What Do You Keep and What Do You Replace in a Hotel Refurbishment?

In a hotel refurbishment you replace what has reached the end of its service life or will reach it before the next planned entry into the room, what fails a safety or compliance check, and what guests notice; you keep what still has life left and will not force a second entry. The governing idea is the cost of re-entry: every time a room leaves inventory the owner pays for lost room nights and for mobilisation, so the items replaced together should have lives that end together. The working ranges Cocoplum Design Studio and Boxareno use are five to seven years for soft goods, seven to ten for casegoods, about ten for bathrooms and twenty to twenty-five for services. The Australian Taxation Office’s effective life tables put guest room furniture, carpets and mattresses at seven years and room air conditioning units and hot water systems at ten, which is the published anchor for those ranges.

What is the cost of re-entry, and why does it decide the answer?

A room out of inventory costs the owner three things: the room nights it would have sold, the mobilisation of trades and protection for that block, and the disruption to guests in the rooms around it. None of these depends much on how much work is done inside the room once it is closed. That is why the keep-or-replace decision is not made item by item on condition alone. An item with three years of life left in a room that will not be entered again for seven years is a liability, because it will fail between entries and be replaced in an occupied room at the worst possible cost. An item with three years left in a room that will be re-entered in three years for a planned soft refurbishment can stay.

The arithmetic is the owner’s to do with their own figures: the achieved room rate multiplied by the occupancy those rooms would have sold at, multiplied by the nights the block is closed, plus the mobilisation and protection cost for the block, gives the cost of one entry. Put beside it the cost of replacing an item now rather than at the next entry, and the decision usually makes itself. What the method does is force the replacement cycles of the different components into alignment, so the room is entered as few times as possible over its life.

How long do hotel room components last?

Two sets of figures are useful. The first is the working ranges we use when planning a refurbishment, from our hotel projects. The second is the effective life the Australian Taxation Office assigns to the same assets for depreciation, in Table A of its effective life tables for accommodation and food services. The tax lives were set in 2005 and are carried into the current determination, and they are lives for tax purposes, not a statement of when a hotel should replace anything. They matter here because they are the only published, Australian, asset-by-asset figures an owner can check, and because they sit close to what we see in practice.

Three things move an item off its cycle. Wear moves it earlier: a headboard in a family room ages faster than the same headboard in a corporate room. Brand standards move it earlier too, because a repositioning or a new brand property improvement plan resets the room regardless of condition. Technology moves some items earlier still: televisions, room controls and charging points are replaced for capability, not wear. Nothing reliably moves an item later except a maintenance regime that was actually followed, which is why the housekeeping and engineering records are the first thing we ask for.

What should be replaced when a room is opened?

• Waterproofing, if the bathroom is opened at all. Membranes cannot be inspected without lifting tiles, and a failed membrane found later means re-entering an occupied room. If the tiles come off, the membrane is renewed.
• Corridor door seals and drop seals. The National Construction Code, Volume One Part F7, requires the wall to the corridor to achieve Rw 50 but the door only Rw 30, so the door and its seals are the weak point in every existing hotel and one of the cheapest acoustic improvements available.
• In-room air conditioning past its life. Robbins and colleagues (2020), surveying 600 regular hotel travellers, found a noisy air conditioner was the strongest single predictor of poor sleep satisfaction. A unit at the end of its life is noisy before it fails.
• Mattresses and pillows past their cycle. The same survey, and Mao, Yang and Wang (2018), put mattress and pillows at the top of what guests complain about. They are inexpensive against the room and are replaced whenever the room is entered.
• Anything that fails a compliance check. Electrical accessories and wiring not to current standard, glazing that does not meet the safety glass requirement, and any material identified on the asbestos register.
• Anything the guest notices. Chipped laminate edges, worn arm caps, stained carpet at the door and the bathroom silicone. A guest does not need to identify the defect to register that the room feels neglected.

What can usually be kept?

• The structure, the windows and the risers. They are on the 20 to 25 year cycle or longer, and touching them turns an interior refurbishment into building work with its own approvals.
• Sound joinery carcasses. A wardrobe or desk carcass that is square, dry and fixed can take new doors, fronts, tops and hardware for a fraction of a new unit, and it removes the largest single item from the manufacturing programme.
• Stone and hard flooring in good condition. Reground, re-sealed and re-grouted rather than replaced.
• Bathroom layouts where the waterproofing is proven sound. Fittings, tapware and screens can be renewed on the existing set-out, avoiding new plumbing and the approvals it brings. This is the exception to the rule above, and it depends on a test, not a look.
• Lighting positions and circuits that already suit a warm, layered scheme. Fittings and lamps change; the circuit layout is what is expensive to move.

Every item on this list carries the same condition: the survey has to prove it. Keeping an item on the strength of its appearance is how a soft refurbishment becomes a hard one in the third block. Where the survey cannot prove it, open one room and one bathroom as part of the prototype and find out.

Why do refurbishments often replace more than the survey suggested?

Owners weighing the numbers frequently decide to replace more than the condition survey alone would justify, and the reasons are legitimate ones. On an operating hotel the programme is fixed by the rooms the operator can release, and retaining an element means surveying it, designing around it and warranting the junction between old and new; each of those adds design time and, at the interface between existing and new plumbing or electrical services, adds risk. A single new installation carries one warranty and one responsible party. Retention carries two. The sustainability case for keeping more is real, and we set it out in Sustainable Hotel Refurbishment: Retain, Replace and Adapt; the decision belongs to the owner, and our job is to put the cost of re-entry, the remaining lives and the interface risk in front of them in the brief so that it is a decision and not a default.

How do you decide, room by room?

1. Audit every room type, asset by asset. Condition, age, maintenance history and remaining life against the cycles above. Use the engineering and housekeeping records, not a walk-through.
2. Fix the re-entry interval. When will this room next leave inventory for planned work? Anything whose remaining life ends before that date is replaced now.
3. Overlay compliance. Fire, electrical, glazing, accessibility and the asbestos register. These override condition.
4. Overlay the guest record. Review comments and maintenance calls by room type for the last two years. Repeated complaints about a component mean replacement whatever its age.
5. Overlay the brand and the market. A property improvement plan or a repositioning sets a floor for what changes.
6. Test what you cannot see. Open one bathroom and one wall in the prototype room, and test a sample of rooms for waterproofing and services before the strip-out scope is fixed.
7. Record the decision per asset. Keep, repair, adapt or replace, with the reason, so the next refurbishment starts from a record and not from another survey.

How does the prototype room help the decision?

A prototype room built to the frozen design, with the actual joinery, finishes, lighting, curtains, bathroom fittings and loose furniture, is where the keep-or-replace decisions are tested against the real thing. On our projects it is built in the factory or in the hotel and the owner and operator walk in, open the drawers, sit on the furniture, run the taps and judge the retained elements against the new ones in the same light. It can be made available to stay in if the client wants that. The prototype is also the one place where a retained item that should have been replaced shows itself before 200 rooms depend on the decision. How the prototype fits the sign-off sequence is in How do you keep design control when one team designs and manufactures the FF&E?.

What does the guest experience have to do with it?

The keep-or-replace list and the sleep list overlap almost entirely. The components guests complain about, the air conditioner, the mattress and pillows, noise through the corridor door, light leaking past the curtains, are the same components that sit on the shortest cycles. A refurbishment that keeps a tired air conditioner behind a new joinery panel has spent the budget on what photographs and kept what the guest hears at 3am. The evidence on what guests notice is set out in What Makes Guests Sleep Better in a Hotel Room?, and it is the reason our asset audits score condition and guest impact together rather than condition alone.

Cocoplum Design Studio and its manufacturing arm Boxareno design and produce hotel interiors under one contract, so the asset audit, the re-entry interval and the manufacturing programme are planned together. Studio founder Ozge Fettahlioglu is a neuroarchitect, a lecturer at Western Sydney University, a member of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, a NeuroAU graduate and the author of Designing for Health and Wealth (2026).

Further reading

• Sustainable Hotel Refurbishment: Retain, Replace and Adapt: the sustainability case and the five questions before a strip-out
• How Long Does a Hotel Refurbishment Take?: the stages and what governs each
• How Do You Renovate a Hotel Without Closing It?: phasing and the cost of staying open
• How Much Does It Cost to Refurbish a Hotel Room in Australia?: the structure of the cost
• What Makes Guests Sleep Better in a Hotel Room?: what guests notice

Sources

• Australian Taxation Office. Effective life of depreciating assets, Table A, Accommodation and food services (44000 to 45302): carpets 7; bed mattresses 7; bedding 2; bed spreads, blankets and quilts 5; window blinds and curtains 6; furniture, freestanding, generally including guest rooms 7; bar refrigerators 10; hot water systems 10; air conditioning room units 10, mini split systems 10, packaged units 15. TR 2022/1, since replaced by the Income Tax (Effective Life of Depreciating Assets) Determination 2025 (LI 2025/20), which carries Tables A and B forward. https://www.ato.gov.au/law/view/document?DocID=TXR%2FTR20221%2FNAT%2FATO%2F00011 and https://www.legislation.gov.au/F2025L01097/asmade
• Robbins, R., Grandner, M.A., Knowlden, A., & Severt, K. (2020). Examining the influence of hotel sleep-related attributes on guest sleep satisfaction. International Journal of Hospitality Management. Surveyed 600 regular hotel travellers across 26 sleep-related attributes.
• Mao, Z., Yang, Y., & Wang, M. (2018). Sleepless nights in hotels? Understanding factors that influence hotel sleep quality. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 74, 189 to 201. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2018.05.002
• Australian Building Codes Board. National Construction Code, Volume One, Part F7, Sound transmission and insulation.
• Safe Work Australia. Asbestos registers at the workplace. https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/doc/asbestos-registers-workplace
• Cocoplum Design Studio and Boxareno. Working replacement ranges from hotel projects: soft goods 5 to 7 years, casegoods 7 to 10, bathrooms about 10, services 20 to 25.

Frequently asked questions

How often should hotel rooms be refurbished?

The components run on different cycles: soft goods five to seven years, casegoods seven to ten, bathrooms about ten and services twenty to twenty-five, in our working ranges. The Australian Taxation Office’s effective life tables put guest room furniture, carpets and mattresses at seven years and room air conditioning units at ten. A soft refurbishment on the shorter cycle and a hard one on the longer cycle is the usual pattern, with the two aligned so the room is entered as few times as possible.

What is the cost of re-entry in a hotel refurbishment?

The cost of taking a room out of inventory: the room nights it would have sold, the mobilisation and protection for that block, and the disruption to surrounding rooms. It is largely fixed regardless of how much is done inside the room, so items replaced together should have lives that end together, and an item that will fail before the next planned entry is replaced now.

Should we keep the existing bathrooms in a hotel refurbishment?

Only if a test proves the waterproofing is sound. If the tiles come off, the membrane is renewed, because a failed membrane found later means re-entering an occupied room. Where the membrane is proven, fittings, tapware and screens can be renewed on the existing set-out without new plumbing.

Can existing hotel joinery be reused?

Often. A wardrobe or desk carcass that is square, dry and fixed can take new doors, fronts, tops and hardware for a fraction of a new unit, and it removes the largest single item from the manufacturing programme. The survey has to prove the carcass is sound; appearance is not evidence.

Why do hotel refurbishments replace more than planned?

Because retaining an element adds survey, design and warranty work, and at the junction between existing and new plumbing or electrical services it adds risk. A single new installation has one warranty and one responsible party. Owners weigh that against the cost and the sustainability case for keeping more, and the decision should be made with the cost of re-entry and remaining lives in front of them.

What must always be replaced in a hotel room refurbishment?

Waterproofing when a bathroom is opened, corridor door seals, in-room air conditioning past its life, mattresses and pillows past their cycle, anything that fails an electrical, glazing, fire or asbestos check, and anything the guest notices. The first four are also the components guests most often blame for a bad night.

How does a prototype room help decide what to keep?

It puts the retained elements next to the new ones in the same light, with the real joinery, finishes, lighting and fittings, so the owner and operator can walk in, open the drawers, run the taps and judge. It is also where one bathroom and one wall are opened to test what the survey could not see, before 200 rooms depend on the decision.