Staying at home through the construction process

Staying home while we chip away...

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Have an extension or renovation in mind?

Great, sounds like exciting times ahead with the additional space you are going to get from the extension or renovation. But it could possibly mean you may need to find alternate accommodation for the duration of the process, which can be quite a daunting and expensive task. One of the most common reasons to decide to find alternative accommodation would be the inability to use essential spaces such as the bathrooms, toilet & kitchen during the process.

Staging
The easiest way to overcome this is to stage the construction process, thereby reducing the inconvenience caused to you and your family while you stay in your home during the process. While this is the easiest way for you, it does push the build process out longer & sometimes could lead to higher construction costs. It is best to think about staging your build at the start of the design process especially if you are adding on an additional bathroom and renovating the existing one, relocating or renovating your kitchen.

In order to renovate an existing area, it would require demolition, new flooring, framing, lining & fixtures, which could take an average of 1 – 3 months depending on the scope of works, which could leave you without an essential space for that duration of time. Staging this process will help you overcome the inconvenience not only for that duration of time but will also make your life simpler in terms of planning your life about the construction process.

We recently priced a fairly large job in the city, which required some amount of renovation to the existing portion of the house and addition of a large extension as well. While it is a straight forward job on plans, the owners wanted to have a functioning bathroom at all times through the build since it would require demolition of their existing bathroom. There were 2 options made available to the owners since they wanted a functioning bathroom, either hire a portable bathroom or stage the build.

In order to keep costs down it was decided to stage the build into 2 parts, this allowed the home owners to have a functioning bathroom throughout the process.

Part 1:
Demolish required walls & ceiling from the existing lounge & dining area to make way for the new frames for the proposed bedroom, ensuite & walk in robe
Manufacture & install framing for new walls
Strip existing joinery for this area
Install new joinery in these areas
Sand floor for waterproofing
Plumbing new pipes & wastes
Electrical works for new wiring
Insulation, GIB & doors installed ready for paint
Floor waterproofing applied
Painting completed
Showers & tiling installed
Bathroom fixtures installed

Once the above tasks were completed and the owners had a function ensuite and new master bedroom, the builders were then able to move on to demolition of the kitchen & bathroom to make way for the new bath, toilet & laundry areas. This process was carried on along side works for the extension, thereby allowing the home owners to have the rest of their renovation & new extension complete at the same time.

Part 2:
Complete rest of demolition and new works for renovation alongside completion of extension.

Hiring portable bathrooms
The next option incase the nature of your renovation/extension plans do not allow you to retain a working bathroom through the process is to hire & place portable bathrooms onsite. Portable bathrooms have come a long way from being self contained and requiring weekly servicing. While those options still exist, there is another option of having a portable bathroom that hooks up to your homes existing electrical, water & waste lines. These portable bathrooms come as single stand-alone units that can be parked on the lawn, driveway or any available space on your property. These portable bathrooms have lights, heater, toilets that flush & showers and basins that have running hot water. They are easily transportable and most come insulated as well to enable use through the winter months as well. While this is a great option to reduce build times, they do add on quote a bit onto your build cost and may be cheaper then finding alternative accommodation in case it is not possible to stage the build.