Ask three builders how long a refurbishment takes and you will get three different answers, because the honest one is always the same: it depends on scope. This guide sets out realistic timescales based on the projects we carry out across Letchworth and North Hertfordshire, so you can plan your budget, your living arrangements and your patience accordingly.
A refurbishment can mean anything from refreshing one tired room to gutting a whole house, so the first job is to pin down what you actually mean. As a rough rule, a single room refurbishment such as a kitchen or bathroom takes two to four weeks on site. A partial refurbishment covering, say, a new kitchen, a bathroom, rewiring and redecoration throughout usually runs eight to twelve weeks.
A full house refurbishment, where the property is stripped back to bare walls with new plumbing, wiring, plastering, flooring and decoration, typically takes three to six months for a three bedroom house. Add a structural element such as removing a load bearing wall or a loft conversion and you should plan for six to nine months from first strip out to final coat of paint.
The on site work is only part of the story. Design, surveys, quotations and ordering materials commonly add six to twelve weeks before the skip arrives. Kitchens and made to measure joinery often have lead times of four to eight weeks, and some windows and steel beams can take longer, so a good builder will want those ordered well before starting.
In Letchworth there is an extra step many homeowners are not aware of. Large parts of the town sit within the Letchworth Garden City conservation area, and most properties are also covered by a Scheme of Management run by the Heritage Foundation, which means external alterations usually need consent even where normal planning permission would not. Approvals can add several weeks, so factor this in early rather than discovering it mid project.
Older housing stock is the biggest wildcard. Many homes here date from the early 1900s onwards, and once plaster comes off you can find perished wiring, lead pipework, damp or undersized joists that were invisible during the quote. We would rather flag this risk honestly than pretend it never happens: on full refurbishments of period properties, hidden works add two to four weeks more often than not.
The other common culprits are decision changes mid build, slow supply of client chosen items such as tiles or sanitaryware, and waiting on third parties like structural engineers or building control inspections. A sensible contingency is to add ten to fifteen percent to whatever timescale you are quoted, in time as well as money.
Most delays are avoidable with decisions made early. Choose your kitchen, bathroom fittings, tiles, flooring and paint colours before work starts, not during it, because every mid project change ripples through the trades that follow. Ask your builder for a written programme showing the order of works, then agree a single point of contact for queries so decisions do not sit in limbo.
It also pays to be realistic about living arrangements. For a full refurbishment, moving out usually shortens the programme by two to four weeks, because trades can work in every room at once and dust protection is far simpler. If you must stay in, agree which rooms will be habitable at each stage and expect the overall job to take longer.
You can, but expect it to add two to four weeks to the programme and a lot of dust to daily life. For rewiring and replumbing the water and power will be off for periods, so many people move out for at least the strip out stage.
Usually because they are pricing different scopes: one may include making good, decoration and disposal while another does not. Ask each builder for an itemised quote and a week by week programme so you are comparing like for like.
Generally yes, by a few weeks. Original wiring, lath and plaster walls and settlement movement mean more remedial work, and external changes often need consent from the Heritage Foundation under the Scheme of Management before they can start.
Tell Glenn about your job and we’ll get back to you with a clear, no-obligation quote.