Light industrial unit on the edge of a Mallorcan market town, stock racked to the roof and a roller door open to daylight

Renovation in Inca

The houses along these streets are tall, narrow and attached on both sides, which leaves one way in and one way up. On a renovation here that settles more than it looks as though it should.

Workbench in a Mallorcan joinery workshop with a made-to-measure timber door clamped up on it

Everything comes in through one door

A house attached on both sides has no side gate and no way round the back, so material, plant, waste and every finished piece all use the same route: a doorway on a street with little room to stop, and then a stair with a turn in it. That route is the constraint the rest of the job bends around, and it is seldom the thing an owner is thinking about at the start.

It settles sizes before it settles anything else. A bath, a worktop, a glazed unit, a boiler or a run of fitted furniture either goes up that stair or it does not, and what will not go up has to arrive in pieces and be put together in the room instead. Asking the question while things are still being chosen costs nothing; finding the answer out on delivery day costs a day.

Waste travels the same way in reverse and deserves the same attention. Taking a floor of one of these houses back to its structure produces far more rubble than owners expect, all of it carried down by hand, and where the street will not hold a skip it leaves in a van in load after load. That is ordinary work rather than a difficulty, and it is a real line in a price.

What the door and the stair settle

  • Whether a bath goes up at all, or a shower tray goes instead
  • Worktops jointed in the room rather than cut in one length
  • Fitted furniture delivered flat and assembled upstairs
  • Appliance sizes, measured against the turn on the half-landing
  • A boiler or tank that has to reach the top floor
  • Glazed units too large for the stair, and how they get in
  • Where a skip can stand, and for how long
  • Rubble taken down by hand, bag by bag, past finished work
  • Protection for the one stair everything else passes over
  • Scaffolding fixed off a frontage that belongs to the whole row

Most asked for in the town

House renovation

Tall narrow town houses along the streets.

General builders

Mixed trades sharing one way in and one way up.

Complete refurbishment

A full refit where the walls mostly stay put.

Nearby areas

Binissalem

Stone manor houses and old bodega buildings, with walls thicker than any drawing suggests.

Sa Pobla

Land that was drained, and ground floors that still remember it.

Sencelles

Old ground, with the structure already standing on it.

How your request reaches a company

Mallorca Renovation is a comparison service. A request for work in a house with one way in goes to the renovation and building companies on our list; they quote the work and carry it out, and any agreement is between you and the company you pick.

  1. 01

    Describe the job

    Tell us the property, roughly what you want and where it is. Photographs and a rough plan help, though neither is required.

  2. 02

    We match it

    The request goes to companies that work in your area and take on this kind of job at this size.

  3. 03

    They quote you

    Each company contacts you directly with its own price, timing and approach. We do not set any of it.

  4. 04

    You compare and choose

    Put the quotes side by side and take the one you want, or none of them. Using the site costs you nothing.

Will a bath or a large unit go up the stair?

Frequently, and it is worth measuring before choosing rather than afterwards. The tight point is usually the turn on the half-landing rather than the width of the flight, and where something genuinely will not go there is nearly always a version that arrives in pieces.

Where does a skip go on a street like this?

Sometimes nowhere, and then waste leaves in a van in repeated loads instead. It is worth asking what a quote assumes about removing it, because that assumption is one of the larger differences between two prices for the same house.

Does having no side access make it cost more?

It adds handling rather than difficulty. The same material arrives in smaller quantities and gets carried further, which is time rather than skill, and companies that work in these streets price it as routine. It surprises owners whose last renovation had a drive.

Get quotes for a house with one way in

Describe the house and the access it has, and let several companies price the same scope.

Mallorca Renovation