What to expect
| Typical duration | Villa 9–18 months · renovation 3–9 months · single trade 1–6 weeks |
|---|---|
| Cost band | Figures live in the cost index |
| Permit required | Yes for structural or external work |
| Seasonal constraint | Peak-season restrictions near operating hotels |
What a main contractor actually carries
The visible part is the trades. The part that decides whether a project finishes on time is everything between them: ordering windows twelve weeks before they are needed, getting the electrician back for second fix on the day the plasterer finishes, and having the crane booked before the crane is the reason nothing moves.
Under a main contract, that sequencing is a contractual obligation rather than a favour. If the plasterer arrives to a wall that is not ready, it is our cost and our problem. Under six separate contracts, it is yours.
- Programme and float
- One programme covering every package, with float allocated where the risk actually sits — the ferry, the weather window, and the specialist who is on another island.
- Procurement
- Materials ordered against lead times that include the crossing. On an island the difference between ordering in week two and week six is not four weeks, it is a sailing schedule.
- Site management
- A named project manager who was at the first site visit and is still there at handover.
- Commercial control
- Variations priced and agreed in writing before the work happens, not discovered at the final account.
- One warranty boundary
- When a terrace leaks, there is nobody for the tiler to blame.
Three things that make this island different
These are not general observations about working in Greece. They are the specific constraints that reshape a contract here.
Everything arrives by sea. There is no road link. Cement, blockwork, windows, sanitaryware, plant and the skips that take the waste away all cross on a ferry, and a cancelled sailing moves a delivery by days rather than hours because the next boat is already booked. A programme that does not carry float against this is a programme that will be missed.
Access ends before the property does. In Oia, Imerovigli, Pyrgos and much of Emporio the lorry stops and the last two hundred metres are done by barrow, by hand or by mule — in both directions, because demolition waste costs the same to carry out as material did to carry in. This is the most under-estimated line in owner budgets on this island.
The labour market is seasonal and small. Skilled crews are limited and a large share of them are committed to hotel refurbishment between November and April, which is exactly when private work wants to run. Booking work the autumn before you want it is the difference between a programme and a hope.
What one contractor holds, and what gets brought in
Structure, masonry, plastering, waterproofing, tiling, painting, carpentry, electrical, plumbing, air conditioning and general labour are held in-house. That is what makes the programme enforceable — we are not competing with you for the same crews.
Lift installation, geotechnical drilling, marble fabrication, specialist glazing and heavy plant are brought in under the main contract, on the main contractor's programme, priced and warranted through them. A company on an island this size claiming to hold all of those in-house is not describing reality.
How this gets priced
You get quantities and rates, not a single number. Provisional sums are labelled as provisional. Exclusions are listed explicitly rather than left to be discovered.
Nobody should give a fixed price on a building nobody has opened up. On a renovation that means investigation before pricing: a section of render off, a floor corner lifted, the drainage traced, the cistern inspected. Fixing a price against an unseen building is either padded heavily or a trap that pays for itself through variations, and both are worse for you than an honest range.
Where a figure genuinely depends on something we cannot yet know — depth to competent ground, what is behind a wall, whether the Ephorate requires a trial trench — it is stated as a range with the governing variable named. Indicative bands by work type are published in the cost index.
When you should not hire a main contractor
For a single-trade job — a rewire, a repaint, a boiler swap — a main contract adds management cost for coordination that is not needed. Call the trade directly, or call us and ask for that trade directly.
If you live on the island full-time, already have relationships with crews, and have the calendar space to be on site daily, you can run a small renovation yourself and the saving is real. The cost is your time, and it is consistently more time than people expect.
We will tell you which of these you are in on the first visit. Taking a job that should have been run differently helps nobody.
Questions people actually ask
Do you work on the whole island or only the caldera side?
The whole island, plus Therasia. The caldera settlements get more attention because they are harder, but a large share of the work is inland and on the east coast where access is straightforward and the buildings are ordinary.
Can you take over a project another contractor has left?
Yes, and it happens more than you would think. It starts with a survey of what has actually been built versus what was drawn and paid for, in writing, before anyone quotes. No competent contractor will price a takeover without that, because inheriting someone else's hidden work is how a takeover becomes a dispute.
What is the smallest job you will take as a main contract?
Roughly a full bathroom or a small terrace. Below that a main contract is the wrong instrument and we will quote it as a single trade instead.
How much float should a Santorini programme carry?
More than a mainland one, and it should be visible in the programme rather than hidden in each trade's duration. The honest answer is that ferry and weather risk are real and unevenly distributed across the year — a January programme carries more than a May one.
Do you take on work on other Cycladic islands?
Where the scale justifies moving a crew, plant and a container. For small jobs the mobilisation cost would be most of your budget, and we will say so rather than quote it.