The highest-uncertainty work in construction — which is exactly why it needs the tightest systems and the most honest budget conversation up front.
Brisbane is the largest renovation market in Australia. It is also the market where budgets are most often wrong, and the reason is structural rather than dishonest: nobody knows what is behind the wall until the wall is open.
The professional response is not to pretend otherwise. It is to carry a properly sized contingency, open up the unknowns early, and tell the owner what has been found the day it is found. A renovation budget without a contingency line is not a budget — it is a hope.
Ground and upper level additions, including the structural work that makes them possible.
Full internal reconfiguration, services replacement and finishes.
The Brisbane speciality — raising a Queenslander and building legal habitable space beneath.
Work within Brisbane's character overlay, where what you can change externally is constrained before design begins.
Wet area rebuilds with waterproofing that is documented and certified, not assumed.
Restumping, subfloor repair, termite and water damage rectification.
Previous-role renovation and refurbishment experience includes a community kindergarten refurbishment involving asbestos-containing material remediation, a Gold Coast residential renovation at Southport, and office refurbishment works in Mackay.
Projects marked previous role were delivered by members of the Nucore team in senior roles at previous companies, not under the Nucore entity.
Usually because of contingency and scope, not labour rates. A quote that carries no allowance for what is behind the wall will always look cheaper than one that does — right up until the wall comes off. Compare the inclusions and the contingency line before comparing the totals.
Large parts of inner Brisbane sit within a character overlay protecting pre-1947 housing and streetscape. It constrains what you can change to the street-facing form of the house and can require planning approval for work that would be exempt elsewhere. It needs checking before design, not after.
More than a new build. A new build can reasonably run a 3 to 5 per cent contingency because the site is known. A renovation of an older home should carry substantially more, because the unknowns are real and the ones that appear tend to be structural, waterproofing or asbestos related.
Sometimes, and it always costs more than it looks like it will — separation, temporary services, restricted working areas and slower sequencing. We would rather cost that honestly than surprise you with it.