Do-it-yourself apartment renovation in a panel house where to start

In detail: do-it-yourself apartment renovation in a panel house, where to start from a real master for the site my.housecope.com.

The panel house belongs to the category of economy housing for many objective reasons. This is an unsuccessful layout and a small area of the kitchen, bathroom, hallway - places most visited by households, a rare opportunity to make competent redevelopment, and most importantly, the low quality of materials and an unsatisfactory level of construction work during the construction of the building.

Renovation of an apartment in a panel house

What if the probability of buying a new home is zero or there is no particular desire to move, because you like the area of residence or the apartment is expensive as a memory?

The company "Repair Brigade" offers services for the repair and decoration of premises, including in panel houses in St. Petersburg. Extensive experience in this area and a sincere wish to all customers to live in good conditions formed the team's special approach to this type of housing.

Repair of a bathroom in a panel house

We propose to focus primarily on the main thing, leaving secondary questions about the color scheme of wallpaper or the brand of plumbing for later. Of course, the company has specialists and developments in the design of an apartment in a panel house. However, our experience says that while the room is freezing or flooded, engineering communications are inoperative, it is premature to talk about design.

A high-quality repair is a comprehensive work not only inside, but also outside the premises, if necessary!

The "repair team" has repeatedly performed work on objects in panel houses, hence the thorough knowledge of the problem.

So, most often the owners are worried about:

Video (click to play).

Interpanel seams, which sometimes look like through cracks on the street, as a result, the apartment is always blowing and cold. We seal the interpanel seams, excluding the penetration of unwanted air and freezing.
Ice walls, which are constantly wet and covered with mold, and even frost in winter. We do insulation and waterproofing of external walls, we use special compounds and high quality materials.
Wiring - Another "weak point" of panel houses. We replace the old aluminum wiring with a new copper one, we do the wiring of sockets and switches.
Plumbing work on replacement of cold water and hot water supply risers, pipes and old equipment. After that, the pressure of the supplied water increases, the water comes clean, without impurities and rust.
Elimination of the plumbing booth, which takes up space in the cramped conditions of the bath and toilet, combining the two rooms at will. This allows you to arrange plumbing in a completely different way, according to the needs of the family.
Finishing work of the apartment, including leveling walls, floors and ceilings using new technologies, applying a topcoat, replacing doors and windows.
Redevelopment: transfer of doorways, destruction of a wall, unification of a balcony and a room, transfer of "wet spots".

It is worth noting that the company performs both turnkey apartment renovation, as well as individual work at the request of the customer, for example, for sealing joints or replacing a riser, wiring. This approach allows many families to make renovations gradually, based on financial capabilities.

Finishing an apartment in a panel building. Before and after

As you can see, repairing an apartment in a panel house is quite real and within the power. One has only to approach this process correctly, and even better to consult with professionals.The "repair team" will tell you about the peculiarities of repair and decoration, highlight the main problems, and guide you in terms of time and cost.

Dreaming of renovation? Contact us and find out the details, most likely, it will be easier and cheaper than you thought.

Almost always, new housing is acquired by a happy newcomer from the developer's company without interior decoration and repairs, but with communications brought into the apartment. Firstly, such housing in a new building will be cheaper, and secondly, almost always the repair and arrangement of an apartment by the developer is carried out extremely carelessly, using cheap materials. Thirdly, there is a desire to complete some stages of apartment renovation with your own hands or with the hands of good craftsmen.

First, you need to make an audit and inspection of the apartment, to establish problem areas of walls, ceilings and floors. Then we proceed in the following order. We determine what requires repair and finishing in the first place. If the time and money for a complete renovation of the apartment is not enough, it is necessary to put in order first of all:

Front door and windows, apartment ventilation;
Perform full and highest quality electrical wiring and wiring of sockets around the apartment. This stage must be thought out in as much detail as possible, draw up a connection diagram and a circuit for laying wires into walls;
Connect the water and collect the sewerage system in the bathroom and toilet, install a toilet bowl, washbasin and shower;
If the start time of the renovation of an apartment in a new building coincided with the heating season, be sure to check the degree of heating of the aluminum registers with a remote thermometer.

In the process of carrying out the listed preparatory work, you can calculate the sequence of repairs in a new building.

Much in the repair of housing in a new building depends on the availability of time and money resources. Having bought a "bare" apartment and having completed the necessary documents for the right of ownership, you automatically start paying rent and housekeeping, for using the adjacent territory, for the removal of household waste and construction waste. After connecting electricity and water, a new apartment in a new building began to bring you a loss in the form of costs for its maintenance and decoration. The longer the repair time for an apartment in a new building, the more it will cost you.

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There are two main options for approaching the issue of finishing a new apartment in a new building:

Planned renovation and finishing of the apartment. In this case, the owners draw up a detailed map and a schedule for finishing work, in which all the main types of finishing and installation of devices are prescribed in stages. Such repairs, as a rule, are carried out from scratch to completion by one team of craftsmen. The completion date of a repaired object may take several weeks or months. The disadvantages of this approach include the constantly growing price and cost of work, sometimes exceeding the cost of the estimate by more than two times. As a result, if due to unforeseen circumstances there are not enough funds, the repair can be delayed for an indefinite period.
Fast renovation from scratch. In this case, all the above stages of repair in a new building are carried out by the hands of hired craftsmen with direct control of the quality of work on your part. An apartment in a new building within a week will be prepared for further decoration of the rooms. In addition to communications, the smallest room of the apartment is finished and equipped with temporary linoleum and wallpaper. In such a room there are still no amenities, but it can be used as housing - a temporary hut and a warehouse for building materials. All other work is performed as free funds and time become available.

The first option is well suited if the family has small children or elderly people who need to provide some comfort and convenience.The second option is considered more economical and quicker, especially if, after finishing the kitchen, bathroom, toilet and one room, housing is rented, with the consecutive bringing the remaining rooms of the new building to condition.

Among the most popular horror stories for new buildings, it is customary to consider stories about the shrinkage of the walls of the house and its foundation. In reality, a similar process for a multi-storey building should finally be completed by the time the building is put into operation. This period is on average no more than 18 months. If, after 1.5 years, cracks form in the corners, the ceiling or at the joints and in the masonry of the walls, the tiles in the bathroom fall off, and the doors are deformed with skewed doors, this means that the new building has certain problems with the stability of the foundation. With the repair, you should wait until the main thing is clarified - what is happening with the new building.

Before starting work, first inspect the lock on the front door. The model and standard equipment of the door can be subject to separate agreement. Indicate in the addendum to the contract which model of door and lock you want to install. If it becomes necessary to take additional security measures, first of all, change the lock supplied when the new building was handed over.

At the next stage, it is necessary to resolve the issue of installing an electrical switchboard, connecting an electric meter. This will make it possible to start using a power tool when renovating an apartment. To get rid of the need to use a large number of carriers and extension cords, plan the layout of the electrical wiring in the apartment. When doing this, consider the following:

For kitchens and bathrooms, wiring must be laid in sealed hoses and sleeves;
Lay a separate wire cable to the bathroom for connecting a boiler or washing machine. The cable cross-section must be rated for a current of at least 25 A;
An additional wire must be laid to the place where the air conditioner is installed;
It is necessary to lead a wire to the bathroom, to the kitchen, to the hall, which will be connected and used in the future when organizing additional grounding.

In addition to electricity, to create more or less normal conditions, it is necessary to connect hot and cold water meters and collect sewage in the bathroom and toilet. It is necessary to start work with the installation of a toilet and a washbasin.

Considering that good plumbing is expensive, for the first time you can install an inexpensive version of the toilet, assemble and connect plastic sewer pipes, a bellows and a washbasin sink. During the renovation of an apartment, plumbing can be replaced at any time. The installation of expensive plumbing increases the risk of damage to it during the repair; it must be installed at the final stage of the renovation of a new building.

To lay a plastic water supply using a perforator, we pierce channels in the walls of the bathroom, toilet, kitchen with a depth of 2.5-3 cm. Next, you need to solder the water pipes and connect the leads to the cistern and washbasin. Finally, we will install and connect cold and hot water meters to the domestic water supply system.

Before starting work, you will need to perform a large amount of cleaning the remnants of concrete and mortar. The main part will be for rough cleaning of walls, floor, ceiling, their chasing, alignment and trimming of seams. Such work gives a large amount of dirt and dust, so it will be necessary to organize good ventilation and wet cleaning inside the new building.

A separate point is to highlight the preparation of floors in each of the rooms for finishing. During the repairs in the apartment, it will be necessary to close up all the cracks, holes in the seams between the slabs, in the floor, in the interior walls of the new building. The most difficult thing will be leveling the floor with a cement mortar screed and reinforcing mesh.This procedure will need to be performed upon completion of the preparation of the walls and ceiling for finishing.

We will perform similar work in the kitchen, bathroom and toilet.

After rough cleaning, it will be necessary to prepare the walls in the kitchen and toilet for laying tiles on the walls and floors. Facing tiles can be laid with your own hands, but it is troublesome and takes a lot of time. Therefore, it is better to entrust the laying of tiles to masters specializing in this kind of finish. While the tiles are being laid, you can do your own repairs in one of the rooms of the apartment. The best option would be to lay decorative plaster or liquid wallpaper on the walls. If at the time of the start of repairs in the apartment of the new building the double-glazed windows in the windows were in a satisfactory condition, then you can start applying plaster on the walls of the room immediately.

Upon completion of the laying of tiles on the floor and walls in the kitchen, bathroom and toilet, you need to lay inexpensive linoleum in the corridor connecting these three rooms and the room in which the renovation was carried out using decorative plaster. This will reduce the amount of dust being raised and make cleaning the apartment easier.

Before finishing the walls in the apartment, it is necessary to align, and if a defect is found, to repair the interior doors. If your future plans include wallpapering, normally closing doors are essential for high-quality wallpapering. After the wall decoration is completed, we proceed to laying linoleum, laminate or carpet on the floor of the apartment. The most practical is considered to be a laminate for living rooms; for a corridor, an office version of linoleum with increased abrasion resistance. This type of work does not require special qualifications and is easily done with your own hands during the renovation of a new building apartment.

The final stage of the renovation is the connection of lamps and the installation of furniture in the apartment. Approximately 70% of the volume of work during repairs in a new building is quite available for doing it yourself. And only when performing special types of finishing - laying parquet, installing stretch ceilings, installing double-glazed windows or entrance doors in a new building, you will need the services of specialists.

Buying a new apartment is a joyful event for any person. It is especially pleasant to get ownership of an apartment in a new building, in which no one has lived before. As a rule, apartments in new buildings do not have any repairs. The owners can see the walls without any decoration, electrical wires and plumbing pipes. To turn rooms with bare walls into cozy and comfortable rooms for living, you need to make some effort, gradually completing a number of important activities.

DIY repair in a new building

This is what a newly built apartment looks like.

Bare walls - plenty of room for action

Do not buy expensive building and finishing materials for the first renovation in a new building. The building will shrink for several years, under the influence of which the finish can significantly deform and even completely collapse. In view of this, experts recommend giving preference to unpretentious and plastic materials.

New high-rise buildings will shrink for a few more years.

Plan your renovation carefully. It is not necessary to draw up many drawings detailing various sizes and important nuances. Simple sketches will suffice. Think about whether you will be redeveloping the apartment, what materials, in your opinion, will best fit into the interior of the premises, where lighting fixtures and sockets should be installed, etc.

Remember: proper preparation before starting work will save money, effort and time in the future.

It is best to start repairs in a new building with a rough surface preparation. Align the ceiling and walls. For these activities, you will need spatulas, a trowel, and different sized rules. Pre-clean surfaces from dirt and dust. Perform leveling with ordinary plaster mixture. Recommendations for the preparation and use of the formulations are usually given directly on the package.

Plastering walls on lighthouses

Throw in the solution along the markup

We do the markings, pull the guide threads and install a few more beacons

We throw the solution onto the new wall of your apartment

We rub the grooves with a solution

Before plastering, the walls must be impregnated with a primer. It will provide a better and more reliable adhesion of the plaster to the surface.

If the thickness of the plaster layer is more than 3 cm, it is recommended to carry out the work in two stages. At the first stage, the surfaces are simply leveled, at the second, they must be carefully ironed.

Apply the first layer of the mixture with a trowel. Thoroughly level the plaster and let it dry completely. Apply a primer to the dry layer of plaster, let it dry, and then apply a second layer of plaster. The application procedure remains the same, but this layer must be smoothed as efficiently as possible. Periodically check the evenness of the plaster with a spirit level.

Piping in a new building

Plumbing installation is a rather difficult stage of apartment renovation

After the surfaces are completely dry, you can proceed to the finishing decoration of the walls and ceiling. However, before that, it is recommended to install plumbing fixtures, and, if necessary, mount (replace) double-glazed windows and doors, so as not to damage the finish in the future.

The rough preparation of the walls has already been completed, therefore, in the future, new door frames and double-glazed windows will not be stained with plaster and putty. If there are doors, dismantle them together with the frame, because new canvases usually come with their own boxes.

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Plumbing installation can also be done in-house. Domestic users most often prefer toilets with horizontal outlet. The installation of such a toilet bowl is reduced to its connection to the sewer pipe. The legs are usually rigidly screwed to the floor. Usually, installation instructions are included with the toilet, so there will be no special problems with this.

The installation of the remaining plumbing fixtures is at the discretion of the owner.

Installing an acrylic bathtub

Diagram of connecting the sink and bathtub to hot and cold water and sewerage pipelines

Choosing wallpaper for the room

In the previous steps, you leveled the surfaces and prepared them for finishing, so you don't have to carry out any additional preparatory measures.

For wall decoration in living rooms, wallpaper is usually used. Choose the finishing material for the ceiling yourself. During the first repairs in a new building, it is better to limit yourself to ordinary plastering or painting, because the building, as noted, will shrink, as a result of which the finish may collapse. It is better to use more expensive finishing options within a few years after buying an apartment.

The technology of applying paint to the surface in several layers

When painting walls, fantasize

Make the walls in the kitchen and bathroom at your discretion. Typically, such premises are decorated with ceramic tiles.

We put tiles on the wall and floor in the bathroom

Laying tiles on the wall with your own hands

When choosing a ceiling finish, start from your preferences and available budget. Inexpensive finishes can be done using:

paints;
whitewash;
wallpaper;
foam tiles.

Styrofoam ceiling tiles

How to glue ceiling tiles

Ceiling tile gluing options

The surface must be leveled before using any of the above finishes. As a standard, putty and primer are used for leveling.
Among the more expensive and interesting options for decorating the ceiling, one should highlight:

installation of plasterboard structures. First, guide profiles are attached to the surfaces, after which drywall sheets are fixed to them. Using drywall, you can equip both simple single-tier and complex multi-tiered curly structures. Also, this finish allows you to hide the wiring, elements of the ventilation system and other communications, which is very convenient;
arrangement of stretch fabrics. The PVC film is stretched and secured to the pre-assembled frame. The installation procedure is more complicated than in the case of plasterboard structures, because when performing repairs, it becomes necessary to use a special heat gun;
plastic hinged structures. Also attached to the frame. The main advantages are: ease of installation, high assembly speed, low cost and beautiful appearance.

Stretch ceiling installation diagram

Scheme of a two-level plasterboard ceiling

As a rule, when a newly built house is delivered, there is wiring in it, but there are no electrical appliances, or their quality leaves much to be desired. After finishing the ceiling and walls, proceed with the installation of outlets, switches and lights. Remember the elementary precautions: you can work with an electrician only after the apartment is completely de-energized. Choose the location for the installation of sockets and lighting devices at your discretion.

Remember safety precautions!

Repair in a new building traditionally ends with the arrangement of the floor. As a rule, the condition of the floors in newly commissioned houses is poor. If the house is built of concrete panels and the apartments were handed over in a draft version, the screed must be poured.

Screed cracks (new building)

A screed is a layer of concrete mortar poured over the sub-floor and necessary to level the base. There are several types of this alignment. The most popular and easiest to do it yourself is a wet screed. All work comes down to eliminating irregularities and cracks with a concrete solution.

In a new building, it is enough to make a strong and even screed.

Before pouring the screed, the bottom of the walls should be covered with a protective edge band.

Allow the screed to dry completely, apply a topcoat of your choice and install the skirting boards.

It is too early for buyers of apartments in new buildings to relax after receiving the keys, because if the housing is bought without repair from the developer, then the newly-made owner gets literally bare walls. The site "RIA Real Estate" decided to remind the new settlers about the main technologies and stages of rough finishing, the quality of which also determines the quality of the future decor.

Technological memo

Currently, there are two main structural schemes for apartment buildings. Firstly, these are houses, the frame and external walls of which were built from reinforced concrete panels. And secondly, these are houses, the frame of which is made of monolithic reinforced concrete, and the openings are filled, as a rule, with aerated concrete blocks. There may be other design schemes, but they make up a small percentage of newly erected apartment buildings, explains Alexander Bortnikov, head of the Knauf Gips LLC training center.

“It should be noted that newly built buildings using reinforced concrete as the main material are subject to shrinkage. Shrinkage is a feature of all cement-based materials, as the cement stone shrinks as it hardens.Therefore, it is recommended to start finishing work when all shrinkage phenomena have passed, and this is about a year after construction, or take this phenomenon into account when choosing certain materials and systems for finishing, ”the expert recommends.

We think over the design

Oddly enough, but even before the start of the rough work, it is necessary to decide on the interior design, because, based on this, it will depend on where and what communications to lay and what finishing solutions to use. Before proceeding with the rough finishing, if necessary, the windows, heating radiators, plumbing communications and electrical wiring are replaced. Replacing all of the above can be carried out either completely or selectively, it is important that all these works are completed before performing a rough finish, Bortnikov points out.

Leveling the floors

The first step is to level the floor. If your apartment is completely “bare”, then you have a monolithic slab on the floor, which must not only be leveled, but also insulated, because it transmits all vibrations and sounds. To do this, it is advisable to first fill in a layer of expanded clay, which has excellent sound and heat insulation properties (layer thickness of about 5 cm). Before starting work, you need to make sure that there are no gaps in your concrete floor, otherwise water from the screed may flow down to the neighbors. Usually, holes can remain in the area of risers and ventilation shafts. They need to be sealed with polyurethane foam or adhesive mixture. Next, we fill in expanded clay, starting from the place that has the greatest depth. We pour expanded clay with a solution of liquid concrete, similar in consistency to milk. Such a solution dries for about a day or two. You can also immediately make an expanded clay-cement-sand mixture and lay it on the base.

For bathrooms, it is advisable to make a flooring waterproofing before laying expanded clay, with an approach to the walls up to 10 cm.If it has already been done before putting the house into operation, then its quality must be checked, since defects are often found.

The only drawback of a self-leveling floor is the price - from 240 rubles per 25 kilograms (on average 400 rubles), therefore self-leveling floors are usually used with height differences of no more than 4 cm.A self-leveling floor can also be laid on a cement-sand screed (after it will dry), this will allow you to get a smoother surface at a lower cost. You can walk on self-leveling floors in 5 hours, lay linoleum or tiles in two days, and wood flooring in 7 days.

For some topcoats, it is desirable in any case to use a self-leveling floor, for example, under a laminate - it is not attached to the floor, but simply lies on the substrate, which is why during operation it can move and rub against the surface. If you have just a sand-cement screed on your floor, dust will form, but self-leveling floors completely exclude this.

Another way of leveling the floor and preparing the base for laying the topcoat is to use dry prefabricated floors, the expert from Knauf Gips points out. “When using this solution, floor elements or, for example, Knauf-superpol, are laid either directly on the base, or on an insulating layer (expanded polystyrene or mineral wool boards), or on a layer of dry backfill made of expanded clay sand. The latter dry prefabricated floor is the most popular because it allows you to quickly level the floor surface. The use of this method of preparation of the base allows one day after its laying to produce a topcoat and at the same time the issues of reducing the load on the floors are solved, the sound insulation of the floor is improved, ”says Bortnikov. Gypsum fiber boards (GVL board) can be up to 20 millimeters thick. Their cost ranges from 315 to 566 rubles.

Plastering walls

As for the walls, in the room you can encounter various surfaces made of reinforced concrete, aerated concrete, very often gas silicate and ceramic bricks, with which internal partitions can be made, Bortnikov notes. It should be noted that at present, some manufacturers produce reinforced concrete panels with high surface quality, which are enough to putty, but in most cases, leveling of the walls with plaster is required. “Indoors it is more expedient to use gypsum-based plasters, with the exception of rooms with high humidity (bathrooms, showers). Before applying the plaster, the surface of the walls must be primed. For poorly absorbent surfaces, such as concrete, a primer like Knauf Betokontakt is used to improve the adhesion (adhesion) of the plaster to the surface, ”the expert explains. For priming highly moisture-absorbing surfaces, for example, ceramic bricks, aerated concrete, primers are used that reduce the absorbency of the substrate and prevent uneven setting of the plaster mortar.

The maximum thickness of the plaster in one layer should not exceed 50 millimeters. The mating points of various surfaces, for example, aerated concrete and reinforced concrete, must be reinforced with a glass mesh with a mesh of 3x3 or 5x5 mm. If it is necessary to perform alignment with a thickness of more than 50 millimeters, it is recommended to use claddings on a metal frame with plasterboard or gypsum fiber sheathing. In rooms with high humidity, cement-based plasters should be used or wall cladding on a metal frame using slabs (aquaplates). The range of the cost of plaster is from 250 to 550 rubles per 25 kilograms.

We make partitions

In houses built of monolithic reinforced concrete, apartments are sold with a free layout: that is, they have no interior partitions and the owner forms the interior space at his own discretion. The best option for installing partitions in this case is the use of dry construction systems, that is, structures consisting of a metal frame and sheathed with gypsum plasterboards or sheets of increased strength. The advantage of this solution lies in the fact that such structures have a lower weight compared to other options, allow the creation of curved configurations of partitions, and have good sound insulation properties. In addition, their installation is carried out in a short period of time.