How to choose a fitout company

We are obviously not a neutral party here. So rather than a list of reasons to choose us, this is the list of questions we would want asked of us, and the answers that should worry you.

Four questions that separate the field

1. What does your program assume about my approvals pathway?

Construction on a suburban clinic is a matter of weeks and every builder can estimate it. Approvals in front of it are the longer half and they vary more between councils than construction varies between builders.

A good answer asks which council, what the current use is, and whether the change has been established as permitted. A bad answer is a date.

2. When does my equipment schedule have to be locked?

The correct answer is before documentation, and a builder who says so is telling you something useful about how they sequence work. Every significant instrument sets its own footprint, clearances, power, floor loading and sometimes shielding.

A bad answer is that it can be worked out later. It can, twice, as a variation and as a delay.

3. What are the long-lead items on this job?

An electrical supply upgrade, a switchboard, a specific mechanical unit, lead-lined door sets. These can outlast the whole construction program and they are only a problem when found late.

Someone who has priced clinical work will name two or three without hesitating.

4. Which consultants will you engage, and who pays them?

Mechanical, hydraulic, acoustic, access, radiation shielding, structural. Whether these sit inside the quoted price or arrive later as extras is one of the most common reasons two quotes are not comparable.

Comparing quotes without being misled

Two numbers are only comparable if they describe the same scope. Before you look at the rate, check that both quotes assume:

• The same shell condition. Warm versus cold is worth $350 to $550 per square metre, and a quote that assumes warm on a cold tenancy is not a bargain
• The same consultants, inside the price rather than alongside it
• The same provisional sums, and a realistic figure in each
• The same approvals assumption, including who lodges and who carries the risk if council takes longer
• The same equipment coordination, and clarity about what you are buying directly

A quote materially below the others usually means something has been left out, and you’ll meet it again as a variation.

Specialist or general builder

For a consulting suite with no reprocessing and no imaging, a good commercial builder will deliver a good result.

Beyond that, the case for a healthcare specialist is not craftsmanship, it’s knowing what the project actually contains. That the sterilisation room has a required flow and cannot be arranged for convenience. That shielding is designed by a consultant for a specific unit rather than specified off a schedule. That a procedure room may push the tenancy into Class 9a. That a change of use is an approval in its own right.

A general builder can learn all of that on your job. You will pay the tuition.

Design and construct, or separate

Design and construct puts one party accountable end to end, which suits clinical work where services drive the design and the two cannot sensibly be separated. It’s faster and there is nowhere for a problem to hide between contracts.

Separate design and tender gives you an independent designer and a competitive price on a fixed scope. It takes longer, and it creates a gap between the person who drew it and the person building it that somebody has to manage.

Neither is wrong. Choose deliberately rather than by default.

What we would want you to check about us

That the cost ranges published on this site come with their assumptions attached. That the standards we cite are named and linked rather than gestured at. That we tell you where our figures are indicative and where they’re sourced.

And that when a site will not work, we say so.

If you’re weighing us against somebody else, we wrote the questions we would want asked of us. Everything else people ask before signing is on the FAQ page.