How Long Does a House Renovation Take in Bournemouth?
How long does a house renovation take in Bournemouth? For a typical three-bed home, a light refresh usually takes 6 to 12 weeks on site. A full renovation, with a rewire, new plumbing and heating, a new kitchen and bathroom and fresh plaster throughout, is more like 4 to 6 months.
That's the short answer, and it's the one we give most people on the first phone call. The honest answer depends on the house. A 1930s semi in Winton or Southbourne behaves very differently from a Victorian villa in Boscombe or Westbourne once the walls come off, and that difference shows up in the programme. Here's how we plan renovation timelines on jobs across Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch, and what tends to push them out.
Typical renovation timelines in Bournemouth
These are on-site durations for a typical three-bed semi or detached house, based on the jobs we run locally:
Light refresh (decorating, flooring, one new bathroom, some electrical upgrades): 6 to 12 weeks
Mid-level renovation (new kitchen and bathroom, partial rewire, patch replastering): 10 to 16 weeks
Full renovation (strip-out, full rewire and replumb, new heating, kitchen, bathrooms, plastering throughout): 4 to 6 months
Full renovation plus structural changes or an extension: 6 to 9 months, sometimes longer if planning permission is needed first
On top of that, allow a few weeks before we start for the survey, drawings, quotes and ordering. People often forget this bit, but it's where a good programme is won or lost.
How a full renovation runs, stage by stage
Every job is different, but the order of work almost never changes. On a full renovation it usually looks like this:
Survey, design and ordering: 2 to 6 weeks before anyone picks up a tool. Long-lead items like the kitchen and windows get ordered now.
Strip-out: 1 to 2 weeks. Old kitchens, bathrooms, ceilings and tired plaster come out and we see what we're really dealing with.
Structural work: 1 to 3 weeks if walls are coming out, with steels, padstones and building control inspections.
First fix: 2 to 4 weeks for new cabling, pipework, heating runs and any underfloor heating.
Plastering and drying: 1 to 2 weeks. Fresh plaster needs several days before a mist coat, and longer in a cold, damp Bournemouth winter.
Second fix: 2 to 4 weeks. Kitchen fitting, sanitaryware, sockets and switches, doors, skirting and architrave.
Decorating, flooring, testing and snagging: 2 to 3 weeks, finishing with electrical certificates and building control sign-off.
Trades overlap wherever they safely can, which is one of the advantages of using one firm for the lot. Our electricians and plumbers are part of the same team as our builders, so the rewire and heating work slots straight in behind the strip-out rather than waiting on someone else's diary.
What slows a Bournemouth renovation down
In our experience it's rarely the building work itself. It's usually one of these:
Lead times. Kitchens typically take 4 to 10 weeks from order, and windows and external doors 6 to 12 weeks. If they're ordered late, the site sits waiting for them. We push for these decisions early for exactly that reason.
What's behind the walls. Older houses in Boscombe, Westbourne and Talbot Woods regularly hide old rubber-sheathed wiring, lead pipework, lath and plaster ceilings that come down in one piece, or joists that have rotted under a bay window. That's why we always survey before quoting, and why we build a sensible contingency into the programme on period properties.
Changing the spec mid-job. Moving a kitchen island after the first fix is done means moving cables and pipes that are already buried. It's doable, but it costs days.
Approvals. If structural work needs building control inspections, or the house is in a conservation area, those visits and decisions have to fit into the programme too.
What does a renovation cost in Bournemouth?
Time and cost go together, because the longer a job runs, the more labour it carries. As a guide, for a typical three-bed house in Bournemouth or Poole we'd expect a light refresh to come in at around £30,000 to £55,000, and a full renovation at roughly £100,000 to £180,000 depending on size, condition and finish. Period properties sit towards the top of that range more often than not. If you're wondering why two figures for the same house can look so different, our post on why builders' quotes vary so much in Dorset explains what's usually behind it.
Every quote we give is itemised and comes with a written programme, so you can see where the time and the money are going before you commit.
Can you live in the house while it's being renovated?
On a light refresh, yes, almost always. We'll work room by room and keep a bathroom and some sort of kitchen running.
On a full renovation it's harder. During the strip-out, first fix and plastering there'll be stretches with no power on some circuits, no heating and a lot of dust. Plenty of our Bournemouth clients stay with family or rent locally for the middle six to eight weeks, then move back in for the second fix and decorating. We'll tell you up front which weeks are the tough ones so you can plan around them. It's much easier than finding out on a Monday morning.
If you'd like to see how one of these projects comes together in real life, our general construction and building page covers the full range of work we take on.
Related reading
Planning a renovation in Bournemouth or Poole?
Tell us about the house and what you want from it. We'll come out, survey it properly and give you an itemised quote with a week-by-week programme, so you know how long the work will take before anything starts. Book a survey visit with Complete Builds and we'll get a date in the diary. We cover Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch, Ferndown and the wider Dorset and Hampshire area.
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