Renovation Cost Estimator for Dubai and the UAE

Almost every renovation that goes wrong financially goes wrong the same way. The budget was right for the job as it was understood on day one.

Then a wall comes down and the pipework behind it is not where the drawing said. Or the floor comes up and the screed underneath is failing. Or a wet area is opened and there was never any waterproofing.

None of that is anybody being dishonest. It is a building revealing what is inside it, which nobody could see before the work started.

A contingency is the money set aside for that. Ten per cent on a new property with light work, fifteen on a normal renovation, twenty or more on an older building.

The mistake is treating it as spare money and spending it on an upgrade in week two. Then the first surprise stops the job.

Working through these is how a budget stops being a guess.

Approvals matter more than people expect. Buildings and communities have their own rules about what can be changed, when work can happen and how materials come in and out.

A tower will usually want the contractor registered, insurance in place, a deposit lodged and work confined to certain hours. That is not a formality, and it affects both cost and programme.

Waterproofing is checked, and rightly. Water travelling from one unit to another is the single most common serious problem in apartment renovation here.

Lift access and material handling is a real cost in a tower. Everything comes in and out through a service lift on a booking.

And summer changes the programme. Some work is slower in the heat, and site working hours in the hottest months are restricted.

None of this is a reason not to renovate. It is a reason to ask about approvals and access before signing anything.

The common causes, and they are mostly decisions rather than accidents.

Get a real quote for each trade and put those numbers in. That is the whole point of the tool.

If you only have one overall quote, break it down. Ask the contractor to split it by trade. A contractor who cannot or will not is telling you something.

Then compare the split against this structure. If a line is missing, either it is genuinely not needed or it has been left out and will appear later as a variation.

Add the contingency and do not touch it. Treat it as a separate account that only gets opened when something is discovered rather than chosen.

And keep a record of every variation as it happens, agreed in writing before the work is done. Most renovation disputes are about work nobody wrote down.