Office fit-out glossary
26 fit-out terms, defined in one or two sentences.
- Free site survey and layout options
- Fixed, itemised price before work starts
- Out-of-hours and phased working
- Category A (Cat A)
- The landlord's base fit-out that makes a floor lettable: suspended ceilings, raised floors, lighting, heating and cooling, and finished walls, with no tenant rooms.
- Category A plus (Cat A+)
- A Cat A floor let with some Category B elements already in place, such as a kitchen, a few meeting rooms and furniture, so a tenant can move in quickly.
- Category B (Cat B)
- The tenant's fit-out built into a Cat A shell: rooms, kitchens, finishes, furniture and branding.
- Shell and core
- A building delivered with only its structure, envelope, lifts, stairs and main services; floors have no ceilings, raised floors or finishes.
- Licence for alterations
- The landlord's written consent, required by most leases, before a tenant alters the premises.
- Schedule of dilapidations
- A list, prepared by the landlord's surveyor, of repairs and reinstatement the tenant must carry out or pay for at lease end.
- Schedule of condition
- A record, usually with photographs, of the state of premises at the start of a lease, used to limit future dilapidations claims.
- Reinstatement
- Returning premises to their original condition by removing tenant alterations, as a lease requires.
- Net internal area (NIA)
- The usable floor area inside a building measured to the internal face of perimeter walls, excluding cores, stairs and plant areas.
- Test fit
- A draft layout showing how desks, rooms and storage fit a floor, used to check a building suits a business before committing.
- Space planning
- Arranging people, rooms, storage and circulation on a floor so it works for how a team operates.
- Raised access floor
- Removable floor panels on adjustable pedestals, creating a void for power and data cabling.
- Suspended ceiling
- A secondary ceiling hung on a metal grid below the structural slab, hiding services and carrying lights and detectors.
- MF ceiling
- A metal-furring plasterboard ceiling giving a smooth, seamless finish.
- Demountable partition
- An internal wall system, often glazed, that can be taken down and reinstalled elsewhere.
- dB Rw
- A laboratory rating of how much sound a wall or partition blocks; a higher number means better sound insulation.
- Manifestation
- Visible markings or film on glazed partitions and doors so people do not walk into the glass.
- Floor box
- A power and data outlet set into a raised access floor beneath desks.
- Small power
- General-purpose socket outlets and desk power, as distinct from lighting and plant circuits.
- Structured cabling
- The standardised data cabling system, such as Cat6 or Cat6A, that connects desks and devices to the comms room.
- M&E
- Mechanical and electrical services: heating, cooling, ventilation, plumbing, power, lighting and data.
- Preliminaries
- Project costs not tied to a single trade, such as site management, welfare, protection, waste removal and access equipment.
- Snagging
- Identifying and fixing minor defects before and just after handover.
- Defects period
- A period after completion, commonly 12 months, during which the contractor returns to fix defects that appear.
- Decant
- Temporarily moving staff to another area or building while their space is worked on.
- Out-of-hours working
- Carrying out noisy or disruptive works in evenings, nights or weekends to keep an office usable during the day.
Planning an office fit-out?
Book a free survey and get layout options with an itemised price.