How are old/historic buildings retrofitted with modern-day amenities such as plumbing, electricity, and air conditioning?

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How are old/historic buildings retrofitted with modern-day amenities such as plumbing, electricity, and air conditioning?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

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.

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