Home renovation project

It depends on the city council. It is usually mandatory when distribution changes are made or when the intervention requires certain safety measures (interventions on facades). This is because the councils want the works to be carried out with minimum guarantees for the citizens. The essential object is that there are no serious damages, personal or third party.

However, a project contributes much more: it allows to understand the spaces in their entirety and to have a much broader vision than that which can be had from a space and limited knowledge. The architect in charge of overseeing your project has a technical knowledge of construction, healthy spaces and construction economics that allow him to combine them to produce the optimal proposal for each specific project.

In an architecture project not everything is specified, not even in projects with a greater level of detail. What is not defined is subject to the interpretation and good work of the technical agents of the work (Constructor and Facultative Management) In addition, in a work of rehabilitation and/or reform there are parts of the work that are hidden until the demolitions are done. The interpretation is the responsibility of the D.F.

Custom design is essential when so much money will be invested in the execution of a work. It is not logical to spend a lot of money on a work that has not been thought and considered in depth; that is why architects have the necessary training and experience. We remove everything you don’t need from a project and leave the essentials to make it super economical.

In many municipalities, when the project is presented, the license is already obtained (immediate communication); therefore, from the time you hire an architect until you start the work can only happen as long as it takes to complete the project. Sometimes due to the complexity of the location or the action (interventions in protected buildings or structural interventions) the waiting time at the town hall is longer (usually of the order of 1 month to 4 months)

This question is very broad. If we consider an interior reform project of a conventional flat, without structural intervention, in Barcelona; we could make the following list, which without being exhaustive includes the most important regulations:

• The Metropolitan Rehabilitation Ordinances.
• Metropolitan building ordinances.
• Decree 141/2012 on habitability.
• The technical code of the building (especially DB SI, HE1 if windows are changed).
• The Ecoefficiency Decree.

What makes a house worse or better are many factors. If we stick to the rational factors: yes, with an intervention an old house can have as much constructive quality as a new one. The old structure can be improved to meet the structural performance of a new one, for example. Or make the air you breathe in an old house as healthy as the air you would breathe in a new house with controlled ventilation. Could you protect your home from Radon? Yes, there are measures to rehabilitate a house and protect it against radon. You could also make your old house become an NZEB, i.e. a zero consumption house (by controlling the tightness, insulation and producing energy)

This is a very broad question that depends on many factors. Broadly speaking, if the old building has a solid structure, a good foundation and elements that can be preserved, it is usually much more cost-effective to preserve. In addition to the lower environmental impact of building renovation.