Building and Pest Inspection, Melbourne's North-East

A building and pest inspection in Melbourne is two separate inspections carried out on the same visit: a building inspection with reference to AS 4349.1, which reports on the condition of the property, and a timber pest inspection with reference to AS 4349.3, which looks for termites, borers and fungal decay. Melba Building Inspections offers the two together for $650 inc. GST, which is the best value option on the price list.

The building inspection is carried out by Nathan Maries. The timber pest inspection is carried out by a licensed timber pest inspector. That split matters, and it is worth being upfront about it, because plenty of buyers assume one person walks through and covers both.

This page explains what each inspection actually covers, why Melbourne's north-east has a real termite problem rather than a marketing one, what termite evidence looks like on a Greensborough or Eltham property, and why the timing matters if you are buying at auction in Victoria.

The building inspection and the pest inspection are two different jobs

They get booked together so often that most people assume they are one product. They are two inspections, written to two different Australian Standards, looking for two different sets of problems.

The building inspection is done with reference to AS 4349.1. It covers the condition of what can be seen and safely reached: footings and subfloor, walls and ceilings, the roof frame and roof covering, windows and doors, wet areas, site drainage, decks, retaining walls, and the visible condition of services. It reports defects and safety hazards, and it tells you which parts of the property could not be accessed.

The timber pest inspection is done with reference to AS 4349.3. It covers termites, borers and fungal decay, and it also reports the conditions around a house that invite an attack in the first place.

Here is the part worth reading twice. Timber pests sit outside the scope of AS 4349.1. A building report with nothing alarming in it tells you nothing at all about termites, because the building inspector was never looking for them. That single misunderstanding is the most common one I come across.

Who does what when you book the combined inspection

I'm Nathan Maries, and I do the building inspection myself. Twenty-three years in construction, starting at 16. I ran my own building company, Melba Building Services, from 2007 to 2017 across hundreds of renovations, extensions and fit-outs from around $5,000 up to $350,000. Then nine years as a project manager, including delivering work inside more than 20 occupied retirement villages for Keyton, Levande and Aveo, where you cannot afford to miss things in somebody's home.

I do not carry out the timber pest inspection. Termite work is its own licensed field and it belongs with people who do it every day. The pest component is carried out by a licensed timber pest inspector working with reference to AS 4349.3, and their report comes to you with their name on it. You get two sets of eyes on the property rather than one person stretched across both.

One more thing said plainly: I am working towards builder registration and I am not registered yet. What you are paying for is the years on site, not a certificate on a wall.

Melbourne's north-east is genuine termite country

Coptotermes acinaciformis, the species responsible for most of the serious termite damage around Melbourne, is common through the north-east. Banyule, Nillumbik and Manningham are all listed as termite-prone areas for the purposes of AS 3660.1 termite management in new building work, which is the practical measure of whether a council area is treated as a risk zone.

The geography explains it. The Plenty River, Diamond Creek and the Yarra corridor run through the middle of this service area, carrying moisture, bushland and mature trees with them. Established gardens here are full of old stumps, timber sleepers, retaining walls and mulched beds, and every one of those is a food source or a bridge.

The housing stock adds to it:

• Greensborough, Watsonia, Macleod and Bundoora are heavy with 1950s to 1970s brick veneer and weatherboard on stumps, with subfloors that were never well ventilated.
• Eltham, Montmorency, Diamond Creek and Hurstbridge carry timber and mudbrick homes on steep, treed blocks, often with deep subfloors and split levels.
• Ivanhoe, Heidelberg and Rosanna hold older weatherboards and interwar bungalows where original timber is still doing structural work.

Ground conditions matter too. The ridges through Banyule and Nillumbik sit on Silurian siltstone and mudstone with reactive clay over the top, so footing movement and cracking are regular findings, and slope brings drainage problems that keep timber damp. Much of Nillumbik also sits under a Bushfire Management Overlay, which changes what construction and materials the property should have.

What termite evidence actually looks like on a property here

Termites almost never announce themselves. What turns up in a report is usually one of these:

• Mud tubes or leads roughly pencil width, running up brick piers, stumps, slab edges or inside a subfloor wall.
• Skirtings, architraves and door frames that sound hollow or papery when tapped, with the paint film still perfectly intact.
• Blistered or rippled paint, or a soft, springy patch in a timber floor that was not there before.
• Garden beds, mulch, paving or decking built up over the slab edge, covering the weep holes and hiding the exact place a termite would enter.
• Timber retaining walls, sleepers and old stumps left in ground contact, which are common on the sloping blocks through Eltham and Diamond Creek.
• Leaking taps, blocked downpipes, poor site drainage and closed subfloor vents holding damp against structural timber.

Both inspections are visual and non-invasive. Nobody cuts into walls, lifts flooring or shifts your furniture. Anywhere that cannot be safely reached gets written up as inaccessible, and that section of the report is the one to read first, because it tells you where a problem could still be sitting.

Why the timing matters if you are buying in Victoria

Buy at a publicly advertised auction in Victoria and there is no cooling-off period at all. The exclusion also runs for three clear business days either side of the auction date, so a private sale signed inside that window is caught by it as well. Outside that window, a private sale gives you three clear business days from signing.

What that means in practice is simple. The inspection has to happen before you bid, not after. Once the hammer falls, whatever is in the walls is yours.

If you are working to a short auction timeline, the Auction-Ready Express option is $650 inc. GST and is built for exactly that. And if the agent hands you a report they have arranged, it is worth remembering who engaged it. Your own inspection answers to you.

What it costs, and how to book

Prices are fixed and shown inc. GST. Nothing is added for travel inside the service area.

Specialist work such as electrical, plumbing, mechanical and thermal imaging is arranged through licensed partners. Those trades are carried out by licensed tradespeople, not by me.

The service area is Greensborough, Eltham, Diamond Creek, Ivanhoe, Watsonia, Montmorency, Doreen, Bundoora, Heidelberg, Rosanna, Macleod and Hurstbridge.

Send through the address and your timing on 1300 489 150 or nathan@melbabuildinginspections.com.au, and I'll check the calendar and let you know where I can fit it in. You'll get the report back with photos of anything worth knowing about, and I'm happy to talk it through afterwards rather than leaving you with a document and no explanation.

Common questions

Related

• Melba Building Inspections
• retirement village inspections
• pre-purchase building inspection