How long will you actually need somewhere else to live?

Builders quote a programme. Programmes are honest documents written before anyone opens the floor up. The gap between the programme and reality is where your accommodation budget lives, so it is worth understanding where the time tends to go.

The first place is before work starts. Many ordinary planning applications carry a statutory eight-week determination period, and that clock only starts once the application is validated. Add a party wall award with a neighbour on either side and weeks can pass before a brick moves.

The second is the structural stage. Once the roof is off or the rear wall is out, the survey meets the building. Foundations go deeper than expected, a drain runs where nobody drew it, a wall that was drawn as non-load-bearing turns out to be doing real work. This is the stage that most often adds time.

The third is the finishes, and it is the cruellest, because the house looks finished. Stone is out of stock, the joiner is on another job, glazing takes longer than anyone quoted. Families routinely plan to move back twice: once optimistically, once for real.

We are not going to invent a statistic about how long your project will take, because it depends entirely on what you are doing. The practical response is not pessimism, it is flexibility: choose accommodation that can absorb a change of dates in either direction, and ask your builder for their honest date rather than their contract date. Most will tell you, if you ask over a cup of tea rather than by email.

Then start with that best guess. Renovation Stay is set up so the dates can be discussed like adults rather than enforced like a hotel booking.