We get asked in the first meeting and we answer honestly, because the wrong answer here does more damage to a project than almost any technical decision. Some renovations are entirely liveable. Some are not, and pretending otherwise leads to a family camping in a bedroom for three months and a relationship with their builder that never recovers.
What makes a phase hard
Three things: noise, dust and what goes offline. A week of finish carpentry is loud but clean and takes nothing away from you. A week of demolition is loud, filthy, and usually costs you a bathroom and a kitchen at the same time.
We build a phase map in the second week of every project that lists, for each phase, the dust level, the noise window, what goes offline, and what decision you owe us that week. It is one page and it is the document clients tell us they used the most.
Phase by phase
Containment and protection
Quiet, one or two days. Zip walls with zipper doors go up at every opening into the work zone, floor protection goes down along the route we walk, and every HVAC return in the zone gets sealed so drywall dust does not end up touring your ductwork and settling in rooms we are not working in.
Demolition
The hardest week. Loud from 8 am, heavy dust despite containment, and on a whole-home scope you usually lose the kitchen and at least one bathroom at once. HEPA negative air runs the whole time. This is the week we suggest people take a trip if they were going to take one.
Structure
Loud in bursts, and occasionally requires a power shut-off for a few hours. Saw-cutting a slab for footings is the loudest single day on most jobs. It is also short.
Rough-in
Moderate noise, low dust, but this is the stretch where water and power get interrupted most often. Expect at least one full day without water and one without power in the affected zone. We give 48 hours notice for both, in writing, every time.
Drywall
The dustiest phase after demolition, and the one where containment earns its keep. Sanding dust is fine enough to find any gap. Most people describe this stretch as tolerable but tiring.
Finish
Low dust, moderate noise, and the phase where the house starts to feel like a house again. Paint smell is the main complaint and low-VOC products with good ventilation keep it short.
What you should set up if you are staying
- A temporary kitchen somewhere on the far side of containment: refrigerator, microwave, kettle, counter space and a sink you can actually reach.
- One bathroom that stays live from start to finish, which we plan around rather than discover.
- A room you never let us into, with a door that closes, where nothing is covered in plastic.
- Somewhere for the pets to be that is not the route our crews walk.
The two weeks worth leaving for
If moving out entirely is not possible, the two weeks worth going away for are the demolition week and the drywall sanding week. Between them they account for most of the dust and most of the noise on a typical job, and they are both short and known well in advance.
The honest summary
A single bathroom, a flooring job, a painting scope or a deck: stay, comfortably. An addition where the existing house stays largely intact: stay, with some noise. A whole-home renovation: most of our clients move out for ten to fourteen weeks and move back for the finish stretch, and the ones who did not usually tell us afterwards that they wish they had.
Written for this demo site. Code references, tolerances and figures are illustrative and vary by jurisdiction, by product and by house. Always confirm with the authority having jurisdiction and a licensed design professional.
