Moving out for a refurbishment sounds simple until you price up temporary space, removals and downtime. The good news is that most office refurbishments can be carried out while your team stays put, provided the work is phased properly and everyone knows what to expect. Here is how it actually works in practice.
Yes, in most cases. The majority of commercial refurbishments we see across Bournemouth, Poole and the wider Dorset area are done with staff still in the building. The key question is not whether it is possible but whether your floor plate can be split into workable zones. If you can free up roughly a quarter to a third of your space at a time, by tightening desk layouts temporarily or leaning on hybrid working days, a phased refurbishment is usually straightforward.
There are exceptions. Full strip-outs involving asbestos removal, major mechanical and electrical rewiring, or structural alterations may need areas fully vacated for safety reasons. A decent contractor will tell you this at survey stage, not halfway through the job.
A typical occupied refurbishment runs zone by zone. The contractor hoards off one area with dust-sealed partitions, completes it, then moves your team into the finished space before starting the next zone. On a 3,000 to 5,000 sq ft office this usually means two to four phases, each lasting two to four weeks.
The noisiest and messiest tasks, such as ceiling grid removal, floor preparation and drilling into concrete, are best scheduled for evenings or weekends. Quieter work like partitioning, decoration, joinery and furniture installation can happen during office hours with minimal fuss.
Dust control matters more than most clients expect. Proper hoarding with sealed junctions, floor protection on shared routes, and negative air pressure or extraction in the work zone keep dust out of occupied areas. Ask any contractor how they will protect your comms room and any sensitive equipment, because dust in a server cabinet is an expensive mistake.
The other common friction points are fire escapes, toilets and kitchens. Escape routes must stay clear and compliant at all times, which sometimes dictates the phasing order more than convenience does. If your only kitchen or accessible WC sits in a work zone, agree temporary arrangements before the job starts, not during week two when tempers are shorter.
Staying in the building typically adds somewhere between 10 and 20 per cent to the contract programme compared with an empty-building job, because of phasing, protection and out-of-hours working. Whether it adds cost overall depends on the alternative. Once you factor in temporary office rent, two rounds of removals, new signage and the productivity dip of relocating twice, staying put is often the cheaper route for anything up to a medium-sized refurbishment.
As a rough guide, light refurbishments in occupied Dorset offices, meaning decoration, flooring, lighting and some new partitioning, tend to run from around 40 to 60 pounds per sq ft, with fuller schemes including services upgrades and new kitchens or meeting suites going well beyond that. Treat these as ballpark figures only, since access, building age and out-of-hours requirements move the number significantly. Get a phased programme and a fixed-price breakdown before you commit.
Communication does more for a smooth occupied refurbishment than any amount of hoarding. Tell staff the phasing plan, the noisy dates and where they will sit in each phase, ideally two weeks before work starts. Appoint one person as the single point of contact with the site manager so queries do not arrive from twelve directions at once.
Finally, use the disruption to your advantage. A phase-by-phase move is the perfect moment to clear old files, retire unused furniture and rethink storage, which often frees up more space than the refurbishment itself.
A typical 3,000 to 5,000 sq ft office refurbished in phases takes around 8 to 14 weeks on site, depending on scope and how much work must happen out of hours. An empty building would usually be quicker, but you avoid the time and cost of moving out and back.
Short periods of drilling and breaking out are genuinely disruptive, so good contractors schedule those for evenings or weekends and give you dates in advance. Day-to-day work such as partitioning, decorating and fitting furniture is generally no louder than normal office background noise.
Almost always yes. Leased premises usually require a licence to alter from the landlord before structural, partition or services changes, and your insurer should be notified that building works are taking place. Allow two to six weeks for landlord consent when planning your start date.