthen the ceiling.
Adapting and repairing the premises without analyzing and taking into account the design features of the building would be the beginning of a real disaster: during operation, the floors will begin to sag, and in some cases may begin to crack and even collapse. As you can see, a major overhaul without an appropriate plan (spontaneously) will not work. You should clearly decide what exactly you want to change in the house, in its design, decide on the necessary set of works and the sequence of their implementation.
Step 2
Preparation for repair.
Unlike ordinary cosmetic repairs, major repairs entail global changes in the external and internal appearance of the house. In addition, the list of necessary work will be very extensive, affecting every square millimeter of the area of the house, but the result will be impressive. During the repair process, almost all parts of the house can undergo serious correction. So, not only old walls, windows and doorways can disappear, but new ones can also be erected, and exactly in those places where you wish. Colossal changes can affect ceilings and floors. As a result, you will receive a new home with a new, comfortable layout.
In this case, it all depends on your fantasies and individual needs. Of course, when performing a major overhaul, some expenses will arise, and their amount will depend specifically on the goal and on the complexity of the repair you have planned. In most cases, the lion’s share of these costs will be drawn by the repair and arrangement of the kitchen and bathroom. I would like to note that the range of work in this case may include not only a complete replacement of electrical wiring, plumbing, but also the arrangement of air conditioning and ventilation systems.
As with any type of repair, the question will naturally arise in the selection of the necessary building materials. In this case, special attention should be paid to the ratio of their price and quality. In the event that this issue is approached prudently, then in the end you can significantly reduce the overall cost of repairs, and keep the total final amount within reasonable limits. I would like to emphasize that although a major overhaul takes a lot of time and effort, it is one of the most cost-effective types of repairs, since upon completion you get practically “new” and modern housing that will fully meet your requirements. In order for the overhaul not to bring you unpleasant surprises, you need to take care of the purchase of the required building materials in advance.
Step 3
Planning the stages of repair.
The most important rule when performing a major overhaul is to strictly follow the planned plan and unquestioningly comply with all technological requirements. If this condition is met, then upon completion of the repair, you can forget about any large-scale construction work in the house for a long time, but only periodically update the interior with the help of “cosmetic” repairs, carry out minor repairs of utilities and change the “decoration”. Many believe that major repairs can be carried out without drawing up a project and relevant technical documentation. However, practice shows that it is best to act according to the project, so even ordinary sketches on a piece of paper can open the eyes of the repair authors to erroneous ideas about the final result.
It must be taken as an axiom that the successful implementation of your ideas can only be if you have a sketch on hand, and best of all, a working project for a major overhaul of the house. As a rule, a set of working documentation is compiled in an ordinary thick notebook, which includes various measurement drawings; plans for the dismantling of partitions, plumbing and built-in furniture; sections and plans of multilayer floors and suspended ceilings; planned plan for the arrangement of plumbing and electrical equipment, wall and ceiling lamps; plans for the placement of switches and sockets with binding, as well as wall layouts and furniture placement plans. It would be very nice if this picture could be supplemented with beautiful sketches of the interior, made in 3D graphics or simply by hand.
Step 4
Estimate.
After you have fully decided on the scope of work, you need to start calculating the estimate. This must be done before the start of work, in order not to be captured by a long-term repair. It is necessary to more or less accurately calculate the amount that renovation of the house can cost you.
At the same time, one should not forget that the error of the calculation, based on a certain average cost per square meter of the repaired area, may differ from the real one by up to 50%. In addition, in most cases there are a number of unforeseen expenses that your budget cannot afford.
One of the most accurate ways to financially evaluate a repair is to create a budget. Having on hand detailed documentation of the planned stages of repair, a list of necessary materials, the exact amount of work and prices for materials, you can eventually get a kind of table of expenses for equipment and materials with the final figure of the planned costs. Having these figures at hand, you can easily adjust some points by selecting certain materials, depending on financial capabilities. It is necessary not to forget about the various financial traps that can lie in wait for the owners of both old and new houses.
So, for example, in new buildings, there are often cases when floor slabs in the horizontal plane have deviations of up to 7 cm, and walls in the vertical plane – up to 5 cm. This fact will entail an increased consumption of dry mixes necessary to eliminate these defects. Owners of old houses may find that a large number of small defects are simply hidden under decorative trim.
So, a typical example is the implementation of non-bearing partitions from wooden shingles with a layer of dry plaster applied to its surface. One has only to start any repair work, so it will simply begin to crumble, as a result of which it will be necessary to make a decision on its complete dismantling and the construction of a partition from new modern building materials.
In order to avoid this, we recommend that at the preparatory stage, a thorough independent examination of all engineering equipment and building structures be carried out in order to identify all imperfections and unpleasant surprises, or order this examination from specialists who will analyze and give a number of recommendations for normalizing the state of the house.
Step 5
Complete dismantling. Before starting construction work in the house, it is necessary first of all to completely dismantle all the equipment that is planned to be changed. At this stage, it is necessary to dismantle the floors, old plumbing, built-in wardrobes; clean the ceiling and walls from whitewash, paint and wallpaper; remove old decorative screens, doors, ventilation grilles, etc.
If you don’t want to say goodbye to your old but solid parquet, think about how it will be combined with the new decoration and design of the planned room. In most cases, old flooring needs to be disposed of, if only to relocate internal partitions or re-route electrical wiring in the screed. In the process of these radical actions, it may also become clear that the old crooked partitions are easiest to destroy than to level them. In their place, it will be easiest to build new, strong and even, built using modern building materials.
It is also necessary, even before the start of repair work, to take care of the removal of construction waste generated during dismantling, so that it simply does not lie underfoot, does not occupy usable volume and does not interfere.