Commercial fit-out
Why coordinating five subcontractors on a commercial fit-out usually goes wrong
The floor is rarely the problem. It is the handoff between the floor, the partition team, the electrician and the carpenter, where nobody owns the junction and a delay in one trade hides inside another's schedule.
The short answer
It breaks at the handoffs, not inside any one trade
Five separate subcontractors means five separate contracts, five start dates and five definitions of finished, and almost every real delay on a commercial fit-out happens at the boundary between two of them: a wall moved after the floor is already levelled, a cable route marked after the floor is already cut, a trade that cannot start because the one before it ran late and nobody upstream was tracking both. A single contractor managing the floor and the trades around it does not remove any of that coordination work, it just puts one project manager in charge of it instead of leaving it to whichever subcontractor happens to notice the gap first.
Where it actually breaks
The four handoffs a fit-out programme usually loses time at
None of these is a defect in any single trade's own work. Each one is a boundary that has to be planned before it is reached, not resolved after the fact.
Floor vs partition
A wall moved after the substrate is already levelled forces re-work nobody budgeted for.
Floor vs electrical
Socket and trunking cut-outs need to be marked before the floor is cut, not guessed at afterward.
Floor vs hacking and permits
Strata approvals and MCST deposits need to clear before hacking starts, not run in parallel with it.
Floor vs carpentry
Built-ins and reception counters need to land on a floor that is already finished, not compete with it for the same days.
The junction, not the material
A reception fit-out is stone, tile, plank and a desk, meeting in one small area
Every one of those junctions is a separate trade's edge. Whoever is coordinating them has to own all of it, not just the floor.
Five diaries versus one
What actually changes when one contractor runs it
The trades themselves do not change. What changes is who is tracking the boundary between them.
Five separate subcontractors
- Five different quotes, five different start dates and five different definitions of finished
- A delay in one trade is discovered only when the next one turns up and cannot start
- Nobody owns the junction where two trades' work actually meets
- A fault becomes an argument about which contractor caused it
One project manager, one programme
- One quote, one programme, one point of contact for every trade under it
- Electrical, plumbing, partition, glass and aluminium, hacking and carpentry scheduled against the same floor programme, not five separate diaries
- Permit applications, MCST deposits and hacking approvals handled by the same admin team running the floor programme
- One warranty, one name on it, no dispute about which contractor is accountable
How Eben handles it
One programme, every trade scheduled against it
The floor is the anchor trade. Everything else on an All-In project is scheduled against the same programme it runs to.
All-In trades under one project manager
- Electrical, plumbing, partition, glass and aluminium, hacking and carpentry, all coordinated with the flooring rather than run as five separate contracts.
Permits, deposits and approvals, handled by the admin team
- Permit applications, MCST deposits and hacking approvals coordinated with the same programme as the floor and every other trade.
Substrate prep done by the same crew that lays the finish
- Moisture testing and levelling done by the same craftsmen who lay the finish, so nobody inherits a shortcut another team took.
Commercial turnaround already proven, on real jobs
- The 41 Haji Lane shophouse went from bare screed to opening day in three days; the SAF chalet bedrooms were re-floored in a two-day turnaround. Both are specific, dated projects, not a blanket promise.
Questions worth asking
Before you split a fit-out across five contractors
The questions worth putting to a tender before the trades are split up.
What goes wrong when a commercial fit-out uses five separate subcontractors?
- The failure is rarely inside any one trade's own work. It happens at the handoffs: a wall moved after the floor is already levelled, a socket cut-out marked after the floor is already cut, or a delay in one trade only discovered when the next one turns up and cannot start. Five separate contracts also mean five separate definitions of finished, and a warranty dispute can become an argument about which contractor caused the fault.
What does an All-In commercial contractor actually cover?
- Electrical, plumbing, partition, glass and aluminium, hacking and carpentry, all scheduled under the same project manager as the flooring, rather than five separate companies each running their own diary.
Who handles permits and MCST approvals on a commercial fit-out?
- Permit applications, MCST deposits and hacking approvals are handled by the admin team as part of an All-In project, coordinated with the same programme as the floor and every other trade.
How fast can a commercial fit-out floor realistically go in?
- It depends on the space and the trades around it, so no single figure applies to every fit-out. What is real and already delivered: the 41 Haji Lane shophouse went from bare screed to opening day in three days, and the SAF chalet bedrooms were re-floored in a two-day turnaround. Those are specific, dated jobs, not a blanket promise for every project.
Who is accountable if something goes wrong on a multi-trade commercial fit-out?
- One warranty, one name on it. When the floor, the partitions, the electrical and the carpentry sit under the same project manager, there is nobody for that manager to point at if a fault needs fixing.
Where this goes next
One project manager for the floor and everything around it
Whatever the fit-out, the floor, the trades and the paperwork run against one programme, not five.
More from the blog
Related reading
An office fit-out has its own version of this problem: coordinating the floor with a business that cannot close while the work happens.
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Installing office flooring without stopping a business that can't close
How an office floor is replaced in phases, evenings, weekends or zone by zone, so the business keeps running while the work happens. -
All guides
Every real guide on this site, from the Eben Solutions craft house.
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