Combining apartments: features and options

The main advantage of combining apartments is getting more spacious living space without moving to another location. Agree, it is convenient – without leaving your usual house, your favorite area, to get an apartment two or even three times larger than the previous one. Or, not finding an apartment suitable for the size, buy two at once in the same house.

But there are many problems with uniting apartments. Be prepared that it may take six months to agree on the redevelopment! In addition, you first need to get an accurate plan of the entire apartment building, because there are cases when it is simply impossible to combine apartments due to design features.

The approval process includes drawing up a redevelopment project. It is advisable to contact a design organization that is part of a specialized SRO. Then the documents are submitted to the housing inspectorate, and then to the BTI, where a new technical plan of the apartment will be drawn up.

The redevelopment rules are described in SNiP 31-01-2003 “Residential apartment buildings”. Combining apartments as a whole into a separate item is not allocated and is considered a redevelopment. There are some of the most important prohibitions you should be aware of:

1. It is impossible to dismantle, transfer ventilation ducts, reduce their cross-section, disrupt common building communications.
2. Do not demolish load-bearing walls, cut down load-bearing beams, beams, cut or move load-bearing pylons and columns. In the bearing wall, it will be possible to make only an opening for the passage, and with the obligatory reinforcement of the structure. This should be provided in the project.
3. You cannot transfer existing openings in load-bearing walls without a project and permission from specialized organizations..
4. Kitchen and living rooms cannot be swapped. An exception will be the case if there is no living space under you, that is, the apartment is on the first floor. In addition, it will be possible to swap the kitchen and living room in the case of a two-level vertical combination of apartments, if one of them is on the top floor. We will talk about this option in more detail below..
5. It is impossible to place a bathroom, a bathroom above the living area.
6. You cannot combine the kitchen with the living space if the apartment has gas. There is only one way out – to refuse gas supply and install an electric hob.

As you can see, the list of prohibitions is quite large, which is why before buying a second apartment or two or three at the site at once, you should study the project of the house. It may turn out that a ventilation shaft is located in the wall where it was decided to make a unifying opening. In this case, you will not be allowed to combine apartments.

Consider three existing options for combining apartments:

1. Apartments on one site.The most common option and the least problematic for obtaining permission. According to experts, if the wall is made of blocks or bricks, it will not be possible to touch only the upper bearing girder. If the entire wall is load-bearing, it will be possible to make only an opening with a width of no more than 160 centimeters, necessarily with reinforcement of the structure. If it is possible to seize part of the common building territory – a vestibule or a corridor in front of the apartment – the walls can be left alone by making a common entrance. However, such a solution requires the consent of all neighbors.

2. Apartments on top of each other.This is no longer horizontal, but vertical integration of residential areas. The ability to combine apartments on different floors depends on the condition and characteristics of the floors. The higher the apartment is, the more likely it is to get a permit. Usually it is not a problem to combine an apartment or an attic on the upper floor. The disadvantage of such a solution is that you need a staircase that will “eat” at least four square meters of usable space in each of the combined apartments. In addition, the opening in the ceilings will have to be reinforced with a frame and supporting columns, and the dimensions and weight of the stairs will have to meet building codes. We have already written about the other pros and cons of duplex apartments.

3. Apartments in different entrances.The rarest case of unification. The wall between the entrances will definitely be load-bearing, more powerful than if the apartments are located on the same site. In addition, there may be an elevator shaft or a garbage chute between the apartments. There is a risk that the levels of the floor and ceiling of the apartments in different entrances will differ slightly, and this is an additional cost to level them. And in such cases, permission to merge is rarely issued..

Another important point in the case of combining apartments is what to do with the second kitchen and bathroom. If they usually decide to leave the bathroom as a guest or for children, then the second kitchen is definitely not needed. At the same time, as we remember, building codes prohibit turning it into a residential building. Therefore, the second kitchen often becomes a dressing room or study, for example.

Experts say that now cases of combining apartments in the old housing stock are less and less common. There are too many problems with obtaining permission, paperwork, and potential risks. Another thing is new buildings, where the developer often initially plans to combine several residential modules into a single space..