What does a house refurbishment actually involve?

A full refurbishment is a house taken back to its structure and brought forward again in one programme: stripped out, any structural changes made, rewired and replumbed, plastered throughout, then kitchen, bathrooms, joinery, flooring and decoration. On a typical three bedroom house it is months rather than weeks, and it is usually disruptive enough that living in it is uncomfortable.

The reason to do it in one go rather than a room at a time is that the trades follow each other in a fixed order. A rewire is far cheaper with floors up and walls open. A plasterer in the house for a fortnight costs less per room than the same plasterer coming three times. Doing it in pieces means paying for that sequence more than once.

Strip out first, which is dirtier and slower than people expect and is worth having priced separately so you can see it. Then anything structural, because walls coming out change everything after them. Then first fix: electrics and plumbing run while the walls and floors are open. Then plastering, which is the point the house starts looking like a house again.

After that second fix, kitchen and bathrooms, joinery, flooring and decoration. The psychological trap is the middle: after the strip out the house looks worse than when you bought it, and it stays looking that way for weeks while the expensive invisible work happens.

Old houses hide things, and the same few keep appearing: a joist notched almost through by somebody running a pipe, a wall that is carrying more than it looks like it is carrying, pipework extended four times by four different people, and wiring that has been added to rather than replaced.

None of these are disasters. What makes them a problem is a quote that did not admit they might be there. Ask any builder what they have allowed for behind the plaster and what happens if there is more of it. A quote that says nothing about the unknown is not cheaper than one that does, it is just less complete.

Write down what you actually want the finished house to be like, room by room, before you talk about budget. It is much easier to price a clear brief than a conversation, and much easier to compare two quotes when both were given the same one.

Then get more than one quote, and compare what is in them rather than the number at the bottom. Two honest quotes for the same house can differ substantially, and it is usually because one of them has priced making good, strip out and the unknown properly.