Renaissance JSCoLviv · restoration & repair
+380 99 582 36 46
On a listed building, the permit comes before the scaffolding. Work carried out without the required approvals can be ordered undone at the owner's expense — and the original fabric does not come back.
Restoration & building repair · Lviv

A window replaced badly
is gone for good

Renaissance JSCo works on repair and restoration of buildings in Lviv and the region, including older housing stock and buildings under heritage protection.

Owners usually arrive with a practical problem: damp, a failing roof, windows that let the winter in. The complication is that on a protected building the answer is not simply "replace it" — and the cheapest quote is often the one that creates a legal problem on top of the building problem.

01
The first question

Is the building protected, and how

Protection is not a single status. A building may be an individual monument, or it may sit inside a protected area or buffer zone where the rules reach the exterior, the roofline and sometimes the courtyard. An owner's first task is to establish which applies, in writing, from the competent authority — before designing anything.

Usually possible, with approvals
  • Repair and conservation of original elements
  • Reinstating details that can be documented
  • Structural strengthening designed for the building
  • Discreet modernisation of services inside
  • Roof and drainage repair using appropriate materials
Frequently refused — or undone later
  • Replacing historic joinery with plastic units
  • External insulation that buries a decorated facade
  • New openings, balconies or rooflights added at will
  • Cement renders on walls built to breathe
  • Signage, cabling and units fixed into ornament
02
Order of work

Why the sequence saves money

The costly sequence is the reverse one: demolish, then ask. Materials lost that way cannot be reinstated, and the owner is left both with the enforcement problem and with a building that is worth less than it was.
Choosing a contractor

Four questions that separate the quotes

Two prices for the same facade can differ by a factor of three. The gap is almost never in the labour rate.

What exactly is included?Scaffolding, surveys, documentation, approvals, waste, reinstatement. A short quotation is usually short because things are missing.
Which materials, by name?Mortar, render, paint and their vapour behaviour. On an old wall the wrong material traps water and the damage reappears a few winters later.
Who prepares the documentation?Ask who holds the relevant qualifications for work on protected buildings, and ask to see that this is real before signing.
What happens to what is found?Old buildings hide surprises — rot, earlier alterations, decoration under later paint. Agree in advance how findings are priced and decided.
03
Services

What we do

Surveys

Condition surveys of masonry, roofs, joinery and damp, with findings written down rather than summarised over the phone.

Restoration works

Repair and conservation of facades, plasterwork, stone details, joinery and roofs, on buildings where those materials matter.

General repair

Ordinary repair of ordinary buildings, done properly. Not everything is a monument, and not everything needs to be treated as one.

What we will not do: start work on a protected building without the approvals it requires, or quote a price that assumes nobody will ask. If a proposal depends on that, we will say so at the first meeting and decline.
04
Questions

Asked by owners

i.Can I just replace the windows? They are rotten.

Often they can be repaired, and on a protected building repair may be what is required. Ask for a survey of the existing joinery before ordering replacements — replacement is the decision that cannot be reversed.

ii.Insulation was fitted to the building next door.

That tells you what the neighbours did, not what was permitted. Rules differ by status and by what the facade carries, and enforcement sometimes arrives years later.

iii.How long do approvals take?

Longer than owners expect and not something a contractor can promise. Build the time into the plan and do not let a season's weather push the works ahead of the paperwork.

iv.Is restoration always more expensive?

Not always, and the honest comparison is over decades. A correct repair on a breathable wall outlasts a cheap coating that has to be removed again — together with whatever it damaged.

Contact

Send photographs

The facade, the problem area and, if you have it, the building's documents. That is usually enough to say what the first step should be.

Officevul. Kulparkivska 200a
Lviv 79071, Ukraine
Telephone+380 99 582 36 46
Emailreply@renaissancejsco.com