01What the housing stock looks like
Baix Llobregat is not one town but a string of very different municipalities between Barcelona, the Collserola hills and the sea. The slopes of Sant Just Desvern and Esplugues have detached houses with gardens and flats in low-rise residential complexes. Gavà Mar has houses and apartments by the beach, among the pines. Viladecans, Sant Boi, El Prat and Cornellà are mostly apartment blocks from the 1960s to the 1980s, plus newer neighbourhoods built over the last twenty years.
That shapes the typical brief: a full refurbishment of a house just bought, complete replacement of the services in an older flat, knocking rooms together and opening up the kitchen, or reworking a new-build flat to the owner's taste. Castelldefels has its own page; this one covers the rest of the area.
02Houses in Sant Just, Esplugues and Gavà Mar
Many of these houses were built between the 1970s and the 1990s. The structure is usually sound, but everything else has aged: single-glazed windows, an uninsulated facade, heating from an old boiler, bathrooms and kitchen from the same era. It pays to renovate the whole house in one go rather than a room a year: walls are opened once, the services are designed as one system and there is a single schedule.
On sloping plots we look separately at retaining walls, drainage and waterproofing of the lower floor. In Gavà Mar there is the sea air as well: exterior metal corrodes faster, so fixings, railings and window profiles are chosen with salt and humidity in mind. Energy upgrades such as facade insulation, new windows, a heat pump or solar panels go into the quote as separate lines, so you can see what each one costs.
03Flats in Viladecans, Sant Boi, El Prat and Cornellà
In buildings from the 1960s and 1970s the wiring was usually designed for lower loads, the supply pipes are steel, and asbestos cement sometimes turns up in stacks or on roofs. Only a specialist licensed contractor may remove it, so it goes into the quote and the schedule from the start. The stacks are shared, so replacing them is agreed with the building administrator.
Layouts from that period mean a small closed kitchen, a narrow corridor and a lot of doors. A common brief is to open the kitchen into the living room and turn three small bedrooms into two comfortable ones. These blocks can have load-bearing walls inside the flat, so a qualified technician checks the new layout before anything comes down.
El Prat, Gavà and Viladecans sit close to the airport. If the home is under a flight path, we start with good windows and acoustic insulation and only then move on to finishes.
04Permits, town by town
Every municipality in the area has its own Ajuntament and its own bylaws: the procedure, paperwork and timescales in Sant Just are not the same as in El Prat. Which permit you need depends on the scope: replacing finishes, changing the layout, altering the facade, extending the house or building a pool are all different cases.
We check separately plots on the edge of the Collserola Natural Park and homes right on the seafront, where extra restrictions may apply. In the Llobregat delta the water table is high, so a basement, a pool or a new build needs a geotechnical survey. We confirm all of this before the quote, and if the project needs an architect, we bring one in and handle the paperwork together.
05What it costs
Guide prices, excluding VAT: Basic from €1,000/m², Standard from €2,000/m², Luxury from €3,000/m². In a flat, the final figure depends most on the state of the services and how much the layout changes. In a house, the work outside the rooms carries the weight: facade, roof, garden or pool, which we price separately.
The exact number comes from an itemised quote after the site visit and measurements. If you are still choosing a property, we can look at it before you buy and assess how much work it needs. That estimate gives you a stronger hand in negotiation and a clear idea of the budget you will need after completion.
06How we work in Baix Llobregat
We reply to your enquiry within an hour and arrange a visit. Our office is in Castelldefels, at the southern end of the area, so Gavà and Viladecans are next door and the other towns are a short drive away. The project lead can get to site without crossing half the province.
The work is done by our own crew, with trusted subcontractors on specialist trades. You deal with one person, in Russian or Spanish. The design and the itemised quote are ready before work starts, and payment is staged under the contract.