Prefabricated House Renovation

The renovation of prefabricated houses requires combining the house's condition, policy requirements, and safety standards, and achieving improved safety and living quality through steps such as assessment, reinforcement, and updating. Here are the specific renovation highlights:

I. Renovation Background and Policy Basis
Prefabricated panel houses, mostly built in the 1970s and 1980s, have entered a period of decline due to structural aging and fire hazards. The new policy in 2025 specifies the renovation principle of "adapting measures to local conditions and implementing strategies based on classification," prioritizing repair and reinforcement to extend service life, and only carrying out demolition and reconstruction for Grade D dilapidated houses, those not meeting seismic standards, or those affecting urban planning. For example, houses with foundation settlement exceeding 5 centimeters or cracks in load-bearing walls wider than 1 millimeter need to be identified as Grade D dilapidated houses before demolition.

II. Core Renovation Process

1. Structural Safety Assessment
   Before renovation, a professional agency should be commissioned to conduct a comprehensive inspection of the width of cracks in prefabricated panels (with a focus on checking whether they exceed 0.3 millimeters), the rust rate of bolts (replacement is required if it exceeds 30%), and the connection status of walls, and form an assessment report as the basis for renovation.
2. Reinforcement Treatment
   • Prefabricated Panel Repair: For panels with cracks exceeding 0.3 millimeters, carbon fiber cloth reinforcement or pressure grouting techniques should be used.
   • Bolt Replacement: Connection bolts with a rust rate exceeding 30% should all be replaced with high-strength bolts.
   • Wall Strengthening: Add structural columns to enhance the load-bearing capacity of walls, and use reinforcement with planted rebars and grouting to strengthen the connections between brick walls and prefabricated panels.
3. Roof and Exterior Wall Renewal
   • Roof Renovation: Remove the original wooden roof, pour a concrete roof, and lay waterproof membranes to ensure structural stability and waterproof performance.
   • Exterior Wall Treatment: Remove aging exterior wall tiles, apply weather-resistant paint, and simultaneously carry out reinforcement with planted rebars and grouting to prevent wall detachment.

III. Construction Specifications and Safety Control
Construction should follow the principle of "starting from the middle and then moving to the sides," maintaining symmetry during segmented demolition, and ensuring that the daily demolition volume does not exceed 30% of the total floor area to avoid collapse caused by uneven local stress. For example, in the renovation of Banjieta Village in Beijing, staged construction ensured the temporary resettlement of residents and engineering safety.

IV. Compensation and Resettlement Methods
Residents can choose monetary compensation (not less than 110% of the market price of surrounding commercial housing), property rights exchange (such as a 1:1.1 replacement of new houses in Handan), or housing voucher resettlement. In urban renovation cases, residents of Banjieta Village in Beijing moved to shared-ownership housing, with compensation amounts 20% higher than the assessed value, reflecting the policy's protection of residents' rights and interests.

V. Typical Renovation Cases

• Rural Prefabricated Houses: Improve thermal insulation performance and aesthetics through exterior wall renovation (such as applying insulation boards and spraying true stone paint) and replacing broken bridge aluminum doors and windows.
• Urban Prefabricated Houses: Incorporate old prefabricated houses into area-wide coordinated renovation in combination with urban renewal, such as a project in Shanghai that achieved functional upgrades by adding elevators and community service centers.