Complete Home Renovations & Refurbishment

Renovating a whole house or taking on a major refurbishment? EvoHome Improvements is an independent consultancy. We help you sequence the work, settle a realistic specification and budget, and coordinate comparable written quotations from vetted independent contractors who carry out the physical work across Hampshire and the wider South of England.

A whole-house renovation is not a large version of a single job. It is many trades, in a required order, on one property, usually with a fixed budget and a family waiting to move back in. Most renovation projects that go badly wrong do so because the sequence and the specification were settled too late, not because the individual trades were poor.

## Establish condition before design Before any design work, the property's actual condition needs to be understood: roof covering and structure, damp and ventilation, drainage, the electrical installation, the heating system, window and door condition, insulation levels, and any structural movement. A building survey, an electrical condition report and a drainage check at this stage cost far less than discovering the same issues after the plaster has gone on.

## The correct sequence Renovation work follows a broadly fixed order: structural and roof works, external weathertightness, drainage, first-fix electrics and plumbing, insulation, plastering, second fix, kitchen and bathroom installation, flooring, and decoration. Interrupting that order is the single most common cause of rework.

Decisions on kitchens, bathrooms, tiling, heating layout and lighting should be settled before first fix, because they determine where services run. ## Structural alterations and open-plan changes Most whole-house projects include some reconfiguration: removing a wall, forming an opening, moving a staircase, or opening the ground floor into a single space.

These need structural calculations, Building Control involvement and, where a shared wall is affected, party wall notices. They also change heating and acoustics in ways that are easier to design for than to fix afterwards. ## Energy, heating and compliance Renovation is the natural point to improve fabric efficiency, and Building Regulations apply to much of the work: insulation on renovated thermal elements, ventilation, electrical work, glazing and heating alterations.

If the property is a rental, the minimum energy efficiency standard applies. If the boiler or heating system is being replaced, the enlarged or better-insulated house should be reassessed rather than matched to the old system. ## Living arrangements, budget and contingency Decide early whether the household will live on site.

Phased renovation around an occupied house is slower and usually more expensive per unit of work, but avoids rental costs. Budget should include professional fees, temporary accommodation if required, waste and skips, and a contingency of at least 15 to 20 per cent — older properties routinely reveal issues once opened up.

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