Chile Forum

Because we are stupid or crazy or masochistic, we are looking into rehabbing an old building here in Santiago. We've rebabbed new and old and ancient in several countries so it's nothing new to us, putting sweat equity into houses. We've redone a 100+ year old place in Uruguay, as much BS as was involved in that, so I can't see something in Chile being that great a challenge at this point. You guys have access to things more advanced than a hammer and a chisel! (hammer and sickle too!)
HOWEVER
What gets my gears turning is: how well-built are houses from the early 1900s (1900-1950) here? I figure if they have withstood 75 years of earthquakes they are either built to last, or going to fall over any moment. Can someone with experience here chime in as to what sort of things people were doing at those times that we should look for or run screaming from?
Thanks!

I have several architect friends who rebuilt older and old homes in downtown Santiago,
in general, the structures are overbuilt (to put it very lightly), so they mostly invested in modernization of utilities and aestetics.

from a real estate point of view, always look for the property that's most likely to be scoped later on for further development
but I'm sure you already know that

Some architects were better than others, at some point everything in Santiago falls down, except Iglesia San Francisco, it has 4-5 meter thick adobe walls which just settle a bit after a shaking. Look hard at the foundations and movement in the walls. Your saying an old building, 1900-1950 is a very wide timeframe to look at, I think of old in Santiago is 1890-1920 which is young in many other cities, but most cities aren’t adjacent to regular 8+ earthquakes.

You face the same problems you face everywhere with old houses, it is always a surprise once you start opening walls. Even the best built house, that stood for a 100 years, might have developed termite infestation in the last 5 years or a pipe started leaking in the wall last year and rotted something expensive.

Those are things that are completely apart from Chile.

Things I would expect in Chile among houses that old would be things like lead paint. Possibly pipes that are way pass their prime or have suffered earthquake damage over the years. Foundations and supports, although they might not have failed for 100 years, might not have completely missed the bullet with the last earthquake.

To look at any structure and say, "well it stood for a 100 years through all those earthquakes, it must be fine" with no more knowledge than that about the status and history, is to engage in the gamblers fallacy. Every quake is different, and every quake effects different buildings in different ways. It only takes the right one to effect the building in just the right way, for it to fail or be damaged. Especially when we are talking about structures that pre-date modern earthquake engineering.

I have had a look at a lot of old houses, some in the 150 year old range, and a lot of times just because it is old does not mean it is good. Once you start doing the costs breakdown, often building a replica from scratch would be half the costs of trying to restore it (because essentially you will be rebuilding it stick for stick anyway by the time it is all done).

One of the places we are looking at was what I am guessing 1900-1930. Seems to be in decent shape but if we do redo it, we'll be updating the electrical system for sure. What I am curious about is what we might encounter when we chip into the walls to lay conduit. If we can even do that. I am imagining that we will hit either loose pore bricks or those terra-cotta extruded square hole "filler" bricks between pillars of steel-reinforced concrete, but what worked in Chile in that time may not be what we are familiar with from other places. Is this the way things were/are built, or is it "anyone's guess"? I know we'd find out eventually anyways, just wanting to see if I can forge a rough estimate of the work and $ involved in the rehab.
Thanks!