Most Brisbane renovations run longer than the homeowner expected, and in most cases the builder’s construction estimate was accurate. The gap sits either side of construction — design, approvals, procurement, and the weeks lost to decisions nobody made on time.
A related guide to consider while planning this work is How Long Does a Bathroom Renovation Take?.
Brisbane adds two variables the southern capitals do not have in the same form: a character overlay that can convert a two-week building approval into a nine-month development application, and a summer storm season that makes any work with an open roof genuinely risky between November and March.
End-to-End Timelines by Project Type
Bathroom renovation
- Design and product selection — 2 to 6 weeks
- Builder availability and booking — 4 to 12 weeks
- Building approval, where required — 2 to 4 weeks
- Construction on site — 3 to 4 weeks
- Total: 2 to 5 months
Kitchen renovation
- Design and cabinetmaker documentation — 3 to 6 weeks
- Joinery manufacture — 4 to 6 weeks after site measure
- Construction on site — 4 to 6 weeks, including a 7 to 10 day pause for stone templating
- Total: 3 to 4 months
Restumping
- Inspection and quotes — 2 to 4 weeks
- Building approval and engineering — 3 to 5 weeks
- On site — 1 to 3 weeks
- Making good internally afterwards — 2 to 4 weeks
- Total: 2 to 4 months
Covered deck or outdoor room
- Design and documentation — 3 to 8 weeks
- Building approval — 2 to 4 weeks
- Development application if street-visible in a character area — 8 to 26 weeks
- Construction — 4 to 10 weeks
- Total: 3 to 5 months, or 8 to 12 months if a development application is triggered
Ground-floor rear extension, no development application
- Design and documentation — 8 to 16 weeks
- Building approval — 2 to 4 weeks
- Tender and contract — 4 to 8 weeks
- Construction — 14 to 26 weeks
- Total: 6 to 12 months
Extension requiring a development application
- Design and documentation — 10 to 20 weeks
- Development approval — 8 to 36 weeks
- Building approval — 2 to 4 weeks
- Tender and contract — 4 to 8 weeks
- Construction — 14 to 26 weeks
- Total: 10 to 22 months
Raise and build under
- Feasibility assessment — 1 to 3 weeks
- Design and documentation — 10 to 20 weeks
- Development approval, usually required in a character area — 10 to 36 weeks
- Building approval and engineering — 3 to 5 weeks
- Tender and contract — 4 to 8 weeks
- The lift itself — 1 to 2 weeks
- Construction of the new level and reconnection — 22 to 38 weeks
- Total: 12 to 26 months
Full Queenslander renovation
- Investigation, design and character documentation — 14 to 28 weeks
- Development approval — 12 to 36 weeks
- Building approval — 3 to 5 weeks
- Tender and contract — 6 to 10 weeks
- Construction including raise, restump and termite repair — 30 to 52 weeks
- Total: 16 to 30 months
Where the Time Actually Goes
The development application question
This is the single largest variable in Brisbane, and the difference is stark. Work that is accepted development needs only a building approval from a private certifier — two to four weeks. Work that triggers a development application adds two to nine months, and an appeal to the Planning and Environment Court adds another six to eighteen.
The triggers to check before designing:
- Traditional Building Character Overlay and whether the house is pre-1947
- Flood overlay — get a FloodWise Property Report
- Bushfire, landslide, biodiversity and waterway corridor overlays
- Whether the design meets the applicable code on setbacks, height, site coverage and privacy
All of this is searchable free through Brisbane City Council’s online planning tools, and it takes twenty minutes. See our guide to Brisbane approvals.
The storm season
Brisbane’s wet season, roughly November to March, is a real programme constraint. Intense rainfall, hail and damaging wind mean any work with an open roof or exposed structure carries genuine risk.
Practical consequences:
- A raise-and-build-under project should have the house re-supported and weathertight before the wet season, not during it
- Re-roofing is best scheduled April to September
- Excavation and footings slow when the ground is saturated
- Materials on site need protection
- Most contracts allow extensions of time for inclement weather, and Brisbane builders claim them legitimately
The Christmas shutdown
The construction industry effectively closes from mid-December to mid or late January — which in Brisbane coincides with the wettest, hottest part of the year. A project that has not reached a sensible pause point by early December loses six weeks, and materials ordered in November may not arrive until February.
Discovery
Brisbane’s timber housing stock reveals problems when opened, more reliably than most. Termite damage, rot in bearers and bottom plates, failed stumps, corroded plumbing, and unapproved previous work. Each discovery costs assessment time, sometimes engineering time, and sometimes a certifier’s re-inspection.
In any pre-1960 timber-framed home, allow three to five weeks of programme for what will be found. Termite damage in particular can require framing replacement across multiple walls, which is not a one-day fix.
Design and documentation
Under-documenting to save time is the most expensive false economy available. Incomplete drawings mean builders price with hidden contingency, tender comparisons become meaningless, and every unresolved detail becomes an on-site decision made under pressure.
Builder availability
Good Brisbane builders are booked three to nine months ahead. The builder available to start next week is available for a reason.
Procurement lead times
- Custom joinery — 4 to 8 weeks after site measure
- Stone and porcelain benchtops — 2 to 5 weeks from template
- Imported tiles — 6 to 14 weeks if not in stock
- Specified tapware in a non-standard finish — 4 to 12 weeks
- Windows and doors, custom sizes — 6 to 14 weeks
- Frameless shower screens — 2 to 3 weeks after tiling completes
- Structural steel — 3 to 6 weeks
- Matched heritage materials — VJ board, chamferboard profiles, fretwork: can be months
- Louvre windows — 4 to 8 weeks, and worth ordering early since they are common in Brisbane work
Order long-lead items before demolition. A frameless screen that cannot be measured until tiling is finished will always add three weeks to the end of a bathroom job.
A related guide to consider while planning this work is How Long Does a Kitchen Renovation Take?.
Owner decisions
Owner indecision is among the largest causes of delay on residential projects, and under standard contracts it entitles the builder to an extension of time. Complete all selections before construction starts — every tile, tap, handle and paint colour, documented in a schedule.
A Realistic Construction Sequence
For a Brisbane raise-and-build-under on a Queenslander:
- Weeks 1–2 — site establishment, service disconnection, preparation for the lift
- Weeks 3–4 — the house is jacked and held on temporary supports; existing stumps removed
- Weeks 5–9 — excavation, engineered footings, new posts and structural frame for the lower level
- Weeks 10–13 — the house is lowered onto the new structure; framing of the lower level walls
- Weeks 14–17 — roofing junctions, external cladding, windows and doors, lock-up
- Weeks 18–22 — services rough-in through both levels, staircase structure, termite management system, certifier inspections
- Weeks 23–26 — internal linings, waterproofing to wet areas
- Weeks 27–31 — tiling, joinery, stone templating and installation
- Weeks 32–35 — painting, flooring, fit-off of plumbing and electrical, stair finishing
- Weeks 36–38 — deck and landscaping, making good, cleaning, defects and final certificate
Note the dependencies. The house must be in its final position before anything attaches to it. Waterproofing cannot start until linings are complete. Tiling cannot start until the membrane has cured — slower in Brisbane humidity. The screen cannot be measured until tiling is finished.
Reading the Builder’s Programme
Ask for a construction programme showing each trade’s period on site and the dependencies between them. Specifically request:
- The critical path — where any delay pushes completion
- Owner decision points marked with the date each selection is needed. This single request prevents most owner-caused delay.
- Procurement dates for each long-lead item
- Certifier inspection hold points, which stop work until cleared
- Allowances for inclement weather and the Christmas shutdown
- The contingency allowance for termite and rot discovery, which a Brisbane builder should have thought about
Extensions of Time
Standard contracts entitle the builder to an extension of time for defined events: inclement weather and its consequences, variations you instruct, delay in your decisions, latent site conditions such as termite damage or failed stumps, delays in approvals or certifier inspections beyond their control, material shortages in some contract forms, and the statutory shutdown.
The contract specifies how a claim must be made, usually in writing within a set number of days. The entitlement is generally to time rather than automatically to money, though prolonged delay may generate a cost claim. A builder who simply runs late without claiming has not extended the date.
Scheduling Around the Brisbane Year
- Ideal: start in autumn, roof and structural work through the dry winter months, lock-up by early spring, internal work through spring, completion before the wet season.
- Workable: start in late winter, reaching lock-up by late spring.
- Difficult: starting in October, which puts roof and structural work into the storm season.
- Avoid: a November start, which reaches demolition just as the industry shuts down and the wet season arrives together.
Landscaping is the other seasonal consideration. Planting in autumn establishes far better than planting into a Brisbane summer.
Living Through It
Occupying a house during renovation adds substantially to how long it feels, and often to how long it takes.
Brisbane-specific considerations:
- A raise cannot be occupied. The house is in the air on temporary supports; you must move out for that phase at minimum.
- Summer occupancy is harder. A house with an open wall in February is hot, humid and exposed to storms, and dust migration is worse when the air conditioning cannot run.
- Termite treatment may require temporary vacating depending on the method.
- A covered deck built early can serve as a genuinely usable temporary living area in this climate — a Brisbane-specific advantage worth sequencing for.
- Storage — $200 to $450 per month for a typical household
- Temporary accommodation — $2,200 to $5,500 per month for a family home
The Last Ten Per Cent
The final stage consistently takes longer than expected. Fit-off, painting touch-ups, the shower screen measured after tiling, the joinery adjustment, the certifier’s final inspection, and the defects list.
Allow three to six weeks between “it looks finished” and “it is finished”. Building that into your expectations prevents the frustration that otherwise dominates the end of an otherwise successful project — and it is the period in which pressuring a builder to finish produces the worst decisions of the whole job.
One Brisbane note on defects: schedule a formal inspection after the first full wet season. Roof, flashing and drainage defects frequently do not appear until the house has taken a proper storm, and reporting them within the defects liability period matters.
The Brisbane renovations that finish close to programme are not the ones with the fastest builders. They are the ones where the overlays were checked first, the design avoided an unnecessary development application, everything was ordered before demolition, the structural work was sequenced before the finishes, and the roof was on before November.
What You Can Control
- Check the overlays and flood status before design. This determines your timeline more than any other decision — the difference between a two-week building approval and a nine-month development application.
- Test build-under feasibility first on a raised house. Discovering it late means redesigning.
- Complete all selections before construction. The highest-value action available to a homeowner.
- Document thoroughly. Cheap drawings produce expensive variations and delay.
- Order long-lead items before demolition.
- Sequence around the wet season. Aim to be weathertight before November.
- Deal with termites and stumps first, before any finishing work.
- Book a good builder and wait for them rather than starting with an available one.
- Make decisions within 48 hours when asked. Set that expectation with yourself at the start.
- Hold weekly site meetings with a written record of decisions.
- Avoid scope changes mid-construction. A change in week eighteen costs disproportionately more time than the same change in week two.
Why Brisbane Projects Slip
Looking across projects that ran materially over, the causes cluster:
- A development application nobody anticipated, because the character overlay or the pre-1947 date was not checked — typically six months
- Termite or rot discovery requiring framing replacement across multiple areas — three to eight weeks plus engineering
- Storm season damage or delay where structural work was scheduled through summer — two to six weeks
- Owner selections made during construction rather than before — cumulatively four to ten weeks on a substantial project
- A missed certifier inspection requiring completed work to be opened up
- Long-lead items ordered after demolition rather than before — commonly three to six weeks at the back end
Five of those six are entirely within the owner’s control, and four of them are resolved before a builder is even engaged.
The Last Ten Per Cent
The final stage consistently takes longer than expected. Fit-off, painting touch-ups, the shower screen measured after tiling, the joinery adjustment, the certifier’s final inspection, and the defects list.
Allow three to six weeks between “it looks finished” and “it is finished”. Building that into your expectations prevents the frustration that otherwise dominates the end of an otherwise successful project — and it is the period in which pressuring a builder to finish produces the worst quality decisions of the whole job.