Office Strip Outs in Perth — Make-Good, Defit and Refurb

What is an office strip out?

An office strip out (or defit) is the removal of a commercial tenancy's fit-out — partition walls, glazed offices, suspended ceilings, workstations, joinery, floor coverings and redundant services — to hand the space back as an open shell. In Perth it happens for two reasons: a lease is ending and the make-good clause requires it, or the space is being refitted and the old fit-out has to go first.

Either way, the job is defined by a document — the lease's make-good schedule or the designer's demolition plan — and the strip out is priced and executed against that scope, line by line.

What gets removed in a typical defit?

A standard commercial strip out across a 200 to 400 square metre Perth tenancy covers:

• Partitions and glazing — plasterboard stud walls and glazed office fronts down and carted out.
• Suspended ceilings — grid and tile out where the lease requires it, or retained where the incoming fit-out reuses it.
• Floor coverings — carpet tiles, broadloom and vinyl lifted, adhesive dealt with, back to slab.
• Joinery and workstations — reception desks, kitchenettes, built-in storage, desking.
• Redundant cabling — data and power runs stripped back once your electrician and comms contractor have isolated and disconnected them.

Shop strip out demolition follows the same pattern with retail-specific extras — shopfronts, display joinery, back-of-house fit-out — and usually a centre management rulebook governing hours, hoarding and bin locations.

How is commercial different from residential?

Logistics. The demolition itself is straightforward; getting waste out of a multi-storey building in Osborne Park or the Perth CBD is the actual puzzle. Lift bookings, loading dock windows, protected lift cars, after-hours noise rules, induction requirements, and a bin that may be three streets away — every one of those affects the program and the price, so every one is confirmed with building management before the quote is fixed. Stand-alone premises in Belmont, Canning Vale or Cockburn Central skip most of that and get stripped faster and cheaper as a result.

Buildings from before 1990 carry one extra check: the asbestos register. WA workplaces of that age are required to maintain one, and it gets reviewed before demolition starts — vinyl tiles, ceiling materials and old switchboard backing are the usual suspects. Anything the register or sampling confirms is removed by a licensed asbestos removalist as a separate stage.

What does an office strip out cost in Perth?

Commercial strip outs are priced per tenancy, not per square metre off a rate card — access and the make-good scope move the number more than floor area does. A fixed written quote against the lease schedule is the only version worth having, because it is the document you can put in front of a property manager when the bond conversation starts. Typical Perth ranges by job type are on the Pricing page.

Handover: the part the landlord actually inspects

The job ends with a walk-through against the scope: fit-out gone, cabling stripped to the agreed point, slab swept, waste off site with tip receipts available if the property manager wants them. If the tenancy is being refitted rather than handed back, the same standard applies for the incoming builder — clean shell, clear floor, no half-removed services. Office and shop defits are part of the broader strip out demolition service, so mixed jobs — a showroom with offices above, a clinic with wet areas — run as one scope with one point of contact.

Lease ending or refit starting? Call (08) 6171 2654 with the tenancy address and the make-good clause, and get a fixed written quote.