Nobody can quote your flat over the phone, but anyone can tell you how a renovation budget breaks down. Here is the shape of the number, the lines people forget, and why two quotes for the same work land forty per cent apart.
The first question on almost every renovation enquiry is what it will cost per square foot, and the honest answer is that the question cannot be answered in that form. A rate per square foot is an output of a scope, not an input to one. Two 700 sq.ft. flats on the same floor of the same building can differ by three times over, depending on whether the bathrooms are being stripped to the slab or left alone.
What can be described usefully is the structure of the budget - which lines exist, roughly what share each one takes, and which decisions move the total. Once you know that, you can read a quote properly and ask the questions that actually change the number.
The eight lines every renovation budget has
Shares vary with specification, but for a full residential renovation the proportions usually land somewhere in these bands:
- Civil work, flooring and tiling - typically the largest single line, often around a third of the total
- Kitchen, including platform, counter, dado and units - commonly a sixth to a fifth on its own
- Plumbing, drainage and sanitaryware - materially higher if any wet area is being moved
- Electrical - rewiring, points, DB and light fittings, where fittings are often budgeted separately and then forgotten
- POP or gypsum false ceiling and cornices
- Painting - putty, primer and finish coats, quoted per coat rather than per wall
- Doors, windows, hardware and safety grills
- Debris removal, protection of common areas, hoisting and site cleaning
Note what dominates: civil, tiling and the kitchen together usually account for around half the budget before a single light fitting is chosen. That is where a decision changes the total, and it is also the part of the job that is hardest to redo later.
The five decisions that actually move the number
- Whether wet areas move. Keeping a bathroom and kitchen in place means reusing the existing drainage. Moving either means new lines, new falls, fresh waterproofing and, in many buildings, a conversation with the society - and it is the single biggest cost jump available.
- Tile format and material. A large-format tile is not simply a larger version of a small one: it needs a flatter substrate, full back-buttering, more skilled labour and produces more waste on cuts in a small room. The labour difference can exceed the material difference.
- Kitchen specification. Counter material, shutter finish and hardware brand span a wider price range than anything else in the flat.
- Number of bathrooms in scope. Bathrooms are the most labour-dense square footage in a home - waterproofing, ponding test, falls, dado, plumbing, fittings - and each one carries a disproportionate share of the total.
- Whether you live there during the work. Occupied renovations run in phases, with protection, daily clean-down and restricted noise hours. That is real cost, and it is real time.
The lines people forget until they arrive
These rarely appear in an initial quote and almost always appear in the final bill:
- The society deposit, and any renovation or debris charge levied alongside it
- Debris removal at the municipal rate, which is charged by volume and is not trivial on a full strip-out
- Rent or temporary accommodation if you move out, plus storage and shifting both ways
- Sanitaryware, CP fittings, light fittings and hardware, where a quote often reads material excluded
- Loose furniture, curtains, wardrobes and appliances, which are frequently confused with the renovation budget and then blow it
- A contingency. Ten per cent is a sensible reserve on a flat that is being opened up, because what is behind a twenty-year-old wall is genuinely unknown until it is opened.
Why two quotes for the same work land forty per cent apart
In almost every case it is not because one contractor is greedy and the other is generous. It is because they are not quoting the same job.
- The scope is not written down, so each contractor has assumed a different one
- Material grade is unnamed - tile, adhesive, waterproofing chemical, wiring and paint each have a wide quality range that a single rate hides
- One quote includes material and the other is labour-only, which is a difference that swamps everything else
- Supervision is priced in one and absent in the other, which shows up as quality rather than as a line item
- Exclusions are buried at the bottom of the cheaper quote and become variations later
The single most useful thing an owner can do is refuse to compare on the bottom line until every contractor has quoted against the same written scope. Write out the room-by-room list yourself, name the brands where you care, state clearly what is excluded, and hand the same sheet to each of them. Any real difference that survives that exercise is a difference worth paying attention to.
Why we do not publish a rate
Chamunda Constructions quotes renovation work against a scope agreed on site, after seeing the flat, because publishing a rate without a scope would only be useful for winning enquiries and would not survive first contact with an actual building. What we can do is visit, walk the flat with you, and come back with a line-by-line scope you can put in front of anyone else as well.