Commercial strip-out vs full demolition

Strip-out

Partitions, linings, fixtures, floor coverings, redundant services. Structure stays. Weatherproofing stays. Landlord list of remaining items stays. The refit crew should walk onto a clear floor. Making good to a painter’s finish is a different brief unless we priced it.

Live sites — a Brunswick warehouse with a neighbour trading, a shop in a centre — need hoarding and hours. After-hours is after-hours money.

Full demolition

The building comes down. Pad stays or pad goes, depending on the next occupier. Dandenong and Sunshine industrial jobs are often this: take the shed, decide the slab, leave a grade. Shared walls, party structures and services that feed the next tenancy have to be known.

Which is cheaper?

Strip-out is usually cheaper because the structure stays. A rotten shell with a hazardous fit-out can invert that. We will say which is the cheaper honest job after we walk it. A cheap “demolition” price that is actually a strip-out will show up when the portal frame is still standing and the builder wanted dirt.