Building Inspections in North Avoca, Central Coast

Central Coast Council's coastal records list North Avoca among the locations where properties are recorded as threatened by coastal erosion. That is a planning and coastal hazard matter, not a building inspection one, and the mapped hazard lines follow particular stretches of coast, not whole suburbs, so we cannot tell you whether a given lot is affected. Read Council's coastal zone management material and the Section 10.7 planning certificate for that property before you commit to anything.

The emphasis does. Metal goes first on this coast, so we pay closer attention to roof sheeting and its fixings, flashings and cappings, gutter and downpipe corrosion, garage door tracks, window and door hardware, and the fixings holding balustrades together. Weather seals at windows and sliding doors get the same treatment, because wind-driven rain finds a tired seal long before anything structural shows. The rest of the inspection runs the way it would anywhere else.

Further than most people expect. Salt-laden air carries well back from the sand along this coast, and corrosion on roofing, guttering and window hardware turns up on houses several streets from the water. A frontal block gets it faster and harsher because it also takes direct spray. A house set back gets the same process at a slower rate. Either way the checks are the same, so we do not skip the metal because the property is not on the beach.

Support underneath, fixings back to the house, post bases where they meet the ground or a footing, decking and stair treads for decay, and balustrade condition, fixing and height. Near the ocean these are the structures that age fastest, because the timber weathers and the fixings corrode from the inside of the shank outward. Where a deck is enclosed underneath or cannot be safely reached, the report records the limitation and gives the reason.

Where they sit on the property and can be safely reached, we report the visible condition: leaning or bulging, cracking, whether there is any drainage or weep at the base, and rot or corrosion in the materials. What is behind a wall and how it was built are not visible, and a wall over a certain height should have been engineered. Anything holding up the house platform or a neighbour's ground is worth a specialist opinion in addition to the report.

Same day is the aim, emailed rather than posted, and it depends on access and availability. On coastal blocks the timing usually turns on getting access arranged, not on the inspection itself, so book early and tell us the auction or exchange date. Calls about the report are free for twelve months after it is issued, which tends to get used once the trade quotes start arriving.