Outdoor kitchen build in Cranbourne: what happens day by day

The timeline

Every stage, how long it takes, and what you have to do.

This is a mid-tier job: a new 25 m² Colorbond alfresco roof on bored piers with a 4.5 metre kitchen run under it, on a typical Cranbourne East or Berwick estate block. A kitchen fitted under an existing roof skips stages 4 to 7 and takes about 4 weeks end to end.

Stage	How long	What happens	What you need to do
1. Site visit and design	60 to 90 minutes on site, quote in 7 to 10 days	We measure, photograph, check the gas meter and switchboard capacity, look at the fall of the land and where roof water can legally go, and talk through layout and materials.	Be home. Know roughly what you want to cook and how many people you host. Unlock the side gate.
2. Soil report and engineering	1 to 2 weeks	A geotechnical crew bores one or two 100mm holes in the lawn, takes about an hour, and returns a soil classification under AS 2870. The engineer designs the footings to that classification and to AS/NZS 1170.2 wind actions.	Nothing. Expect a small patch of disturbed lawn and a bit of clay spoil.
3. Building permit	4 to 8 weeks from lodgement	We lodge the full application with the building surveyor: site plan, engineering, soil report, drainage, registration and insurance details.	Sign the contract, supply your title and plan of subdivision, and answer any surveyor query inside 48 hours. That one habit is worth a fortnight.
4. Set-out and service location	Half a day	Dial Before You Dig plans are checked, a locator is run over the area and everything is marked in paint on your lawn. Posts and pier positions get pegged.	Be home for 30 minutes. Point out anything you have buried yourself: irrigation, low-voltage garden lighting, a pool line, a dog fence wire.
5. Excavation and footings	2 to 4 days	Bored piers or screw piles go in. This is the loudest stage of the whole build: 2 to 4 hours of hydraulic auger. Spoil of 2 to 6 m² goes to a truck or a bin.	Dog inside or at daycare. Book calls around the morning. Cars off the driveway.
6. Slab or deck sub-frame	2 to 3 days, then curing	Formwork, mesh, then the pour. The truck lands between 6:30 and 8:00am. Tight access means a boom pump at $900 to $1,600, which is loud for 90 minutes.	Driveway clear from 6:00am. Dog inside all day. Nobody walks on it for 24 to 48 hours, no loads for 7 days.
7. Frame, roof and flashing	3 to 6 days	Posts, beams, battens, Colorbond sheeting, gutter and downpipe, and the flashing tied into your existing roof. Impact drivers and a drop saw, so it is noisy but not brutal.	Keep the area clear. Expect roof tiles or sheets lifted where the flashing goes in.
8. Gas and electrical rough-in	1 to 2 days	Licensed gasfitter runs and pressure tests the line from the meter. Licensed electrician adds the sub-circuit at the switchboard and pulls cable for lights, fans and outlets.	Gas off for 1 to 2 hours. Power off in 30 to 90 minute blocks. Shut your computer down properly beforehand.
9. Cabinetry fabrication	3 to 5 weeks, offsite	Carcasses are built in the workshop while the structure goes up. Nothing happens at your house.	Confirm your final appliance model numbers. After this point a change is a remake, not a tweak.
10. Cabinetry install	2 to 3 days	Carcasses land, get levelled, scribed to the wall and fixed down. The kitchen suddenly looks real.	Clear parking for a truck. This is a good day to look at it and speak up.
11. Benchtop template and install	1 to 2 hour template, then 10 to 15 working days, then a 3 to 5 hour install	A digital template is taken off the installed carcasses, then the slab is cut and polished at the fabricator. Install day is 2 or 3 people and, if it is stone, a wet saw for the final trims.	Be home for the template. Confirm overhangs, cut-outs and the tap hole position on the day, in person.
12. Appliances, plumbing and commissioning	1 to 2 days	BBQ, fridge, sink and tapware go in. Gas is connected, pressure tested and commissioned. Certificates are issued.	Be contactable. You will get the gas compliance certificate, the certificate of electrical safety and, if there is a sink, a plumbing compliance certificate.
13. Splashback, tiling and paint	2 to 4 days	Splashback, any tiling, silicone, touch-up paint and trims. Adhesive and sealant smell for 24 to 48 hours.	Keep windows on that side closed for a day if the smell bothers you.
14. Clean, inspection and handover	1 day	Final clean, the surveyor's inspection, certificate of final inspection, then we walk you through it and hand over the document pack and the maintenance schedule.	Walk it with us and write down every single thing you are not happy with. It is far easier to fix on handover day than in month 3.

Total: 12 to 20 working days on site across 8 to 14 weeks. A kitchen under an existing roof is 6 to 9 days across about 4 weeks. Call (03) 9003 0108 for a program against your own dates.

Want your build programmed against your own calendar?

Tell us the date you want to be cooking on it and we will work backwards and tell you honestly whether it is achievable. Free site visit across the City of Casey.

☎ Call (03) 9003 0108 Book a free consultation

Living with it

Access, parking, power, noise and the dog.

Access is the number that changes the price.

A 900mm side gate is the threshold. Above it, everything barrows through and the job runs normally. Between 700mm and 900mm, materials get carried in lengths and stacked in the front yard, which adds hours. Under 700mm, or a locked-in courtyard, and material either goes over the roof on a crane or through your hallway on protective sheeting, which adds $800 to $2,500 in labour and protection. On the newer Cranbourne East, Clyde North and Selandra Rise estates, side access is often exactly 900mm to 1.0m with a meter box in the middle of it, so measure the narrowest point, not the gate.

Parking, on the narrow estate streets.

Day to day it is one ute and a trailer, and the crew will park on the street rather than block you in. Delivery days add a truck for 30 to 60 minutes, and a concrete pour adds a truck and sometimes a boom pump for about 2 hours. On the newer estate streets where cars park both sides, a 6 metre truck genuinely cannot get through, so tell your immediate neighbours the day before a pour. We will give you those dates a week out.

Power and water.

We use one of your outdoor power points for saws, a compressor and chargers, and a garden tap for wet cutting and clean-up. Across a whole build that is maybe $5 to $15 of electricity and a few hundred litres of water. The point that matters is that the outlet must be RCD protected, which on any house built after the mid 1990s it will be. During the electrical rough-in your power goes off in 30 to 90 minute blocks, and during the gas rough-in your gas goes off for 1 to 2 hours, which means no hot water and no cooktop for that window.

Noise, dust and smell, honestly.

We start between 7:00 and 7:30am, inside Victoria's residential construction noise hours of 7am to 6pm Monday to Friday and 7am to 1pm Saturday, with nothing on Sundays or public holidays. Two days are genuinely unpleasant. Pier boring is 2 to 4 hours of a hydraulic auger and you will hear it inside with the doors shut. Stone cutting is a wet saw, high pitched, usually 1 to 3 hours. Everything else is impact drivers and a drop saw, which is normal suburban noise. All stone, tile and fibre cement cutting is done wet with on-tool water suppression, because silica dust is a serious health hazard and dry cutting is not acceptable on any site of ours. The only smells are sealant, adhesive and, if we seal a concrete top, the sealer, and all of them clear within 24 to 48 hours.

Pets, kids and working from home.

Dogs inside or at daycare on 4 days: both footing days and both slab days. Gates get propped open when material is being carried, and wet concrete is irresistible to a dog. Cats will disappear for the week and come back. Kids need to stay out of the work zone every day the crew is there, because there are open pier holes, offcuts and leads. If you work from home, the pier boring morning is the one to schedule around, and we will tell you which day that is at least 3 days ahead.

Weather, and Cranbourne winters.

Expect 3 to 7 days of weather delay across a winter build and 1 to 3 days across a summer one. We will not pour concrete onto saturated Casey clay or in steady rain, because the result is a slab that never reaches strength properly. Roof sheeting does not go on in winds over about 40 km/h. A frosty morning below 2°C usually pushes the pour start back an hour or two rather than cancelling it. Delays get communicated the afternoon before, not on the morning. Our best time to build page goes through the seasonal trade-off in detail.

Site standards

What a clean site looks like, and where the waste goes.

This is the part that separates a good crew from a cheap one, and it is entirely within your right to insist on. At the end of every single day on your property:

The work area is broom swept and offcuts are in a bin, not in a pile on the lawn.
No screws, nails, tek screws or metal swarf anywhere on grass or paving. Metal swarf from cutting Colorbond rusts into concrete within a week and stains it permanently.
Power leads coiled, tools packed away or locked in the trailer, nothing left where a child can reach it.
Open pier holes covered or barricaded overnight.
Gates shut and latched. Every time.
Your bins are your bins. Our rubbish does not go in them.

If a site is not being left like that, say so on day two rather than saving it for handover. It is a five second conversation early and a grievance later.

Where the waste actually goes.

A typical outdoor kitchen and alfresco job produces 1 to 3 skips at $450 to $650 each in Casey, and it is in our price. Concrete, brick and tile spoil goes to a recycler and comes back as crushed rock. Clean excavated clay goes to fill. Steel and Colorbond offcuts go to a scrap merchant. Timber offcuts and packaging go to landfill or recycling. Stone offcuts are the one exception we keep: we leave you a matching offcut for future repairs and it lives in your shed.

The one thing that stops a job dead.

Bonded asbestos cement sheeting. Any Casey house or shed built before the late 1980s can have it in an eave, an old pergola roof or a shed wall. If we find it, work stops that hour, it is not touched, and a licensed removalist takes it and disposes of it at a licensed facility with the paperwork to prove it. Budget $900 to $2,800 and 3 to 5 days. Nobody enjoys that conversation but it is not negotiable, and a builder who offers to just take it down for you is telling you exactly what kind of builder they are.

What stalls a build

The four things that actually blow out the program.

An incomplete permit application. Missing soil report, unfinalised engineering, a site plan without the easement. This is the single biggest cause of a 10 week job becoming a 16 week one, and it happens before anyone picks up a tool. We lodge complete applications, which is why ours sit at the shorter end. See permits in the City of Casey.
A late change to the appliances. Changing your BBQ after the cabinetry is fabricated is not a tweak, it is a remake, and it costs 3 weeks and $900 to $2,400. Decide before stage 9.
Benchtop fabrication. Ten to 15 working days is normal and it stretches to 4 weeks in November and December when every stone shop in the southeast is booked. It is the reason winter builds run faster.
Something found in the ground. An unmarked service, an old slab under the lawn, or rock. On Casey clay this is rare but a buried slab from a previous shed adds a day and about $600 of breaking out.

None of those are dramatic on their own. Stacked together on a badly run job they turn 10 weeks into 20, which is why we sequence the slab and roof to happen while the cabinets are being made, and put the gas and electrical rough-ins in during the slab stage rather than after it.

Questions we get asked

Build week questions.

How many days will builders actually be at my house?

Between 12 and 20 working days, spread across an 8 to 14 week program. The calendar looks long because the building permit takes 4 to 8 weeks and the benchtop takes 10 to 15 working days at the fabricator, and both of those happen with nobody on your property. The on-site work itself is footings for 2 to 4 days, slab for 2 to 3 days, frame and roof for 3 to 6 days, cabinetry for 2 to 3 days, and finishing for 3 to 5 days.

What time do the crew start, and how loud does it get?

We start on site between 7:00 and 7:30am, which is within Victoria's residential construction noise hours of 7am to 6pm Monday to Friday and 7am to 1pm Saturday, with nothing on Sundays or public holidays. Only 2 days are genuinely loud: the pier boring day, which is 2 to 4 hours of a hydraulic auger, and the stone cutting day, which is a wet saw. On a concrete pour day the truck usually arrives between 6:30 and 8:00am.

Do I need to be home while the outdoor kitchen is being built?

Only twice. You need to be there for the 60 minute site set-out meeting on day 1, and for the 1 to 2 hour benchtop template appointment, because that is your last chance to move an overhang or a cut-out. For everything else we need side gate access, a working outdoor tap and one outdoor power point. Most of our Cranbourne and Berwick clients are at work for 90 percent of the build.

How much does rain delay an outdoor kitchen build in Cranbourne?

Expect 3 to 7 days of weather delay across a winter build and 1 to 3 days across a summer one. We will not pour concrete onto saturated Casey clay or in steady rain, and roof sheeting does not go on in winds over about 40 km/h because it is dangerous to handle. A frosty Cranbourne morning below 2 degrees will usually push a pour start back an hour or two rather than cancel it.

What has to be moved before the crew arrives?

Everything within about 2 metres of the build zone plus a clear path to it: outdoor furniture, pots, the barbecue, the clothesline if it is in the way, the trampoline, play equipment, the dog kennel and anything hanging on the wall where the new roof ties in. Keep a 900mm wide path from the side gate to the work area clear for the whole build. If your side access is under 900mm, tell us before we quote, because carrying materials through the house adds $800 to $2,500 in labour.

What happens to all the waste and rubbish?

It leaves in a skip or a tipper, and it is in our price, not yours. A typical outdoor kitchen job produces 1 to 3 skips at $450 to $650 each in the City of Casey: concrete and brick spoil goes to a recycler, clean fill goes to fill, steel and Colorbond offcuts go to scrap and timber offcuts go to landfill or green waste. If we find bonded asbestos sheeting in an old pergola or eave, work stops that hour and a licensed removalist handles it, which adds $900 to $2,800 and 3 to 5 days.

Still deciding what to build before you worry about the build week? Start with the budget tiers, then choose a benchtop, and check the bench space estimator for how big it needs to be. Once it is built, the maintenance schedule and the warranty page are the two you will want bookmarked.

Get a price

Get a build program with real dates on it.

Send us your suburb and your target date and we will come back with a fixed price and a stage-by-stage program, in writing, within 1 business day.

A tidy site, dates you can plan around, and certificates at handover.

Cranbourne, Berwick, Narre Warren, Hampton Park and Endeavour Hills. VBA-registered, AS 5601 gas, AS/NZS 3000 electrical.

☎ Call (03) 9003 0108 Outdoor kitchen builds

Your outdoor kitchen build, day by day: 14 working days on site.