Most renovation cost guides in Singapore are written by people who have never priced a job. They give you a range so wide it is useless — "$30,000 to $80,000" — and call it a guide. This is not that. Below is a full line-item build-up for a 4-room BTO, roughly 90 sqm, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, standard HDB finishes in place, using the same rates we quote from.
Take it to your own quotations and compare line against line, not bottom line against bottom line. If another firm's number is very different, you now know which line to ask about.
The short answer
A 4-room BTO, full carpentry, standard finishes, no hacking: roughly $23,000 to $26,000 for the renovation contract on our rates. That excludes lights, sanitary ware, appliances, curtains and furniture — see the exclusions section, because that is where budgets actually break.
If a quote for the same scope comes in under $18,000, something has been removed from it. Find out what before you sign.
The full line-item table
These are our own rates for a 4-room flat. Where a line is not on our card, it is marked as a market range and should be re-quoted fresh.
| Line item | 4-room BTO (SGD) | Why it moves |
|---|---|---|
| Hacking and demolition | $0 – $700 | A BTO has almost nothing to hack. Our card prices removals individually: $80 per bifold door, $150 per timber door frame, $500 to strip out an existing kitchen carcass |
| Site protection | $450 | Floor and door protection on a 4-room. Corridor and lift protection is not optional |
| Masonry, screed and tiling | $750 upward | $750 for a masonry kitchen cabinet base. Tiling is $13.50 per square foot laid, screed $6 per square foot, skirting $12 per foot run. On an untouched BTO most of this never appears |
| Waterproofing | $350 per bathroom | $400 for a kitchen, $250 for a yard, $200 for the ponding test. Only needed if the existing membrane is broken. Overlaying tiles avoids it entirely |
| Plumbing | $1,000 – $1,200 | Full cold-water run for a 3, 4 or 5-room flat: $1,200 in copper, $1,000 in stainless. Fitting installation is separate — $150 per WC, $120 per sink, $80 per basin, $120 per rain mixer |
| Electrical | $1,500 – $2,100 | Priced per point: $60 a single 13A socket, $70 a twin, $120 a 15A or cooker point, $45 a lighting or fan point, $190 an isolator, $320 for a DB box. A 4-room fit-out runs 25 to 35 points |
| Painting, whole flat | $1,550 – $1,950 | $1,550 standard, $1,850 classic, $1,950 premium. The difference is paint grade and number of coats, not labour. Oil-based sealer is $450 on top |
| Carpentry — kitchen, top and bottom | ≈ $4,200 | $300 per foot run, top and bottom combined. A typical 4-room kitchen is 12 to 16 ft; this is 14 ft |
| Carpentry — wardrobes, 3 rooms | ≈ $8,160 | Master full-height to ceiling at $480 per foot run over 8 ft, two bedrooms at $360 per foot run for 2700mm over 6 ft each |
| Carpentry — TV console | $1,200 | $200 per foot run floor-standing over 6 ft. Suspended is $180 |
| Carpentry — settee or bay window bench | $1,020 | $170 per foot run over 6 ft. Cushions and upholstery are a separate charge |
| Carpentry — shoe cabinet | $960 | $320 per foot run full height over 3 ft. Half height is $180 |
| Countertop | $1,540 – $1,820 | Aximus sintered stone at $130 per foot run, Arkstone at $110, over a 14 ft kitchen. Backsplash in the same material is charged again at the same rate |
| Glass and shower screens | $640 – $1,110 each | $640 for a straight one-fixed-one-sliding screen, $830 for the L configuration, $920 to $1,110 top-hung. Frameless swing doors and aluminium sliders price separately |
| Post-renovation cleaning | $400 | First clean on a 4-room. Debris disposal is charged by load on top |
| Aircon, System 3 or 4 | Market range | Quoted per system after a site check. Market rates in 2026 run roughly $2,500 to $6,000 supplied and installed. Concealed trunking and long pipe runs add on top |
| Permits and admin | Submitted with the job | HDB permits are lodged by your contractor. Some firms absorb the admin, some bill it as a line. Ask which before you compare totals |
| Renovation contract total | ≈ $23,000 – $26,000 | Carpentry alone is around $15,500 of it |
Add a 10 per cent contingency on top. Not because contractors are dishonest — because you will change your mind about something, and every change after work starts is priced at variation-order rates.
Why carpentry is two-thirds of your bill
On the numbers above, carpentry is about 65 per cent of the contract. People find that suspicious. It is not.
A BTO arrives finished. Floors are laid, walls are plastered, bathrooms are tiled and fitted, the electrical is live. Every trade that would normally cost you serious money on a resale flat — hacking, rewiring, retiling, waterproofing — has already been paid for by HDB. So every wet trade either disappears from the quote or shrinks to a fraction of what it would be. Carpentry does not shrink. You still need the same kitchen, the same wardrobes, the same storage.
Carpentry does not get more expensive on a BTO. Everything else gets cheaper, and carpentry's share goes up. On a resale flat with full hacking and a rewire, the same $15,500 of carpentry might be 35 per cent of a $45,000 job. Same carpentry, different denominator.
This is also why board grade matters more on a BTO than anywhere else. Two-thirds of what you are buying is engineered board sitting in a sealed, air-conditioned flat. What that board actually emits is not a detail.
How carpentry is actually measured
Carpentry is quoted per foot run — one linear foot, about 305mm, measured along the wall.
The trap is what counts as a run. A 10-foot kitchen with cabinets top and bottom is 20 foot run, not 10. Some firms quote per row. Some quote the combined figure. Some quote a headline rate across all cabinetry in the flat — kitchen, wardrobes, console, shoe cabinet lumped together — which makes the rate look low by inflating the footage.
Ask one question and get it in writing: is this rate for one row, or for top and bottom combined?
Our card, laminate finish, 18mm plywood carcass, top and bottom combined where applicable:
- Kitchen, top and bottom — $300 per foot run
- Wardrobe, full height to ceiling — $480 per foot run
- Wardrobe, 2700mm — $360 per foot run
- Wardrobe, plain, no design detail — $300 per foot run
- Open wardrobe, no doors — $260 per foot run
- Kitchen island — $280 per foot run
- TV console — $200 per foot run floor-standing, $180 suspended
- Shoe cabinet — $320 per foot run full height, $180 half height
- Settee or bay window bench — $170 per foot run
- Bathroom vanity, top and bottom — $180 per foot run
A quote materially below these numbers is not a bargain. It is a specification difference you have not been told about — thinner carcass, hollow-core panels, a lower board grade, or unbranded hardware. You cannot see the carcass once the doors are on, which is exactly why the corner gets cut there.
What is almost never in the quote
Renovation quotes cover works. They do not cover things. This is the section that turns a $24,000 renovation into a $38,000 spend, and it catches people who did nothing wrong.
- Lighting fittings. Your quote includes the lighting point — the wiring and the switch, $45 a point on our card. It does not include the downlight, the track, the pendant or the cove strip. Market spend for a whole 4-room runs roughly $1,500 to $4,000 depending on how much you care.
- Sanitary ware. WCs, basins, mixers, rain showers, bidet sprays. We install them — $150 a WC, $80 a basin, $120 a mixer, $40 a hand spray — we do not supply them. Market supply cost for two bathrooms runs roughly $1,500 to $5,000.
- Appliances. Hob, hood, oven, fridge, washer, dryer. Never included, and market spend runs roughly $4,000 to $12,000. Your carpenter needs the exact model numbers before he builds, because the cut-outs are made to the appliance, not the other way round.
- Hardware upgrades. Soft-close hinges and runners are standard on our jobs. Branded systems are not. Expect an uplift of 20 to 30 per cent on the affected carpentry, quoted per cabinet run — ask for it as a figure, not a percentage, before you agree.
- Curtains, blinds and window film. Never included. Market spend for a whole flat runs roughly $2,000 to $5,000 depending on whether you go day-and-night blinds or full curtains with track boxes.
- Countertops. Quoted separately from carpentry, almost universally. See sintered stone versus quartz for what you are actually choosing between.
- Flooring, if you are changing it. A BTO comes with floors. If the tiles are sound, spend the money elsewhere.
Add these up and there is realistically $12,000 to $20,000 sitting outside your renovation quote, which puts the true all-in number for a 4-room BTO closer to $36,000 to $45,000 before furniture. That is the figure to plan around. Anyone who tells you their package covers everything has either included a token allowance for each item or has not read their own exclusions page.
The lines that move most
Carpentry volume. Not the rate — the amount. Every additional foot run is a straight multiplication. The single most effective way to cut a BTO budget is to build less, not to build cheaper. Skip the study desk, skip the feature wall, buy a loose wardrobe for the smallest room. You will save more than by shaving $30 off a per-foot rate, and you will not be sitting on a thin carcass for the next fifteen years.
Tiling scope. Overlaying existing BTO tiles is cheap. Hacking and relaying is not — you add demolition, disposal, screed at $6 per square foot and waterproofing to a line that was previously just tiles and labour.
Wet works relocation. Moving a sink two metres sounds trivial. It is plumbing, screed, floor levels and possibly a false ceiling below to hide the fall. This is the classic small change that returns a four-figure variation order.
How to read a quote you have been given
Three checks, in order.
- Is carpentry priced per foot run, and is the run length stated? If the quote says "kitchen carpentry — $5,000" with no length, you cannot compare it to anything.
- Is the board grade named? If it is not, assume the cheapest available.
- Is there an exclusions page? A quote with no exclusions list is not a complete quote. It is a deposit collection device.
Then check the payment schedule and who is actually doing the work. A deposit above 20 per cent is not normal. A 50/50 split on a job over $20,000 is not a progressive payment structure. The final handover payment, released after defects are cleared, is the only real leverage you have, and quotes that omit it omit it deliberately. We wrote a longer piece on this, because it is the single most common way people overpay: why different IDs quote you differently for the same item list.
The honest caveats
These are our rates, as of 2026, for standard specification. They move with three things: material selection, run length and site condition. A galley kitchen with a bulkhead to work around costs more per foot than a straight run. A wardrobe with internal drawers and glass fronts is not the $360 line. And if you want a specific board, stone or hardware brand, that is a different number.
We build our carpentry at our own factory at 2 Defu South Street 1, and every trade on our sites is our own crew. That is why we can put board grade, carcass thickness and hardware on a quote line and hold the price.
If you want the real figure for your unit rather than a worked example, we will measure it. Send us the floor plan or call 8124 0909, and bring your existing quotations — we will tell you which lines are underpriced, which are padded, and what is missing.