Repair of an apartment from scratch in a new building: stages of work, features

They buy an apartment from a developer, often sign a contract without finishing or with a rough finish. This is not only a way to reduce payments, but also to do all the work efficiently. Although repairing an apartment from scratch in a new building is a long and costly business. 

Where to start: sequence of actions

If you purchased a property from a developer without finishing, you will need a step-by-step work plan. For a person who is not particularly familiar with construction, the repair procedure is not at all obvious. And since repairing an apartment from scratch in a new building will require going through all the stages, a plan is simply necessary.

What does “renovation of an apartment from scratch in a new building” mean?

To determine the scope of work, you need to know where you will start. What you will receive after the delivery of the object is written in the contract. Therefore, we take it, read it carefully, and then you can start planning the order of work. Usually an apartment in a new building without finishing is rented out in this condition:

• Installed windows (usually double glazing) and front doors (cheap and not particularly reliable).
• Walls without finishing (concrete or brick, building blocks), internal partitions – depending on the contract: they can stand, or they can not.
  

• The floor is a concrete slab without screed.
• Ceiling – the lower surface of the slab without finishing.
• Electricity is brought into the apartment, there is a small electrical panel in which one automatic machine is installed. Usually there is one light bulb in the hallway (on temporary wiring).
• The heating is divorced, there are batteries, shut-off and control valves. Heating is the only thing that is ready for operation at any time, since it is a common house property.
• Cold and hot water – risers are brought into the apartment, there are outlets on which there are counters (sealed). After the counters there is a tap, to which, if necessary, you can connect.
  

• Sewerage – there is a riser and a drain closed with a plug. The system is ready to connect.
• If gas stoves are used in the house, there is a gas inlet, a meter, after which a plug is installed. Only representatives of Gorgaz can connect gas appliances.

Basically, this is all you have before you start renovating an apartment from scratch in a new building. Everything is in its infancy, but all communications are summed up.

Apartment renovation in stages

Immediately you should decide on the partitions. Decide where and which ones will stand, which ones will need to be removed / moved. If there are already partitions and you are going to redo something, you need to get permission and only then proceed with the transfer. If there are no partitions and you will install them yourself, the contract states what materials you can make them from. It is better to follow the recommendations, otherwise you can get penalties, and they are considerable.

After approving the plan of the apartment, you first determine where you will have large-sized furniture, appliances, plumbing, etc. You will need these data to prepare a plan for laying engineering systems (water supply, sewerage, lighting, if provided – ventilation). When the plan is more or less ready, you can proceed to the repair itself. The sequence of actions is as follows:

• Installation, transfer of partitions according to the approved project.
  

• While partitions are being built, you are engaged in parallel (or order) the development of an electrical wiring plan. After the partitions are in place, electrical wiring is done – wall chasing, cable laying (necessarily three-core ones – with grounding, the cross-section of conductors for electrical wiring is selected individually). Depending on the type of cable, it is laid either in the corrugation or without it. Cables are not connected to the shield, sockets, switches are not installed. Only junction boxes, socket boxes are installed, the ends of the cables are inserted into them. Laying electrical wiring:
  • in strobes in the walls;
  • in the floor under the screed;
  • on the ceiling if a suspended or suspended false ceiling is planned.
    

• If you are planning to soundproof walls and ceilings, this is the time to address this issue. It will be framed or frameless, but it is not necessary to level the walls under it, because now is the time.
• Distribution of pipes for cold and hot water supply, connection of sewerage. If the walls are not load-bearing, the pipes can be laid in strobes in the walls (if the thickness of the partitions allows). Otherwise, they try to carry out most of the pipes in the bathroom / bathroom, and then close them with a plasterboard box, which is subsequently finished with the same material as the walls.
  

• Align the walls. If you plan to finish the walls with plastic panels, you can not plaster – they are attached to the crate, which levels out all the bumps. But if you later plan to lay tiles, it is better to plaster – there will be less trouble later. Previously, they used to plaster with an ordinary cement-sand mortar, but recently ready-made compositions based on cement or gypsum have been preferred (it is easier to work). You can simply plaster – relying on the eye and the building level, or you can – on the lighthouses. The second option is preferable, since it is more likely to get even walls and right angles of 90 °. No more and no less. In any case, the walls must be primed before plastering – to improve the adhesion of the plaster and the base material. The primer is chosen depending on the type of plaster (gypsum or cement).
  

• If the ceiling will be whitewashed / painted, it is also leveled with plaster (do not forget about laying electrical wiring to the chandeliers). If the ceiling is suspended, it can also be done at this stage. Stretch ceilings are made after finishing the walls, so if you are planning this, we skip this stage. You can only check the quality of sealing interpanel seams.
• Wall and ceiling plastering. This is the preparation for finishing. The choice of putty type depends on the type of finish. If this is painting, they take more expensive materials (Wide, for example) and achieve a perfectly flat surface (you can check it with a backlight with an LED lamp – the slightest bumps are visible). Under the wallpaper, the putty composition is taken cheaper and ideality is not so important here. Under the tile, the walls are not puttied at all.
  

• After the dust has been removed after grouting the putty and all other dirty work, they begin to pour the floor screed. Here, too, it is necessary to make a number of decisions: whether or not there will be insulation, sound insulation, underfloor heating (electric, other types in high-rise buildings are not available or require coordination). The screed can be made with an ordinary cement-sand mixture, or with flooded floors. In the second option, the result will be better – a more even floor due to the self-leveling effect of the mixture.
• A week after pouring the screed, while it is “ripening”, we are finishing the bath and toilet. There is usually a lot of dirt here and everything needs to be done before the finishing work begins in the rest of the apartment.
  

• Finishing: paint / whiten the ceiling, glue the wallpaper (install a stretch ceiling). We lay floors, install doors, platbands, plinths. We install sockets, switches, connect household appliances.
• We bring furniture and decorative elements.

This is the procedure for repairing an apartment from scratch in a new building in the general case. There are particulars, but they are individual. Then, depending on the situation, shift or swap the stages.

Team or individuals

Self-renovation of an apartment from scratch in a new building will take a lot of time. If you have it in stock – no problem. If you want to move into new housing faster, you will have to hire builders. This is where questions often arise. Whom to hire for repairs in a new building – a team that promises to do everything on a turnkey basis or individual specialists for each type of work? This issue has already been discussed hundreds of times, but it has not been possible to reach a consensus. Both options have their supporters. So that you can decide, briefly about the advantages and disadvantages of both solutions.

Under lock and key?

If you hire a team that will do all the work from start to finish, it is not a fact that you will be satisfied with the quality of their work. Everyone promises quality and speed, but few really do all the work up to the mark. Very often you have to terminate the contract and look for someone who will finish / redo it. This task is even more difficult than the search for the first brigade: no one wants to correct other people’s mistakes. It’s long and troublesome. These are the cons.

The advantage of this solution is that hired people are responsible for all stages of work, up to finishing (if you have agreed so). If you don’t like something, you can try to force it to be redone, but it’s better to control each stage of the work. The second positive point: the repair is progressing faster, since there is no need to look for performers for each new job. These are pluses.

Another moment of the organizational plan. When drawing up a contract, prescribe the cost of each stage of work. Then when you terminate, you will know exactly how much to pay. Otherwise, they will begin to prove to you that most of it has been done, and nonsense remains.

Specialists for the performance of certain types of work

If you decide to hire separate specialists for each stage of the work, it is difficult to predict the final result. Since you have to do a certain amount of work and leave, there is a chance that workers will not try too hard. And each next specialist can say (and usually say) that mistakes have been made before him and require additional payment for their correction. There is only one way out: constant and strict control at all stages of work, clear execution of agreements with clarification of what you want to have at the end.

If some work is not done independently, then the total cost of paying for the work by individual specialists will be higher. But the advantage of such a solution is that you can “stretch” the waste over time. There was money – they did a certain amount of work.

Finishing materials

Renovation of an apartment from scratch in a new building has its own characteristics. a new house will “shrink” over the course of several years, there will be a shift in the foundation, walls, ceilings. All these movements lead to the appearance of cracks, and they can damage the finish. Therefore, there is advice: use not the most expensive finishing materials, which it will not be a pity to replace with new, better ones in three or four years.

Most questions arise with tiles laid on walls and screed. The cracks are the most noticeable in them, and the pleasure is not cheap – both in terms of the cost of materials and the price of work. Therefore, the screed is made floating – without connection with the walls, and instead of tiles on the walls in the bathroom and bathroom, they are finished with vinyl wall panels.

Tiles on walls and floors are often placed in the kitchen, and they try to choose the most attractive collections that cost a lot. There are two exits. The first is to use a plastic or furniture shield instead of a tiled apron in the kitchen, and lay linoleum on the floor for now. The second is to lay tiles, but have some in reserve to replace broken tiles. After all, it is not a fact that in three or four years the same collection will still be produced. Yes, even if so, it is unlikely that it will be possible to pick up a color one to one.

The need for soundproofing

Many of the owners of new apartments simply do not think about how quiet it will be in their home. Until then. But by the time you get there it will be too late. The current trend in high-rise construction is to make the building as light as possible in order to save on foundations. Lightweight materials are great, but the problem is that they conduct sound well.

As a result, it turns out that the repair is completed, and you, if you wish, can take notes of the conversations of your neighbors, and they – yours. Far from a bright prospect. Therefore, it is worth thinking about soundproofing. Yes, these are additional costs and considerable, but silence is more important.