How are old/historic buildings retrofitted with modern-day amenities such as plumbing, electricity, and air conditioning?
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Often you locate vertical pipes/ducts/conduit next to vertical structural elements (walls, columns) and the build a partition wall – around the vertical pipes. Horizontal pipes are typically run on the underside of floors or slabs and then pop them up under whatever it is you’re trying to provide the services to.
Note – this is also how these systems are installed in new buildings, and similar to how they were installed in the original construction unless you’re talking about structures that predate indoor plumbing.
New openings through existing floors are coordinated with the floor structure to avoid beams and so on, but sometimes, especially for more substantial projects, areas of floor are removed and replaced.
Depending on the existing structure and exactly how important historic preservation is things like AC may need to be provided via localized units with thin coolant tubes that run to a central chiller unit, rather than cutting giant air vents through all the historic fabric.
One popular technique is drop ceilings. A drop ceiling is a mesh of lightweight metal slats that hold styrofoam panels. This is the kind of ceiling in most office buildings you’ll ever see.
Drop ceilings create a hidden space that spans the entire floor plan, on every level of a building. In there, ventilation, plumbing, electrical, and data cabling can be run all over the building without disrupting the overall feel.
In modern construction anchors can be set in concrete before a pour, but you can pretty easily drill into an older ceiling and put an anchor in, then hang a drop ceiling.
Before you know it, voila! Your 13th century Mosque is now a suitable space for cubicles and decaf coffee.
The simplest version: You spend money. You spend a lot of money.
Slightly longer version: You take away usable floor space and use it for service shafts in the building.
In modern buildings, these parts are hidden inside of walls as they are built.
In historical structures, you have 2 options. Build new walls & hide them in there. Or, install them on top of (exposed) existing walls.
Drainage wise, you’ll see a lot of buildings with external pipework running down into the ground. Then just locate sinks and toilets next to an external wall
I just moved into my grandmother’s house in New England. Built in 1825.
Ductwork can be put pretty much anywhere by good (read:expensive) craftsmen. The place has central AC, 4 sector heating – in 1400 Square feet. I don’t know who she had do it, but they did it right.
The only external work are the conduits for the solar and small wind turbine she had put on the roof.
I hadn’t been to her place in 20 years. She passed in July and left it to me (much to my cousins’ chagrin). I moved there last month from the Midwest and am amazed at everything.
Army vet here – at Fort Bliss the old barracks had “[swamp cooling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler)” in the summer and an oil fired heater in the winter (burning oil heated water through pipes in the ceiling).
The contractors yanked the evaporative cooling and pulled the boilers. HVAC units were installed in all the barracks rooms and over the unit offices. The old water pipes were left in place (and sealed off) the old duct work for the coolers were removed or sealed since they were there for a cooling system that needed outside air. The unit offices at the north end of the barracks had some ductwork because the HVAC for them had to cool/heat multiple rooms and the basement.
Now they could do this because they could cut into the side of the building to give the soldier rooms their own HVAC. One building had the heater and cooler on the room – the Army just had the contractors dismantle the old system and replace it with a modern HVAC.
With difficulty. It really depends on how the building was originally constructed. Building practices and standards evolved over the decades, so the strategies for updating the amenities can vary a great deal depending on the building. And the condition of the building at the time of the renovation.
Also very old buildings were built for the climate, so the design for ventilation back in the day, and the use of space generally, can be different in warmer or colder climates.
In particular heating / air conditioning (HVAC) takes a lot of space and is not something planned by builders in previous eras. Some buildings in warmer climates were built with very high ceilings to allow more air flow. Ceilings that can be dropped to allow space for HVAC systems. In other buildings sometimes ducts can be run along the top of the wall next to the ceiling and boxed in so the ductwork isn’t visible.
For electricity, plumbing and so forth, it can be easier to open up some or all of the walls to install such infrastructure – and then putting the walls back the way they were originally, having preserved the material. This work needs careful study of how walls were built, as they probably weren’t made of modern material or fit together by modern means. Sometimes not many nails were used, rather thick wood panels were notched to fit together by the pressure of the entire span.
Depending on the building, it’s age and intended purpose (a home or business), and so forth, some amenities might be best left out because they have too much impact on the structure and the historic elements.
It’s important to look at how the building sits on the property where it is located, the drainage, connection to city resources, and so forth. That has changed over time. You don’t want to neglect making outside changes to prevent even mild flooding and other environmental damage to the building.
https://www.architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/knowledge-landing-page/tips-for-retrofitting-a-historic-building
I’ve worked on modernizing life safety systems in historic buildings converted into apartment buildings. It’s a lot of work designing systems that have little to no footprint so you don’t disturb the historic nature. We’d have to work closely with the architects to figure out where we were allowed to run wire and how best to disassemble and reassemble fixtures and hide wireless devices.
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