METHOD FOR REPAIRING SANITARY FACILITIES OF A BLOCK OF FLATS

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention concerns a method as defined in the preamble of claim 1 for repairing sanitary facilities of a block of flats.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Old block of flats have problems in ever increasing numbers with the sanitary facilities and the water pipes and sewerage systems associated with them. Most toilets and shower rooms of blocks of flats that are as new as from the 60 's and 70 's are in such a poor condition that they necessitate a complete restoration.

In the renovation of sanitary facilities, the entire room has to be torn out; the glazed tiling has to be chiseled from the walls and so have the pipes from the floors and between the storeys. The mere demolition work is very noisy and dusty such that it is not possible to live in the flats during that time. Also, getting rid of a large amount of demolition waste is problematic whether implemented along the stairs, by means of an elevator, or through the flat onto a balcony, or by carrying next to the window and by dropping down from the window.

In conventional building, once the demolition work is done, the installation of plumbing and other technology takes its time. After this, the necessary casting and puttying work, which one has to let dry properly before one can make the vapor barriers and tiling of the surfaces . In building such a manner, each phase must be made separately, after which one waits for the setting and drying. In addition, transportation of material to

different storeys, their storage, and removal of excess material after the completion are work phases requiring space and time.

Thus, by the present renovation methods, the entire storey to be renovated is out of residential use usually for about 4 to 5 months . The renovation of one storey usually disturbs the living of the flats of other storeys of the house as well . The noise caused by building is conveyed along the framework of the building to the entire building; the dust drifts and penetrates everywhere in the flats ; and the yard is damaged and covered by construction waste and new construction supplies.

Renovation also has the problem of high mate- rial costs. Flats are usually renovated individually according to the wishes of the residents, so the purchase of individual implements, their transportation, transport damages, storage, handling, and surplus material - all that incurs significant expenses.

OBJECTIVE OF THE INVENTION

The objective of the invention is to eliminate the drawbacks referred to above. One specific objective of the invention is to disclose a novel method for the repair of the sanitary facilities of blocks of flats that is flexible, fast and competitive in costs and causes as little as possible inconvenience to the residents .

SUMI-ARY OF THE INVENTION

The method of the invention is characterized by what is presented in claim 1.

The repair method of the invention can be applied to blocks of flats in which the sanitary facili-

ties to be repaired are disposed one upon the other, i.e. at the same point in all storeys. According to the invention, the load-bearing structures of different storeys that are supported on the walls surround- ing the sanitary facilities are supported one upon the other to one another from outside the walls of the sanitary facilities. Once the supporting is completed, near the floors and walls, the sanitary facilities are cut entirely off from the other structures of the block of flats from between the supporting points and the walls of the sanitary facilities; and the sanitary facilities that have been cut off are removed entirely. New self-supporting sanitary facility elements are dropped from above one upon the other into the open pit that extends over the entire height of the building. With the sanitary facility elements being disposed one upon the other and connected to one another, the load-bearing structures of different storeys are connected to the sanitary facilities disposed at a corresponding height, after which the supports disposed in different storeys can be removed.

While the temporary supports to be used in the invention can be placed at different points, depending on the load-bearing parts of the structures, it is simple and plain if the supports are placed one upon the other at the same points in all storeys such that a uniform load-bearing supporting structure is formed along the entire height of the building from the base floor of the lowermost storey to the roof of the uppermost storey. It is naturally obvious that in this connection, the term "lowermost storey" refers to that lowermost storey in which the renovation is being made. For each case specifically, this storey can be e.g. the basement; the first aboveground storey; or the first residential floor.

Preferably, in the method of the invention, the sanitary facilities are cut off and removed from

under upwards such that all the waste to be removed is dropped down onto the bottom of the pit, from which it is removed. In this manner, as one manages to saw off the parts of walls and ceilings of sanitary facili- ties, one drops them or they fall down onto the bottom of the pit thus formed. In this manner, the demolition waste can be easily and simply removed from the lowermost storey.

When cutting off the old sanitary facilities e.g. with a diamond disc, relatively straight and uniform shear surfaces are created. Due to this, for the shear surfaces and/or the sides of the sanitary facilities it is possible to use various grips known per se in the field, by means of which the storeys and the corresponding sanitary facility elements are connected to one another to implement the necessary load-bearing junction.

In most cases, the sanitary facilities of a building that are to be renovated and to which the in- vention can be applied, include a space provided with a WC seat and a hand basin and having, in addition, a bath tube and a shower room. However, the invention is not limited merely to these sanitary facilities of buildings but these can vary for each case specifi- cally and can include sheer WC spaces, bath room spaces, sauna spaces or suitable combinations of these.

Preferably, the sanitary facility elements to be used in the method of the invention include fac- tory-made structures that are completely ready for use in respect to their interior design. Similarly, their outer surfaces can include finished surfaces or surfaces requiring just painting or wallpapering. In this manner, a sanitary facility element that has been lifted in place only requires connecting to the rest of the load-bearing parts of the building and seaming for covering the junctions as well as connecting the

technical functions of the element to the technique of the building. For finished elements, this kind of connecting of the technique is performed quickly and easily because all the necessary parts and connectors are ready in the elements. In this manner, the drains, water pipes, air conditioning, electricity and the rest of the cabling can be connected quickly and easily to form a uniform structure.

In the method of the invention it is substan- tial that the sanitary facility elements are stacked one upon the other and connected to one another to form a structure that is actively bearing. This means that the sanitary facility elements are not only load- bearing themselves, i.e. ones that bear their own weight and the weight of the other sanitary facility elements disposed on top of them, but they also take an active part in bearing the loads of the entire building. In this manner, the method of the invention necessitates installation of temporary supports to start with. Thereafter, the load-bearing structures i.e. load-bearing separating walls and/or load-bearing intermediate floors are removed from the building. Once the new sanitary facility elements are in place in the pit, the old structure is connected to the load-bearing pile formed by the sanitary facility elements, where necessary, so that the pile receives and actively bears the loads that were carried by the demolished structures. In this manner, in the invention, part of the old load-bearing structures of the build- ing are replaced with new load-bearing structures, which at the same time form the new sanitary facility elements. In this manner, by utilizing modern construction technology, in most renovation objects, the new load-bearing structures can be made less space- requiring than the old ones, whereby one gets more useful floor area either for the sanitary facilities or the spaces surrounding them.

The method of the invention has significant advantages compared to the prior art. With the method of the invention, the renovation of sanitary facilities of a block of flats is made faster by about 60 to 70%, i.e. the flats are out of use only for about one third of the time required by present renovations . The sanitary facilities are manufactured in factories in first-class and controlled conditions, whereby the quality of work, e.g. vapor barriers, is good. Due to the good conditions and serial production, the work is done quickly with small material losses, so considerable savings are made in the costs . Because the demolition of old facilities is performed in a quick and simple manner, noise disturbances and dust distur- bances are avoided almost completely compared to conventional renovation work. The environment of a building under renovation and the building itself remain clean because construction supplies need not be stored in the area. In addition, in most cases, the air con- ditioning and other technique of old sanitary facilities have been built for each room specifically and to be space-requiring such that along with the new technology, more space is achieved for the sanitary facilities. Besides, as the load-bearing walls can be possibly made thinner than the old ones, it is possible that the new sanitary facilities can be made up to 1 to 2 square metres bigger than the old ones .

LIST OF FIGURES

In the following section, the invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which

Fig. 1 is a schematic side section illustrat- ing the first step of a method of the invention;

Fig. 2 represents the second step of a method of the invention;

Fig. 3 represents the third step of a method of the invention;

Fig. 4 represents completed new sanitary facilities; Fig. 5 represents a second alternative of the invention; and

Fig. 6 represents a third alternative of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

As shown in Fig. 1, in a three-storey building, the sanitary facilities 1 are disposed at the same point in different storeys, i.e. one upon the other. When one intends to renovate the sanitary facilities completely, i.e. to replace the fittings; to re-tile the surfaces as well as to replace the water, sewage and ventilation pipes, it is performed as fol- lows according to the invention.

At first, from outside the walls 2 of the sanitary facilities 1, i.e. from the side of the adjacent or surrounding rooms, the intermediate floors 3 are supported to one another in a load-bearing manner. Therefore, in each storey, supporting structures 4 are installed and tightened between the ceiling and the floor, the supporting structures receiving or being prepared to receive and withstand that entire load- bearing load which in a normal situation rests on the wall structures enclosing the sanitary facility. Depending on the structural solutions used in the building and on the location of the load-bearing structures, one may be forced to use supporting structures 1 on all edges of the sanitary facility, or just on a part of them, such as on two opposite edges. Preferably, the supporting structures 1 are placed one upon the other, as shown in Fig. 1, i.e. at the same point

in different storeys such that load-bearing vertical columns as high as the entire building are formed. The vertical columns are placed as close as possible to the outer walls of the sanitary facilities, however, such that a sufficient space is left between the supporting structures and the walls for the measures to be performed.

Once the structures are supported as shown in Fig. 1, one can start demolishing the old sanitary fa- cilities 1. The demolition is best performed by sawing down with suitable diamond heads both the intermediate floors and the walls from the inside of the supporting structures along sawing lines 5 such that a pit as high as the entire building is formed where the sani- tary facilities used to be. The sanitary facilities can be partly ready sawed off in different storeys, but preferably, as shown in Fig. 2, the final detachment is performed from down under one facility at a time or one part at a time such that the construction waste 6 that comes loose keeps falling down onto bottom of the pit, from which it is easy to remove. In this manner, in renovating the entire sanitary facilities, one need not do any preliminary demolition work, but all the structures with their fittings can be dropped down and removed simultaneously.

Once the pit has been sawn down completely and the construction waste has been removed from the bottom of the pit, one can immediately start mounting new sanitary facilities 7 as shown in Fig. 3. The new sanitary facilities 7 are mounted in place in the form of completely finished load-bearing sanitary facility elements, which, besides the load-bearing roof 8, base floor 9 and walls 10, include all the inner structures of the sanitary facility down to the finished coat- ings, all the cabinets, shelves and water fittings as well as the necessary piping and ducts for water, sewage, air conditioning and electricity. In this manner,

the sanitary facilities, which form a load-bearing structure in the pit, can be lifted into the pit from above using a crane and stacked one upon the other.

All the installations of the technical func- tions of the building between the sanitary facilities as well as between them and the building are made outside the sanitary facility elements. In this manner, the ready-for-use sanitary facilities 7 can be kept tightly sealed during the entire installation and free from construction dust.

Preferably, the pit is sawn in the building with as high a measurement accuracy as possible such that just a small slot 11 required by the installation is left between the pit and the new sanitary facility elements to be installed, the slot being of the order of 5 to 20mm. The intersections of the pit in the load-bearing structures of the building and/or the corresponding points in the sanitary facility elements can be provided with various grips known per se in the field that fit in the aforementioned slot. The grips can be welded or otherwise connected to one another, or various wedge structures can be used in the slot. Finally, the slot can be cast, sealed or otherwise tidied. Once one has managed to support the load- bearing structures of the building on the pile formed together by the sanitary facility elements and filling the pit and being as high as the entire building, the external supporting structures 4, which were installed in the beginning, can be removed and the external surfaces finished. In this manner, the renovation of sanitary facilities can be performed in about 1 to 1.5 months for one storey of a block of flats instead of 3 to 4 months . Depending on the storey height of a block of flats to be renovated, it is possible to use sanitary facility elements with different heights. However, a

more preferred solution is to manufacture the sanitary- facilities with standard heights or with just a few standard heights. In that case, it is possible to use between the sanitary facility elements suitable podium elements by means of which each sanitary facility element can be placed to a suitable height in each storey of the building.

Fig. 5 shows an alternative solution for stacking the load-bearing sanitary facility elements of Fig. 3 one upon the other. In this embodiment, the load-bearing sanitary facility elements 7 are installed in place one at a time with the elements having a reinforcing 12 already there on top of them. In this manner, storey by storey, the intermediate floor 3 that places itself on top of the element and the sanitary facility element that bears it are cast to one another with the ceiling part of the sanitary facility element forming a finished cast foundation. In that case, the ceiling part of the element can be e.g. a shell panel, a composite slab or a combination of these and a concrete reinforcement according to need for each case specifically. In this embodiment, the installation of the sanitary facilities is performed so that after the casting, one has to wait for the setting of the cast e.g. such that sanitary facilities are installed one per day, in which case the cast is allowed to sufficiently harden before placing the next sanitary facility on top of it.

Fig. 6 shows an alternative to Fig. 2 for de- molishing old sanitary facilities. Thus, it is possible that from old sanitary facilities, at first all the intermediate floors are demolished from under upwards, whereby they are dropped onto the floor of the lowermost facility with the walls of the facilities forming a protected dropping pit for the construction waste. Once the pit is completed up to the top, the walls 13 of the old sanitary facilities can be cut off

from the intermediate floors 3 of the building from under upwards and dropped down along the pit formed by the walls that are still in one piece underneath. Thus, one need not build any such shelters or guides for the demolition work that can be necessary in the demolition order shown in Fig. 2.

The invention is not limited merely to the examples referred to above, but many modifications are possible within the scope of the inventive idea de- fined by the claims.