Older flats deserve more than a coat of paint

What is typical of an older apartment on the coast?

The building boom that shaped the Costa del Sol left thousands of blocks from the 1960s, 70s and 80s, followed by another wave in the 1990s. Inside, they share familiar traits: terrazzo or ceramic floors, textured gotelé walls, a closed kitchen at the end of a corridor, one bathroom with a bath, aluminium windows and, often, no central heating.

Some of these flats were modernised sensibly. Many were updated in layers — a new kitchen in one decade, a bathroom in another, an extra socket wherever one was needed — without anyone looking at the whole. That layering is what we untangle.

What problems do older flats usually have behind the walls?

We cannot know until we look, but these are the findings we prepare owners for:

• Electrics: circuits without earth, a single circuit feeding several rooms, a fuse board with no residual-current device, cables run in surface trunking over the years.
• Supply pipes: galvanised steel that has narrowed inside, causing poor pressure and rusty water at first draw; repairs joining different materials.
• Waste: old pipes with poor falls, makeshift connections to the stack, smells from dry traps.
• Damp: condensation on cold walls, stains under windows, leaks from above that were painted over.
• Surfaces: hollow tiles, uneven floors, ceilings with cracks from past leaks.

Our guide to services in older apartments explains the signs to look for and what each one usually means.

Do I need to rewire and replumb an older flat?

Not automatically. An installation can be old and still sound, or recent and badly done. The authorised partner installer checks the electrics, and we look at the pipework, pressure and waste. The decision then depends on two things: the condition of what is there, and how much of the flat you are renovating anyway.

If you are redoing the kitchen, the bathroom and the floors, walls will be opened in most rooms. Renewing services at that point costs far less than doing it later and breaking new finishes. If you are only painting and changing a kitchen front, a targeted repair may be enough. We tell you which applies and why.

How do you modernise the layout of an older apartment?

The classic older-flat layout has a long corridor, a small closed kitchen, a separate dining room and bedrooms of very different sizes. Common changes are:

• opening the kitchen to the living area or creating a wide opening with a breakfast bar;
• absorbing part of the corridor into a room;
• turning the bath into a level-access shower, space permitting;
• adding storage with built-in wardrobes or plasterboard niches.

Partitions in many older blocks are brick and can be moved; anything that might be structural must be assessed by an architect or building engineer first. Whether new walls should be brick or plasterboard is a separate decision, compared in our article on plasterboard or brick.

What about textured walls, terrazzo floors and old tiles?

Gotelé — the bumpy, sprayed paint finish found in many Spanish flats — can be removed or skimmed over. Terrazzo floors are sometimes worth keeping and restoring; sometimes they are cracked or uneven and better covered or replaced. Old wall tiles can be removed or, in some cases, tiled over if they are firmly bonded and the extra thickness is acceptable.

These are finish decisions, and they come after the services. If wall smoothing and painting are the main part of your job, our network site quitargotelemalaga.eu specialises in exactly that.

What can go wrong, and how do we reduce the risk?

The biggest risk in an older flat is the unknown: a beam that is not where the drawings say, a pipe running through a wall nobody expected, a leak from the flat above. We reduce it in three ways. First, by checking as much as possible during the visit — meter readings, visible pipe runs, the fuse board, floor levels. Second, by writing the quote so that unknowns are named rather than hidden. Third, by stopping and showing you, with photos and options, when something unexpected appears.

If we find something outside our scope — structural damage, rising damp or fibre-cement materials — we say so plainly and recommend the right professional before going further. Asbestos-containing materials need a registered specialist such as retiradauralitamalaga.eu.

Why use one contractor for an older apartment?

Because the trades depend on each other more in an old flat than in a new one. The plumber needs to know where the new partition goes; the electrician needs to know where the kitchen units will sit; the tiler needs the pipes tested before he covers them. When you hire them separately, each one works to his own plan. With one contractor there is one sequence, one quote and one person answering for the result. The electrical work is still carried out and certified by authorised partner installers, but you do not have to coordinate them.

For more on how cost behaves in older flats, read what drives cost in older apartments.

What does our visit to an older flat involve?

It is a working visit rather than a sales call. We look at the fuse board and the meter position, open the cupboard under the sink, run the taps to see pressure and colour, check the bathroom waste and look for stains on ceilings and under windows. We measure rooms, note floor levels between rooms and check how materials and debris would move through the building: lift size, stair width, where a container could stand.

If the electrics look questionable, we arrange for the partner installer to assess them before the quote is final. You then receive a quote that reflects what the flat actually needs rather than a generic package.