Grand apartments with glazed galleries

Ducted air conditioning and rewired electrics for Chamberí's grand apartments

Between Almagro, Trafalgar and Ríos Rosas, we work inside period apartments with glazed galleries and original ceilings without the technical installation altering a single original detail.

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Housing type in Chamberí

A district of characterful apartments

Chamberí is, along with Salamanca, one of the districts of Madrid with the highest concentration of grand apartment buildings: high ceilings, glazed galleries, original hydraulic-tile floors, and residents' associations that pay close attention to anything done on the façade or the light well. Many of these homes have been renovated piecemeal over the years, so a refurbished kitchen often sits alongside wiring from another decade. The technical challenge here is twofold: modernising the home inside without it showing from outside, and doing so within the limits set by each residents' association. This is a district where owners know their apartment well and expect the same level of care in the technical work as in the rest of the renovation.

Climate control

Airzone beneath the gallery, without touching the original ceiling

The typical layout of a Chamberí home — gallery at the front, interior bedrooms, a corner living room — means the aspects vary widely within the same home. With ducts and Airzone zoning, each room is controlled separately, and the owner decides from their phone or a wall thermostat which zones to cool at any given moment.

The ductwork is hidden in a perimeter false ceiling calculated to avoid encroaching on the gallery's height or covering mouldings, and the outdoor unit is sited in a service courtyard or on the roof, out of sight from the street. The result is consistent comfort and lower consumption compared with independent splits running without coordination.

Electrical

Rewired electrics and certification for a full renovation

When a full renovation is carried out in Chamberí, an original electrical installation several decades old almost always turns up, never designed for a high-power induction hob, a steam oven and air conditioning all at once. We renew the wiring and the whole consumer unit, and process the electrical certificate (Certificado CIE) the utility company requires to register the new power supply.

In the same job we replace the lighting with dimmable LEDs and add smart-home features to create scenes per room, from warm lighting in the gallery to an all-off setting when you leave the house.

A common case in Chamberí

It's common that, when lifting the floor of a Chamberí apartment for a full renovation, wiring with aluminium sections or undersized cabling for current use turns up. The fault isn't apparent until the new oven or induction hob is connected. We carry out a full rewiring and manage the certificate before that can hold up the works.

Chamberí, in figures

This is the Madrid district of Chamberí.

Chamberí does not have separate official statistics of its own — these are the official figures for the Madrid district it belongs to.

137.287Residents of Chamberí (2022)

60.343Households in Chamberí (2015)

2.28Average household size (2015)

30.468 €Average income per resident (2019)

Part of the historic “ensanche” expansion (19th–20th century), with an abundance of Art Nouveau and neo-Gothic buildings; the northern part of the district was developed later, from 1920 onwards.

Source: Statistics Institute of the Community of Madrid / Madrid City Council, based on the INE Population and Housing Census.

Underfloor heating and hidden fan coils without breaking into the existing false ceiling

Cause: In Chamberí's high-ceilinged flats that have already been renovated once, the existing false ceiling is often already at its space limit, and adding underfloor heating or new fan coils means splitting that void between two different systems.
Effect: Without good coordination, the air-conditioning installer and the underfloor-heating installer end up competing for the same space, and one of the two loses out on height or efficiency.
Prevention: Plan the underfloor heating and the air conditioning together before any chiselling begins, using a single set of measurements for both systems.
ANNA's diagnosis: ANNA coordinates, within a single technical project, how the space is divided between underfloor heating and air-conditioning ductwork before the works begin.