Clients often ask for a fit-out when they mean a renovation, or the reverse. The label matters because it determines what has to be surveyed, what can be reused and where the real risk sits.
Fit-out: building into an empty envelope
A fit-out takes a shell or a stripped space and installs everything that makes it usable: partitions, ceilings, flooring, joinery, lighting and the services that feed them. The envelope is known, the substrate is new and the unknowns are relatively low.
Fit-out risk is concentrated in coordination — services above the ceiling, sequencing between trades and long-lead materials.
Renovation: working against what is already there
A renovation modifies an existing, often occupied, property. Concealed conditions are the defining risk: old waterproofing, undocumented alterations, tired distribution boards, substrates that fail once the finish is removed.
Renovation risk is concentrated in discovery. That is why a proper opening-up survey and a clear variation process are worth more than a lower headline price.
How this changes the numbers
Fit-out pricing can be firm early, because the scope is drawn. Renovation pricing should be firm on the known scope and explicit about what is provisional until opened up. Anyone giving you a fixed price for a renovation without opening anything up is pricing a guess.
- Fit-out: higher material content, tighter coordination, more predictable programme
- Renovation: higher protection and enabling content, more contingency, more inspection
Tell us the property and the outcome you want, and we'll tell you honestly which of the two you are dealing with before anyone prices anything.