Old house renovation in Batumi: assessment, foundations, roof, damp

Which old houses we renovate

In Batumi and across Adjara, the old houses we work on are mostly of three kinds. Some were built in the early and middle decades of the last century from stone or brick in lime mortar, with thick walls and timber floors. Others date from Soviet times: block or brick, with a flat roof or a roof of corrugated asbestos-cement sheets. The third kind were built bit by bit in the 1990s and 2000s, and the upper floor was often added over the years in different materials.

If the survey shows that the floors need replacing and the walls need strengthening, we handle that scope as a full house renovation including the structure. This page is about something else: how to assess an old house and what to do in it when the shell is basically sound. If the house is built of timber or has a timber upper floor, rot and wood-boring beetles are covered on the page about timber house renovation.

Assessing the condition: what to repair, what to keep, what to replace

Old house renovation in Batumi starts with a walk through the house from the loft to the basement. After the inspection we put each part of the house into one of three groups, and the estimate depends on this.

If you are only looking at a house with a view to buying, it is best to have it inspected before you pay a deposit. At the same time we check the house against the Public Registry extract: the number of storeys, the floor area, any extensions. A glazed veranda or an upper floor that isn't in the extract changes both the legal and the building side of the job, and we discuss this in advance with our partner lawyer. The lawyer also checks whether the house is listed as a cultural heritage monument.

What is worth keeping in an old house

People value an old house for what you can't buy in a new build, and that is easy to lose during the strip-out. Before the first blow of the hammer, the site foreman goes round with you and marks what stays, and the crew removes it by hand and stores it under plastic sheeting.

• stone and brick walls in lime mortar: we don't cover them with cement but clean them, repoint the joints and let the masonry dry;
• solid wood floors, if the boards are sound underneath: they are relaid and sanded, as in parquet restoration;
• panelled doors, architraves, timber handrails and balconies: we take them off, repair them in a workshop and fit them back;
• intact clay roof tiles: they are taken off, sorted and relaid on new battens;
• stone basement vaults and old staircases, if the engineer confirms they are sound.

Old wiring, steel pipes and cement plaster that has come away from the wall almost always go. If asbestos-cement sheeting on the roof is being replaced, we take it off in whole sheets without cutting, because it may contain asbestos.

Foundations and plinth: where the water in the walls comes from

Old houses usually have shallow foundations of rubble stone or concrete, with no damp-proofing between the foundations and the wall. Water from the ground rises up the masonry as if up a wick, to half a metre or higher. That is where the dark band at the bottom of the walls, the blistered paint and the white salts on the plaster come from.

The second cause has built up over the life of the house. The yard was raised, paving or asphalt was laid right up to the wall, and the ground came up almost to floor level. The plinth, which once stood above the ground, ended up below it. Here we start with the simple things: we lower the ground by the walls, lay a paved apron sloping away from the house and take the roof water well away from the foundations.

If the wall still draws up moisture after that, we install an injected damp-proof course: a row of holes is drilled in a masonry joint just above ground level and filled with a water-repellent compound that blocks the water's path upwards. Whether it is needed, and which compound to use, the engineer decides from moisture readings taken after the water has been diverted from the walls.

Damp in old walls, and plaster

Stone or brick masonry laid in lime lets vapour through and dries in both directions. When it is covered with cement plaster and dense paint, the moisture stays inside, salts come out under the finish, and after a couple of winters they push it off in sheets. So on an old house we knock this plaster off back to the masonry, even if it is still holding on over most of the wall.

On walls that still draw up moisture or carry salts, we apply a renovation plaster: the salts crystallise in its pores without breaking the surface, and the wall goes on drying. Dry walls suit a lime or lime-cement plaster, and the finish coat for painting is vapour-permeable too. We measure the moisture in the masonry before and after, and start the finishing once the figures stop falling.

Damp doesn't always come from the ground: it can be condensation on a cold wall in winter or a leak through an old external sill. We find the cause before the new plaster goes on, otherwise it will come off just like the old.

The roof of an old house: repair or replace

On an old roof, the first thing to fail is usually not the covering but what is under it and around it: the battens, the nails, the junctions with walls and chimneys, the valleys, the gutters. If the rafters are sound and the roof leaks in two or three places, a partial repair is often enough: redo the junctions, replace the broken sheets or tiles, fit new gutters.

We replace the covering completely when the asbestos-cement sheeting is crumbling, the metal has rusted through in several places, or the battens under the tiles have rotted. A complete replacement follows the same order as in a full house renovation. On the flat roof of a Soviet-era house with old bitumen, we lay a new roof covering from scratch and, while we are at it, form the fall to the outlets that it often lacks.

Windows, heating and services in an old house

In winter an old house is damp and chilly: the frames are draughty, a single stove does the heating, and the wiring can't cope with an air conditioner in every room. So the estimate almost always has three blocks of work.

• Windows. In a thick wall we install uPVC or aluminium windows with an insulated installation joint and new external sills. How the systems differ by the sea is covered in our comparison of aluminium and uPVC windows.
• Heating. Thick stone walls take a long time to warm up and hold the heat for a long time, so a house that is lived in all winter is better served by water heating with a boiler or a heat pump than by air conditioners room by room. Which to choose is covered in our comparison of a heat pump and a gas boiler. We hang and pipe up the boiler, and the gas company connects it to the gas.
• Services. In an old house we almost always replace the wiring, water supply and drains completely, along new routes.

We insulate the facade only once the wall is dry, and we use vapour-permeable insulation: polystyrene on the outside of a damp stone wall would trap the moisture in the masonry.

How much old house renovation in Batumi costs

Old house renovation in Batumi costs from 1,140 to 1,560 ₾ per m² including materials. The price covers the whole scope such a house usually needs: new wiring, water supply and drains, work on the roof and facade, and finishing of the rooms, bathrooms and kitchen.

As a guide to individual lines: a metal roof tile roof with materials costs from 200 to 240 ₾ per m² of roof, uPVC windows installed from 330 to 480 ₾ per m² of opening, and heating with a boiler, radiators and underfloor heating from 145 to 180 ₾ per m² of the house.

The price goes up with a damp-proof course in the masonry, a complete roof replacement, removing cement plaster throughout the house, heating from scratch, and a house on a slope where materials are carried up by hand. It is lower if the roof and windows are in good order and the walls are dry. The final cost is set after the inspection, moisture readings and agreement of the estimate.