Costs7 min
What actually drives the cost of a home renovation in Cape Town
Two identical-looking houses on the same street can differ by a factor of three on the same brief. Here is where that difference actually comes from.
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Guides
Written by a builder, for people about to spend a lot of money with one. Some of it will cost us work, which is rather the point.
Guides
12 published
Topics
5 areas
Cost
Free, no signup
Written by
Eddie Whelan
CostsChoosing a builderCoastal buildingPlanningLiving through it
Choosing a builder8 min
How to choose a builder in Cape Town without getting burnt
Everyone knows someone with a building horror story. Almost all of them were avoidable at the quoting stage.
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Coastal building7 min
Building on the Cape West Coast: salt, wind and sand
Inland specification on a coastal site is the most expensive saving in South African building.
Read the guidePlanning6 min
Do I need council approval for my building work?
The line is simpler than most people think, and the consequences of getting it wrong turn up years later when you try to sell.
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Coastal building6 min
Why bathrooms leak, and how to build one that does not
A bathroom is a waterproofing job with tiles on top. Almost every failure we are called to fix comes down to the same three things.
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Coastal building6 min
Damp in your home: which of the four kinds do you have?
The reason so many homeowners have had the same wall repaired three times is that nobody diagnosed it before treating it.
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Planning6 min
Renovate or move? A straight look at the maths
Moving feels like the clean option. It is also the one with a large pile of costs that never appear in the listing price.
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Living through it5 min
Living in your house during a renovation
Most people can stay. Whether it is bearable comes down to a handful of decisions made before week one.
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Planning6 min
Can my house take a second storey?
On a plot where you cannot build outwards, up is the obvious answer. Whether it is available to you is a question about the foundations.
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Costs6 min
What actually adds value when you flip a property
On an investment property, every rand has to come back with a friend. Some of them reliably do.
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Planning5 min
How long will my renovation actually take?
Some parts of a build are set by physics and cannot be sped up by anyone, at any price.
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Choosing a builder5 min
What does turnkey actually mean, and is it worth it?
The word gets used loosely. What it should mean is that the gaps between trades are somebody else's problem.
Read the guideA note on numbers
Plenty of builders' sites publish rand-per-square-metre figures that mean nothing without a specification attached. We would rather explain what actually drives a price and then quote your job properly.
What we will tell you
The cost drivers, ranked, and which ones you control
What we will not
A per-square-metre number with no specification behind it
What to do instead
Send us the job and get a sectioned quote you can read
Next step
When you are ready to talk about the actual job, Eddie will come and look at it.