Melbourne's West · Fixed price

Renovations. Keep the house, change how it works.

Some homes are worth keeping and just need to work differently. Structural extensions and whole home transformations, finished to the standard of the homes we build new.

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Is it the right move

Three honest ways to know.

A renovation is the right answer when the problems are in the layout rather than in the bones. When they are in the bones, it stops being the cheaper option, and that is the line we will help you find.

A contemporary extension joined to an original cottage — The part worth keepingThe part that changes

The house is solid, the layout is not

Good bones, sound structure, and rooms in the wrong places.

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Plenty of homes in the west were built well for a family that lived differently. Opening the back, moving the kitchen or adding a room can fix twenty years of frustration without touching what already works.

You need more room, not a different street

Another bedroom, a proper living space, somewhere to work.

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An extension keeps the location, the school zone and the neighbours, and adds the space the family actually grew into. Usually less disruptive than moving, and it keeps the equity in a place you already like.

And when it is not the answerThe honest one

Past a certain point, rebuilding costs less and gives you more.

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When the stumps, the wiring, the plumbing and the roof all need doing, you can spend more on a renovation than a new home would cost and still have an old house around it. If your house is on that side of the line we will say so, and a knockdown rebuild may be the better answer.

The full picture

What a renovation actually involves.

You will not find a dollar figure on this page. Renovations vary more than any other kind of build, because every one of them starts with a house somebody else made decisions about.

What we can give you is the list, including the parts that only show up once a wall comes off.

Renovations carry more unknowns than a new build, and pretending otherwise is how people end up with variations they did not expect. We open the house up before we fix the price wherever we can.

Timber roof framing during construction — Every line, namedNo numbers, on purpose

Checking what is holding it up

What is load bearing, and what the stumps and frame are really like.

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Before anything is designed, we work out what carries the house. It decides what can be opened up, what has to be replaced, and it is where renovation budgets most often move.

Asbestos checks

Homes built before 1990 get tested before anything is opened up.

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It turns up in eaves, wall sheeting, wet areas and old flooring. Licensed specialists remove what is found. Standard, managed, and far better known about early.

Council approval

Most structural work and extensions need a permit.

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What is needed depends on what you are changing and where. Some blocks carry extra rules covering heritage, the character of the street or trees, and those shape what is possible.

The building work

Extension, structural changes, and the finishes through the whole home.

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Finished to the same standard as our new builds. Where a renovation meets an existing home badly, it looks like a renovation forever, so the join is where the care goes.

Wiring, plumbing and heating

Older services usually have to be brought up to current standards.

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Once walls are open, wiring and plumbing that were legal decades ago often cannot be reconnected as they are. Worth budgeting for rather than discovering.

Living through it

Whether you can stay depends on what is being done, and it has its own section.

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Some renovations you can live through. Some you genuinely cannot. Which one yours is gets decided at the assessment, not halfway through.

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The process

Five stages, on a house that already exists.

The same five stages as every Zaman build, with one difference: we spend longer working out what is already there before anything is drawn.

See the full process→

A Zaman home under construction — One team, start to finishStage 04 · Build

Consult

We walk the house with you and work out what is worth keeping.

Design

Designed around the structure that stays, then approved.

Fixed price

Signed before work starts, with the unknowns named honestly.

Build

Built by one team, with one point of contact throughout.

Handover

We walk every room together and hand over the warranty.

The unspoken question

Can you live in it while it happens?

Sometimes yes, sometimes genuinely not, and the answer depends on what is being done rather than on how tough you are. No builder puts this on their website, so here it is plainly.

We give you a straight answer at the assessment, before the design is finished, so it can shape the plan instead of ambushing it.

Kitchen of a completed Zaman home, stone island and black marble splashback — The other end of itProject Nadir · Tarneit

Adding on at the back

Usually liveable, if noisy, until the two parts are joined.

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An extension built off the existing home can often go up while you stay. The hard stretch is when the old and new are opened into each other, which is worth planning around.

Structural work through the middle

Usually not liveable. Power, water and walls all come and go.

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When load bearing walls, the roof or the services are being reworked, the house stops functioning as a house. Moving out for that stretch is normally cheaper than living badly through it.

Staging it

Some renovations can be split so you always have a working part.

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Not always possible, and it usually costs more overall because trades come through twice. When staying put matters more than finishing fast, it can be the right trade, and we will price both so you can choose.

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Real projects

Homes we have built.

Real homes, real suburbs, real photographs, and the owner's permission on record. We do not publish anything else. Every home below has its own page, and the renovation projects are being gathered with their before photos.

See every home we have photographed→

No 01Project NadirTarneit→

No 02Project Bethany

No 03Project Virgo

No 04Project Waiora

No 05Project Waurn Ponds

Fixed price, covered

The price we agree is the price you pay.

Renovations carry more unknowns than any other kind of build, which makes it more important, not less, that the ones we can see are priced and the ones we cannot are named. The full detail lives on one page.

How your money is protected→

The Zaman Fixed Price Promise

A fixed price building contract before work starts
Every inclusion itemised in writing
The unknowns named honestly rather than left to arrive as variations
First Resort Home Warranty cover where the work requires it

Renovation questions

Asked at every site assessment.

The questions we hear most from owners deciding whether to change the house or replace it.

Is renovating cheaper than rebuilding?

Up to a point, yes. Past that point it stops being cheaper and you still have an old house wrapped around new work. The line sits roughly where the stumps, wiring, plumbing and roof all need doing at once. We will tell you honestly which side of it your house is on, even when the answer costs us the renovation.

Do we need council approval?

Usually, for structural changes and extensions. What is required depends on what you are changing and where the house is, and some blocks carry extra rules covering heritage, the character of the street or trees. We check what applies before anything is designed.

How do you price a renovation when you cannot see inside the walls?

We open up and investigate what we can before the price is fixed, and we name the things we genuinely cannot know until work starts rather than burying them. A renovation quote with no unknowns listed is not a more certain quote, it is a less honest one.

Will the new part look like an add on?

Only if it is designed like one. The join between old and new is where a renovation is judged, so that is where the attention goes, in the roofline, the floor levels and the way light moves between the two. It is also the part that is hardest to fix later.

Our house is old. What about asbestos?

Homes built before 1990 are inspected before anything is opened up, and anything found is removed by licensed specialists. It is a normal, managed part of renovating an older home. It only becomes a problem when a builder leaves it out of the conversation until it arrives as an extra cost.

Can we stay in the house while you work?

Sometimes. It depends on what is being done rather than on how much you are willing to put up with. Extensions off the back are often liveable; structural work through the middle usually is not. The section above sets out the three realistic patterns and we will tell you which one your project is at the assessment.