Comprehensive reform in Barakaldo, District Bide - Onera. Basque Country.

We faced a flat in the center of Barakaldo, Basque Country. It is an apartment of more than 110 m² with a very irregular distribution.

The client was looking for a "high standing" reform and chooses us by recommendations from other satisfied clients. Those whose apartments which have previously been reformed by us and also due to our book of works and above all for the solutions we offer.

As indicated, despite the wide surface, the layout was very irregular: rooms without right angles and with trapezoidal shapes, a distribution that gave 15 m2 to the hall, an unusually spacious service room with its own bathroom next to the kitchen, two parallel corridors that bordered the service bathroom and that were joined the hall and kitchen at both ends... Therefore, analyzing the owner needs, we propose him to make a large open space joining together together the hall and living room, a large dining room next to the kitchen in what was before the service room, a pantry with laundry in what was the service’s bathroom...As a result, the new distribution of the house is unrecognizable.

We protect the lift and the main entry to the building. We also regularly sweep and clean the common areas. We want to avoid inconvenience to other neighbors who, may in turn, could complain to the owner.

Demolition.

We start with the demolition: first of all, we take care of getting permission from the city council hall to place a container in front of the building main entry, which in this case is a park.

The demolition includes all the plumbing, electricity, tiles and oak floor covering and the wooden strips that gives support to them: you can not imagine how much wood you have under your feet until you have to put it down to a container and you see how, after not many trips , this one fills up.

Masonry.

The construction stage itself begins: in this case, before raising the brick partitions, we have to do the floor leveling. Why? Because, after having removed the floor wooden covering and the wooden strips (cross wooden strips on which the wooden floor rests), we can see a slope which has between five and seven centimeters. As in this case, the client wants to install laminated wooden floor (which has in total about 15 mm thickness) we have to fill up that gap because if we would not we would have a step going down when entering the apartment or when moving to the tiled areas (bathrooms and kitchen). The customer has decided to install laminated wooden floor which is installed directly upon the concrete layer (it doesn't really rests directly, because we place in the middle – between the concrete layer and the laminated wooden floor- that is known as "blanket", which is a material that provides settlement and thermo-acoustic insulation to the laminated wooden flooring). Without intermediate wooden strips.

Therefore, the floor leveling is a layer of concrete mixed with a filling material with Little weigh in order to make lighter the filling and consecuently the building structure.

We continue with the partitions, without forgetting to place the metal structure boxes that are the structures through which the sliding doors of the bathrooms and some rooms will slide by.

Once the distribution is defined, we focus on plumbing and electricity.

Plumbing.

Regarding the plumbing, we have installed a new gas heater with its collector (it is something like a distributor from which the distribution going and return pipes of each radiator come out) with the pipes embedded in the walls and their respective aluminum radiators by modules in each room.

In bathrooms and kitchen, we gave the customer freedom (as we always do) to buy the tile and bathroom equipment(shower tray, shower screen, toilet, sink, etc.) at the distributor or warehouse center of his choice and can benefit from possible discounts. We take care of the haul (transportation to the house) and its subsequent installation.

We make the plumbing installation completely new. In apartments of this age it is very common for the sanitary supply pipes to be rusty and completely corrupted and that the drains are lead and/or fibrocement (contained in asbestos) made. We replace everything with modern pipes for sanitary water supply and PVC for the drains.

Electricity.

The existing electrical installation is obsolete and dangerous because it does not comply with current regulations.

Regarding the new electrical installation, We start with the installation of new corrugated tube throughout the apartment (an independent and direct line for each service, be it this lighting, general plugs, oven, washing machine, etc.), embedded by the walls and hidden in the false ceiling.

We never use old conductions (sometimes in lead material) because we have neither guarantees of their condition or thickness, nor that the electrical wire can be torn, ripped or damaged when inserted through the old tubes.

Subsequently we introduce the new electrical wire, with different sections depending on its destination (lighting, oven, etc.).

Regarding the electrical panel, we install a new one with a differential circuit breaker (to protect people’s life) and its independent magneto-thermic circuit breakers(to protect electrical installation and household appliances) for each service, according to regulations.

Telecommunications panel.

At the client’s request We have also installed this panel with an internet plug in each room, living room and in the kitchen and having them centralized in a single panel. In this same panel the TV antenna cable is centralized. With this solution we make possible operator changes in future become easier and do not involve loose or overlapping cables by the plinth, etc.

Carpentry.

We made similarly with doors and wooden flooring: an AC-5 laminate flooring was chosen by the customer was afterwards installed. Underneath the so-called "blanket" (mentioned above) was installed. And the doors, lacquered white, were installed on new pre-frames.

False ceiling.

It is our recommendation in all works of comprehensive refurbishing or partial refurbishing (provided the height of the house allows us) to install a false ceiling of plasterboard for two reasons: First, it gives us absolute freedom when designing the lighting with embedded spotlights (combining or not with lamps orwall lamps - appliqués ); Secondly, In addition to the aesthetic factor, there are the thermal and acoustic factors: on the plasterboard is placed "rock wool" or other materials as a thermal and acoustic insulator, which gives the house a plus of comfort.

In this case, the ceiling was not lowered throughout the house because the height was not enough. They were lowered in the kitchen and bathrooms. We encountered a problem in the room: the customer wanted to place built-in LED spotlights on the ceiling, but there was no false ceiling. So we drilled the undercroft to embed them into it. A complicated job that was rewarded with customer satisfaction.

Windows.

The windows, wooden made and original of the apartment, presented a pitiful state. We changed them by modern PVC windows (inner white color and wood color on the outside), with five insulation chambers, double glazing with ARGON gas.

As we say, we have changed the windows throughout the apartment. We have installed PVC windows of the CORTIZO THERMOTEC leading brand with 5 insulating chambers, galvanized steel reinforcements and double- glazed. Turn and Tilt wigwag system, hinges, ironworks and fittings Roto Frank of the highest quality that guarantee its perfect operation for decades with a very comfortable degree of comfort.

To reduce the heat input from the outside we have installed glass with low emissivity treatment (glass treated with silver oxide) that reduce up to 80% the amount of heat (infrared rays) that enters the apartment. This treatment blocks the infrared radiations, that are the ones that transport the energy of sunlight, without limiting the amount or tonality of light that enters.

In addition we used double - glazed windows with ARGON gas, instead of air in the sealed chamber among the two glass sheets, in order to obtain a noticeable decrease in the coefficient μ. The explanation is simple physics: the transmission of cold - heat from one glass sheet to another is produced by the internal currents that exist in the sealed chamber among the glazings. Argon is a heavier gas than air and, therefore, taking longer to heat up or cool down, currents and termal transmittance will be lower. The result is that we get a coefficient μ significantly lower.

Painting.

The apartment featured multi-layered mixture of gotelé, wallpaper, paint upon wallpaper, etc. In addition, the walls were curved, with concavities and convexities, misaligned.

For decades, the gotelé has been used to conceal the finishing imperfectionsthe. But the current style of clean walls and straight lines requires a perfect finish.

We decided to remove the old coats of coating, apply plaster on the walls to cover imperfections, polish and smooth them in order to obtain a completely homogeneous surface.

We covered the cracks, polished and smoothed all the walls and then apply a primer. Afterwards, three paint coats were applied.

When choosing the color of the paint, we offered the customer a table of colors - from which two or three were chosen - and a sample was applied on the wall so that the customer got a plausible idea of the colors and made the final choice.

End of work.

Finally we deliver the apartment completely clean. Ready for start living.

The customer was completely satisfied with the final result, the fulfillment of the promised deadlines and the treatment received by our company.