Canberra’s apartment market is younger and more concentrated than the eastern capitals’. There is a modest stock of 1960s and 1970s walk-up units in the inner suburbs, a wave of 1990s and 2000s development, and a large volume of newer buildings through Kingston, Braddon, Belconnen, Gungahlin, Woden and along the light rail corridor. Renovating any of it means working with an owners corporation under the ACT’s unit titles legislation.
It also means working within the same ACT-specific framework as any other renovation here — leasehold land, private certifiers, mandatory Energy Efficiency Rating disclosure — plus one thing apartments have that houses do not: a building whose condition is not your decision but is very much your cost.
Unit Titles and the Owners Corporation
ACT apartments are held under unit title, and every owner is automatically a member of the owners corporation. The units plan defines your unit’s boundaries, and the assumption that you own everything inside your front door is frequently wrong.
Usually yours
- Internal non-structural wall linings, paint and finishes
- Floor coverings laid over the structural floor
- Kitchen and bathroom fixtures, cabinetry and fittings
- Internal doors and hardware
- Light fittings, switches and power points within the unit
- Built-in joinery and non-structural partitions
- Appliances
Usually common property
- The structural slab, structural walls and columns
- External walls and, in most schemes, the windows and doors within them
- Balcony slabs, balustrades and the balcony waterproofing membrane
- The bathroom waterproofing membrane, even though it sits beneath your tiles
- Plumbing and drainage serving more than one unit
- Electrical mains and services in common ducts
- Air conditioning condenser locations and any external plant space
- The roof, lobbies, lifts and car park structure
Get the units plan and the owners corporation rules before you plan anything. Both are obtainable and both determine what is possible.
Getting Approval
What generally needs it
- Any work affecting common property — which includes most bathroom and laundry renovations because of the membrane
- Removing or altering any wall
- Changing floor coverings from carpet to hard flooring, because of acoustic transmission
- Air conditioning with an external condenser
- Anything altering the external appearance — window replacement, balcony enclosure, awnings, screens
- New penetrations through the slab or external walls, including exhaust ducting
- Relocating plumbing connecting to common stacks
What generally does not
- Painting internally
- Replacing kitchen cabinetry in the same position without touching stacks
- Replacing light fittings and internal doors
- Recarpeting like for like
How to get it
- Read the owners corporation rules first. Schemes vary from permissive to restrictive, and some contain hard prohibitions on hard flooring above ground level.
- Understand what level of approval is required. Some works can be approved by the executive committee; others need a general meeting resolution, and some require a specified majority. Find out which applies before ordering anything.
- Submit a complete proposal — drawings, scope, materials, program, contractors with licence numbers and insurance certificates, and the acoustic performance of any new flooring.
- Expect conditions — working hours, lift protection, common area protection, waste management, a bond, and an obligation to make good.
- Factor in the meeting cycle. Where a general meeting is required, this is frequently the longest single item in an apartment renovation program.
- Get it in writing and keep the minutes recording the resolution.
The acoustic issue
Replacing carpet with timber or tile is the most common source of dispute in Australian apartment living, and Canberra’s concrete-slab buildings transmit impact noise efficiently. Most schemes require an acoustic underlay meeting a specified performance level and many require a report. Owners have been required to remove completed floors. Do not proceed on an assumption.
Development and Building Approval
- Internal non-structural work is generally exempt from a development application
- Structural change, new openings, balcony enclosure and external appearance changes require a DA
- Building approval and a building commencement notice from a private certifier are required for structural work and commonly for wet area rebuilds
- In a Class 2 building — which most Canberra apartment buildings are — fire safety provisions apply to the work, including fire separation between units and the integrity of any penetration through a fire-rated element
- Any penetration of a fire-rated slab or wall must be fire-stopped by a competent person and certified
The framework is in do you need council approval to renovate in Canberra.
The Practical Constraints
Access and logistics
- Everything moves through a lift. Materials, waste, appliances, stone benchtops. Allow 20 to 40 per cent above the equivalent house cost for the same scope.
- Waste removal is genuinely difficult. There is rarely anywhere for a skip and bagged waste through a lift and a lobby is slow.
- Check the lift dimensions before the joiner designs an island. A stone slab that will not fit becomes a jointed benchtop.
- Restricted hours, typically weekdays with limited Saturday work, which stretches the program.
- Parking for trades in Kingston, Braddon and the town centres is expensive and time-limited, and trades charge for the time.
Services
- Plumbing stacks are fixed. Moving a wet area away from the existing stack is generally impossible.
- Post-tensioned slabs are common in newer buildings. Cutting or coring one without a scan and written engineering approval can sever a tendon, which is catastrophic. Budget $1,500 to $4,000 for scanning and sign-off on any project that needs coring.
- Electrical capacity is set by the building’s mains and your unit’s allocation. An all-electric conversion — induction cooking, heat pump hot water, additional heating — may exceed it, and this is the binding constraint in many older Canberra buildings.
- Exhaust ducting must discharge somewhere, usually a common riser with limited capacity.
- Air conditioning condensers need an approved location, and in many schemes there simply is not one available.
Thermal Performance: The Canberra Apartment Problem
Apartments here face the same climate as houses and have far fewer options for dealing with it, because the elements that matter most are common property.
- Windows are common property in most schemes. You cannot unilaterally replace single glazing with double, however cold the unit is. Building-wide replacement is a levy decision.
- External walls are common property, so external insulation is not your decision.
- The rental ceiling insulation standard exempts lower-floor units in apartment complexes, and provides a temporary exemption for top-floor units where the owners corporation refuses permission — an acknowledgement that apartment owners have limited control.
- The Energy Efficiency Rating is still disclosed at sale and lease, so a cold unit is visible to every buyer and tenant regardless of whose fault it is.
What you can actually do
- Secondary glazing — an internal panel over the existing window. Reversible, does not alter the external appearance, and delivers most of the thermal benefit of double glazing. Usually approvable and frequently the single best improvement available to an apartment owner here.
- Comprehensive draught sealing around the entry door, window frames and service penetrations within your unit
- Heavy lined curtains with pelmets. Never omit the pelmet — it is what stops the cold air convecting down the glass and across the floor.
- Internal insulation to external walls where you are relining anyway, with a vapour-control approach appropriate to a cold climate and the owners corporation’s approval
- Efficient reverse-cycle heating where a condenser location exists, sized correctly
- Underfloor heating in the bathroom, which is within your unit and disproportionately improves how the apartment feels
- Ceiling fans on reverse in winter to destratify warm air
- Raise ceiling insulation with the owners corporation if you are on the top floor — it benefits you and the building
What It Costs
- Cosmetic refresh — paint, flooring, lighting, tapware: $22,000 to $48,000
- Kitchen replacement in the existing layout: $34,000 to $70,000
- Bathroom rebuild: $31,000 to $52,000
- Full internal renovation, two-bedroom apartment: $135,000 to $310,000
- High-specification full renovation: $310,000 to $650,000
Add owners corporation application fees and bonds, acoustic reports, slab scanning and engineering where coring is involved, certifier fees, and the cost of an extended program.
Where the Value Is
Reliable
- Kitchen and bathroom — the two rooms that sell an apartment
- Opening the living area where the wall is non-structural and the scheme permits
- Secondary glazing and draught sealing, which show up in the disclosed Energy Efficiency Rating and are genuinely felt in July
- Storage, which apartments lack and buyers notice
- Consistent flooring with compliant acoustic underlay
- Reverse-cycle heating where a condenser location exists
- Making the balcony usable where the scheme permits — decking tiles, screening, planting
Poor returns
- Anything specified above the building’s general standard — the building sets the ceiling
- Structural change requiring a general meeting and engineering
- Enclosing a balcony, usually refused
- Highly personal design in a conservative buyer market
Due Diligence Before Buying to Renovate
- Read the owners corporation rules in full. Some schemes effectively prohibit meaningful renovation.
- Read the last three years of minutes — disputes, defects, planned works and how the committee treats owners who want to renovate.
- Read the sinking fund forecast. A building facing window replacement, waterproofing rectification or facade works will levy you regardless of what you spend inside. Canberra has had well-publicised defect issues in some newer stock, so this matters here.
- Get a building report on the common property, not just the unit.
- Get the units plan and confirm your boundaries and whether the windows are yours.
- Check the slab type — post-tensioned slabs constrain coring.
- Check the electrical allocation if you plan an all-electric kitchen.
- Get the existing Energy Efficiency Rating, which tells you honestly how the unit performs and what a buyer will see.
- Ask what renovations have been approved before, and on what conditions.
Running the Project
- Get written owners corporation approval before ordering anything or engaging a trade
- Notify the neighbours in person before the committee hears about it
- Use trades who work in apartment buildings regularly
- Book the lift, protect the common areas, and leave them cleaner than you found them
- Photograph the common areas before you start
- Provide contractors’ licence details and insurance certificates in advance
- Keep strictly to the approved hours
- Photograph the waterproofing before tiling — in an apartment a leak becomes someone else’s ceiling and your liability
- Have all fire-stopping of penetrations certified in writing
- Get an updated Energy Efficiency Rating at completion
Apartment renovation in Canberra is more constrained than house renovation and more predictable once the constraints are understood. The projects that fail are the ones that started before the owners corporation said yes, or that bought into a building without reading its sinking fund forecast.
A related guide to consider while planning this work is Bathroom Renovation Costs in Canberra: Real Prices, Real Timelines.
For the underlying cost detail, see kitchen renovation costs and bathroom renovation costs in Canberra.
Secondary Glazing: The Canberra Apartment Answer
Because windows are common property in most schemes, apartment owners here have very little control over the single biggest source of heat loss in their unit. Secondary glazing is the exception, and it is worth understanding properly because it is frequently the best improvement available.
What it is
An additional glazed panel fitted to the internal face of the existing window, creating a sealed air gap. The original window is untouched, the external appearance is unchanged, and the installation is reversible.
Why it works here
- It addresses the actual problem. In a Canberra winter, most of a unit’s heat loss is through single glazing and the air leakage around it.
- It is usually approvable. Because nothing changes externally and nothing is permanently altered, owners corporations that would never approve window replacement will often approve secondary glazing.
- It delivers most of the thermal benefit of double glazing at roughly a third to a half of the cost — $400 to $900 per square metre against $1,000 to $2,200.
- It substantially reduces condensation on the internal surface, which is what causes mould on reveals and in the corners of external walls.
- It cuts noise, which in Kingston, Braddon and along the light rail corridor is a real benefit.
- It improves the Energy Efficiency Rating, which is disclosed at sale and lease.
What to check before proceeding
- Whether the owners corporation rules treat it as an alteration to common property — most do not, but confirm in writing
- Whether the existing window frames can carry the additional fixing
- That the system allows the original window to still be opened and cleaned
- That it does not obstruct any required means of egress or ventilation
- Whether a magnetic, sliding or hinged system suits the way you use each window
Combined with comprehensive draught sealing within the unit and heavy lined curtains with pelmets, secondary glazing is the closest an ACT apartment owner can get to fixing a cold unit without a scheme-wide decision.
A related guide to consider while planning this work is Post-Tensioned Slabs in Apartment Renovations: Fixings and Services.
Working With the Owners Corporation
In a small market, the committee is likely to be your neighbours rather than a professional body, which changes how the process works.
Before you lodge anything
- Talk to your immediate neighbours first, in person, before the committee hears about it. People object to being surprised more than they object to noise.
- Be specific about the disruption — which weeks are noisy, when demolition happens, when the lift will be occupied, when it ends.
- Give them a contact number so a complaint goes to someone who can act on it rather than becoming a formal grievance.
- Ask what would make it easier for them. Sometimes it is avoiding a particular morning, and offering that costs nothing.
Making the decision easy
- Submit drawings, scope, materials, program, contractors with licence numbers and insurance certificates, and the acoustic performance of any new flooring
- Address the scheme rules point by point rather than leaving the committee to work it out
- Offer the bond and the make-good undertaking before being asked
- Nominate a single point of contact for the duration
- Reference any comparable renovation the scheme has approved before
- Confirm in writing how waste will leave the building and how common areas will be protected
- Find out the meeting cycle first. Where a general meeting resolution is required, that date is your real start date, and it may be a quarter away.