Refurbishment budgets do not overrun because contractors are dishonest. They overrun because nobody looked properly before the price was agreed.
Refurbishment is where the best value in Kenyan property usually sits. A tired building in a good location, bought sensibly and brought back properly, will frequently beat a new build on both cost and programme.
It is also where budgets most reliably overrun — and not because contractors are dishonest. They overrun because refurbishment prices what is found, and nobody looked properly before the price was agreed.
This is what to look at before you commit.
Start with the structure
Everything else is cosmetic by comparison. If the structure is compromised, the project changes character entirely.
Cracking. Not all cracks matter, but the pattern tells you which do. Fine hairline cracking in plaster is usually shrinkage. Diagonal cracking stepping through blockwork near openings, cracks wider at one end, or cracks that pass through the structure rather than the finish, indicate movement. In much of Kenya the usual cause is foundation movement on black cotton soil, which expands when wet and shrinks when dry.
Deflection. Sight along beams and slab soffits. Visible sag means the structure is carrying more than it comfortably should, or was built with less than it needed.
Concrete condition. Look for spalling — concrete breaking away, often with rusted reinforcement visible behind it. Reinforcement corrodes and expands as it does, which is what pushes the cover off. It is repairable, but it is a structural repair with a structural price.
Roof structure. In older buildings, timber roof structures are the most common site of serious deterioration: rot where water has been getting in, and termite damage which can be extensive while looking superficial.
Previous alterations. Ask what has been removed. A wall taken out during a previous conversion, without anything substituted for the load it carried, is a genuine hazard and a very common finding.
Then the services
Services are the second-largest source of unbudgeted cost, and much the hardest to assess by eye because most of it is concealed.
Electrical. In an older building assume the installation needs substantial work, and price accordingly until proven otherwise. Look at the distribution board: rewirable fuses, no residual current protection, or visible improvisation all indicate an installation that will not satisfy current requirements. Confirm the supply capacity is adequate for your intended use — an increase in demand may mean a transformer, which is a different order of expense.
Plumbing and drainage. Galvanised steel pipework of a certain age will be corroding internally whatever it looks like outside. Check the drainage runs, and establish where the building actually discharges to: mains sewer, septic tank, or a soakpit that may not have been emptied in years.
Water supply and storage. Confirm the mains supply, storage capacity and whether pressure will serve the upper floors of the building once occupied.
Fire safety. For commercial use this is not optional and it is not cheap: means of escape, protected routes, detection, alarm and firefighting provision, all appropriate to the use you intend.
Then the fabric
Roof covering. Sheet roofing has a finite life and the fixings usually fail before the sheets do. Look for corrosion at laps and fixings, and for daylight from inside.
Water ingress. Look for staining on ceilings and at wall heads, and for efflorescence — white salt deposits — on masonry, which means water has been moving through it.
Windows and doors. Steel windows in older Kenyan commercial buildings are frequently corroded to the point of replacement. Replacement is straightforward but affects the elevation and the budget.
Damp. Rising damp at the base of walls suggests a failed or bridged damp-proof course. It is remediable, but not by painting over it.
Then the compliance position
This is the check most frequently skipped and the most capable of stopping a project.
Is the existing use lawful? Do not assume that what a building is currently used for is what it is permitted to be used for.
Are you changing the use? Converting a residence to offices, or a warehouse to retail, is a change of use requiring approval. It also brings the building within a different set of requirements — fire, accessibility, sanitary provision, parking. The building as it stands may not satisfy them.
Is there approved documentation? Approved drawings and an occupation certificate are enormously valuable. Their absence is not fatal but it is work, and it is work with a timescale you do not control.
Environmental requirements. Depending on scale and use, NEMA requirements may apply.
Asbestos. Older roofing and insulation materials may contain asbestos. Handling and disposal is a specialist and regulated activity, and it must be priced as one rather than discovered mid-strip.
Sequence the work correctly
Refurbishment has an order, and getting it wrong is how money gets spent twice.
- Survey and condition assessment. Know what you have.
- Strip out. Remove what is not staying. This is when the building finally shows you everything the survey could only infer.
- Structural repair. Before anything is built on top of it.
- Weathertight. Roof, windows, external envelope. Everything after this needs the building to be dry.
- First fix services. While walls and ceilings are open.
- Finishes. Plaster, floors, joinery, decoration.
- Second fix and commissioning. Test the services, then hand over.
The single most common expensive mistake is finishing before the building is weathertight, or before the structure is repaired. It looks like progress and it is rework.
Budget for what you cannot see
However good the survey, a refurbishment reveals things a survey could not. Strip-out is genuinely the first time anyone sees behind the finishes.
Hold a contingency. Use provisional sums for work that can only be defined after opening up. A contractor who prices a refurbishment to the shilling before strip-out either knows something nobody could know, or is planning to tell you about it later.
Why refurbishment is often the better answer anyway
Beyond cost, retaining a building retains the carbon already embodied in its foundations, frame and envelope — which a new build would spend again. It also frequently retains a location, a plot ratio or a footprint that current requirements would not permit you to build afresh.
How Primebuild approaches it
Primebuild Construction Limited's stated service is to turn dilapidated areas into modern and habitable areas, either commercial or residential premises, by completely refurbishing them considering their expected use.
The phrase "considering their expected use" carries the weight. Refurbishment designed around what the building is going to be is a different exercise from repairing it back to what it was — and it is the difference between a building that works for you and one that has merely been redecorated.
Work is carried out by directly employed masons, carpenters, plumbers and electricians holding DIT grade certification, and Primebuild is registered by the National Construction Authority and by the Ministry of Water & Sanitation.
To discuss a property you are considering, call +254 705 555 760 or request a quote. A conversation before you buy is worth considerably more than one after.