A fixed price renovation is possible when the right work is done before the job is priced. You’ll hear plenty of builders say a renovation can’t be fixed-priced.
The thinking is that you never really know what’s behind the walls until you start pulling them apart, so the price has to move as the job goes.
I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to be that way. With the right preparation, a fixed price renovation can be quoted with far more certainty than most people expect. You CAN get a fixed price on a renovation. What makes the difference is how much work goes in before anyone quotes the job. That’s worth understanding before you sign anything.
What Should Happen Before Your Fixed Price Renovation Is Priced
To price a renovation properly, a builder has to understand the home first, and that takes more than a quick walk-through and a ballpark number.
It means getting trades to the site to look at everything that can be seen: the electrical and the meter board, the plumbing and hot water, a camera through the drains. If you’ve already had a pest or building report done, say from when you bought the place, that gets read too.
Most of what you might worry about in an older home can be picked up at this stage, as long as someone takes the time to look. A meter board is easy to get to, so it’s clear early on whether it’s up to scratch. Old wiring usually isn’t a surprise either, because on a job of any size that section is often being rewired anyway. The drains, the plumbing, the hot water: all of it can be checked before a price is set.
Asbestos is the one people tend to worry about most. It’s usually fairly visible, and it can be tested for during quoting. In older homes it actually turns up more often than termites, mainly because these places were built from hardwood, which termites tend to leave alone. It can be inspected and tested while the job is being quoted, the affected area measured up, and a small contingency set aside in case a bit more appears.
Why That Lets The Price Hold
Once the home is understood, its realities can be built into the price from the start. That’s the foundation of a fixed price renovation that holds up once the work begins.
Take a bathroom, for instance. Pull one out of an older home and there’s a fair chance of some rotten floor underneath. That’s just part of working on an older place, so it gets allowed for, and it’s already in your price. A fixed price. Nothing has to change when it turns up, because it was expected all along.
That’s really what a fixed price comes down to. It isn’t a guess that gets corrected as the job goes. It’s built on what’s actually been looked at.
What Happens If Something Isn’t Picked Up
No builder can catch everything. Short of demolishing the house before quoting it, which nobody’s going to do, there’ll always be the odd thing that only appears once the work is underway. When the upfront work has been done properly, though, it’s rare. I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve had to go back to a client about something that hadn’t already been allowed for.
If it’s something nobody could reasonably have seen, you should expect to be shown what’s there and brought into the decision about what to do next. If it were your home, you’d want to see it for yourself. And fairly enough, how would anyone have known?
But if it’s something the builder should have picked up or allowed for, that cost should sit with them, not you. I had an old Queenslander once where a ceiling turned out to be badly wavy after it was stripped back, something nobody could have seen earlier. Battening it flat was the only fix, and I wore that cost rather than passing it on, because it was one I felt should have been allowed for. That’s the standard worth holding any builder to.
What To Ask Before You Commit
When you’re comparing quotes, the number at the bottom of the page tells you less than you’d think. What tells you more is the work behind it. So it’s worth asking how much time has gone into assessing your home, whether trades have been through during quoting, what’s actually been inspected or tested, what’s been allowed for in the price, and how things are handled if something does get missed.
The answers will tell you far more about how your renovation is likely to go than the price on its own.
If You’re Still In The Planning Stage
The renovations that run smoothly are nearly always the ones set up properly before anyone picks up a tool, where the home was understood, the right trades were involved early, and the price reflected the real job.
If that’s where you’re headed, there’s a free guide that can help you start on the right foot:
The 5 Mistakes People Make When Planning Their Renovation (And How to Avoid Them)
It’s practical and straightforward, and it’s there to help you make good decisions early. It’s also a useful starting point if you’re planning a fixed price renovation and want to avoid costly surprises.
For further guidance on choosing reputable builders and avoiding budget builders trick, explore resources from the Association of Professional Builders and Master Builders Queensland.
