What are the different types of renovation?

Renovations divide by focus into four types: structural, internal, services and performance (the energy retrofit). Structural renovation alters the fabric or layout of the building: removing a load-bearing wall, taking out a chimney breast, moving a staircase, replacing failed joists or lintels. That brings in a structural engineer for calculations, a steel fabricator, and Building Control for sign-off.

Internal renovation covers everything non-structural you can see: kitchen and bathroom fit-outs, flooring, internal doors, plastering and decoration. Carpenters, plasterers, tilers and decorators do the bulk of it. Services renovation is the layer behind the walls: full or partial rewire, a new consumer unit, replumbing, boiler replacement, moving radiators. That is electricians and Gas Safe engineers. Keep the certificates; buyers' solicitors ask for them years later.

Performance renovation targets how the house holds heat rather than how it looks: insulation, draught-proofing, better glazing, sometimes a heat pump. On the 1930s houses we work on around Bromley and Beckenham, insulating while the walls are already open costs a fraction of doing it as a standalone job later.

In practice most projects mix all four. Strip out a Victorian terrace in Dulwich and you will likely touch structure (chimney breast out), services (rewire), internals (new kitchen and bathroom) and performance (loft insulation while access is easy). The skill is sequencing those trades in one programme so you pay for scaffolding, skips and disruption once, not twice.