The most expensive part of a refurbishment

A full refurbishment of a one-bedroom apartment of around 62 m² costs us roughly €36,000.

Water columns are a line item, not an afterthought

We budget the vertical water risers the same way we budget façades and roofs — as named items with their own cost. Across one building's common areas, that program runs to about €150,000. Across the apartments and common areas currently in works, roughly €380,000.

Pipes are the reason. A riser runs the full height of a building, so you cannot treat one flat in isolation. On our current works, one apartment's start date is set by when the pipe works finish in the unit above it.

Why we spend it

New pipes and new wiring support a rent premium of roughly €200–300 a month. That is real, and we count it. But it is not the reason. A riser that fails floods the flats below it, costs more to fix in an emergency than to replace on a plan, and turns a good tenant into a former tenant. The work nobody photographs decides whether the building still functions in fifteen years.