Fixing is the longest stage, the most crowded with trades, and the stage where your budget’s honesty gets tested: every PC and PS allowance written into your contracts a year ago comes due here, at retail, with the trades standing by. It’s also where variation pressure peaks — because every finish decision is now urgent and swapping contractors is unthinkable.
What this stage contains
- Insulation and plasterboard — after the frame inspection has passed and every rough-in is photographed. Once sheeted, the walls keep their secrets.
- Internal doors, architraves, skirting — “fix carpentry”, the trade the stage is named for.
- Cabinetry — kitchen, vanities, robes. The longest lead time in the whole stage: measured after linings, manufactured over weeks. Order dates set your program.
- Waterproofing and tiling — wet areas membraned, certified, then tiled. Big enough to be its own walkthrough — it’s the defect category that hurts most.
- Second-fix plumbing and electrical — fit-off of fixtures, taps, switches, lights.
- Painting, floor coverings, shower screens, mirrors — the finish trades, in an order that stops them wrecking each other’s work (paint before carpet; screens after tiles).
The selection deadline trap
Every allowance item — tiles, tapware, appliances, benchtops — has a real order-by date driven by lead times, and the dates arrive earlier than feels reasonable. Miss one and the choice becomes: take what’s in stock, or stop the trades. Neither is a negotiation you win.
Build the selection schedule at the start of the stage: every item, its allowance, its order-by date, one page. It’s the highest-value document of the whole stage.
Variation discipline, under pressure
More variations are raised at fixing than every other stage combined — small, urgent, and each priced without competition. The system from the money traps guide matters most right here: everything in writing, priced before the work, tracked on a running total you review weekly. Ten “small” $1,500 decisions is $15,000, and fixing stage is where they hunt.
Coordination is the owner-builder’s actual job now
Up to lock-up, trades mostly follow each other naturally. At fixing, six trades share the building and the sequence is yours to hold: the tiler can’t start until waterproofing cures and is certified; the painter needs the fix carpenter done; the electrician’s fit-off wants painted walls. Every clash is a trade standing down — and stood-down trades drift to other jobs. Run a simple two-week lookahead, confirm each trade the week before, and guard the wet-area sequence above all.
The paperwork this stage generates
Waterproofing certificates (per wet area), glazing certificates for shower screens, electrical and plumbing compliance certificates at fit-off, appliance warranties and manuals, paint and floor covering specs. It all feeds the handover pack — and the warranty file you’ll rely on for years.
Next in the sequence: waterproofing and wet areas in detail — then handover.
Before you get here
Whether fixing stage is a checklist or a crisis was decided back when the allowances were set and the payment schedule written. If you’re not there yet, the Pre-Start Review stress-tests both before they’re contractual. If you are there — the selection schedule and the variation log, today.