Building Inspection Ivanhoe

A pre-purchase building inspection in Ivanhoe costs $595, or $650 with a timber pest inspection included, and covers Ivanhoe, Ivanhoe East and Eaglemont. Melba Building Inspections is run by Nathan Maries, a carpenter by trade with 23 years in construction, including ten years running his own building company doing renovations and extensions on the sort of homes Ivanhoe is full of.

Ivanhoe is not a suburb where a template inspection tells you much. Most of the established streets are Federation, Californian bungalow and interwar houses built between roughly 1910 and 1940, and a good share of that stock has been renovated at least once, sometimes recently and quickly. The interesting part of an Ivanhoe inspection is almost always what sits behind the new paint.

Reports come back with photographs of anything worth knowing about, prepared with reference to AS 4349.1. Call 1300 489 150 with the address and your timing.

What you're actually buying in Ivanhoe

Ivanhoe's housing is older than most buyers expect. Federation homes, Californian bungalows and interwar brick houses dominate the established streets, with Art Deco through the 1930s and postwar A.V. Jennings estate homes in the Beaumont and Beauview pockets. Closer to Upper Heidelberg Road you get apartments and townhouses of every vintage, which bring their own set of problems.

The ground varies more than people realise. The ridges through Ivanhoe sit on weathered Silurian siltstone and mudstone that breaks down to clay, while the low ground toward the Yarra and Darebin Creek is river deposit. Clay swells when it is wet and shrinks when it is dry, and that movement is what cracks brickwork and lifts floors.

Anyone telling you the whole suburb is reactive clay is guessing. The only way to know a particular block is a soil test. What an inspection can tell you is whether the building has been moving, roughly how much, and whether the cracking looks old and settled or recent and live.

The faults that keep turning up in Ivanhoe period homes

These are the ones worth knowing about before you bid:

• Rising damp and a bridged damp course. Solid brick walls of this era rely on a slate or bituminous damp course a couple of courses above ground. Sixty years of added paving, concrete paths, decking and raised garden beds routinely bury it, and the damp then walks up the wall. Bubbling paint and rotting skirtings are the usual giveaways.
• Blocked subfloor ventilation. Same cause. Vents get covered by a new alfresco slab or a deck, the subfloor stops drying out, and the bearers, joists and stumps start to go.
• Original stumps and uneven floors. Plenty of Ivanhoe homes are still on original timber stumps, or carry a partial restump done years ago that left half the house sitting on the old ones.
• Old wiring. Rubber and cotton braided wiring, ceramic fuses and no safety switches are still out there in houses that have never been fully rewired. A partial rewire during a renovation is common, and it tends to stop at whichever walls were opened up.
• Earthenware drains and tree roots. Ivanhoe is leafy with big established trees, and the old glazed earthenware sewer and stormwater lines have joints that roots find easily. Blocked stormwater is one of the quiet causes of damp against a wall.
• Box gutters and terracotta roofs. Box gutters and internal gutters were normal on Federation and interwar houses, and when they block they overflow inside the building rather than over the edge. Terracotta tile roofs of that age usually need rebedding and repointing long before they need replacing.
• Lead paint and asbestos. Lead-based paint was used widely in Australian homes built before 1970, and asbestos materials turn up in most homes built before 1990, commonly in eaves sheeting, wet area sheeting and behind the meter box. It matters most if you are planning to sand, cut or demolish.

Renovated and flipped homes: what the new paint doesn't tell you

Ivanhoe gets a steady run of houses bought, renovated over a few months and put straight back on the market. Some of that work is genuinely good. Some of it is a new kitchen, new floors and fresh paint over a house that has not otherwise been touched.

On a recently renovated Ivanhoe home, the report pays particular attention to:

• Walls taken out to open up a living area, with no visible beam or support above.
• Wet areas, where fast work shows first. Falls to the waste, the shower recess, the junction between wall and floor, and whether the waterproofing was ever likely to have been done properly.
• New plaster and cornices sitting over old cracking, which hides movement without fixing it.
• Bathrooms and laundries relocated to positions the drainage was never designed for.
• Decks, pergolas and carports added without regard to the damp course or the subfloor vents behind them.

Whether the work had a building permit is a separate question, and a fair one to put to the agent in writing. Permit records come from Banyule City Council, and your conveyancer should be checking the vendor statement.

Nathan spent ten years pricing and running renovations and extensions on houses like these, hundreds of jobs between about $5,000 and $350,000. That is the useful part here. He knows what the shortcut looks like because he has seen it quoted.

Heritage overlays: what changes after settlement

Parts of Ivanhoe sit inside a heritage overlay in the Banyule Planning Scheme, and it changes what you can do once you own the place. The residential precincts include HO4, the A.V. Jennings Beaumont Estate; HO5, the Marshall Street, Thoresby Grove and Sherwood Road precinct; and HO91, the A.V. Jennings Beauview Estate. There are also many individually listed houses scattered through the older streets.

Two things catch buyers out:

• External paint controls apply in those Ivanhoe precincts, so repainting the outside of the house in a different colour can need a planning permit.
• Fences and outbuildings are not exempt in those precincts either, so a new front fence or a garage becomes a permit conversation.

Routine maintenance and repairs that do not change the external appearance generally do not need a permit. Demolition, alterations and additions do, and they are assessed case by case with input from the council's heritage adviser. An inspection reports on condition, not planning, so if the overlay applies and you have plans in mind, ring Banyule's planning team before the auction rather than after.

Ivanhoe inspection prices

Prices are fixed and quoted before you book, with no surprises based on floor area. The combined building and timber pest inspection is the one most Ivanhoe buyers end up wanting, given the age of the housing.

Melba also covers Ivanhoe East, Eaglemont, Heidelberg, Rosanna and Macleod, and there is a separate service for units inside retirement villages.

Who does the inspection

Melba Building Inspections is Nathan Maries. Twenty-three years in construction, starting as an apprentice carpenter at 16. Ten years as director of his own building company doing renovations, extensions and fit-outs. Nine years as a project manager delivering work inside occupied retirement villages for Keyton, Levande and Aveo, which is where the retirement village inspections side of the business came from.

Two things worth being straight about. Nathan is not yet a registered builder. That registration is in progress and he will tell you the same on the phone. And the 4.7 out of 5 from 24 Word of Mouth reviews under the Melba name runs from 2013 to 2017 and is for building work, not for inspections. It is real, it is just not about this part of the business.

Electrical, plumbing and mechanical imaging work is arranged through licensed tradespeople who hold the relevant licences. Nathan does not carry out that work himself. Building reports reference AS 4349.1 and timber pest reports reference AS 4349.3.

Call 1300 489 150 or email nathan@melbabuildinginspections.com.au with the address and your timing, and he will check the calendar and let you know where he can fit it in.

Common questions

How much does a building inspection in Ivanhoe cost?

A pre-purchase building inspection in Ivanhoe is $595, and $650 if you add a timber pest inspection. The price is fixed and quoted before the booking, and it covers the whole property including the roof space and subfloor where they can be safely accessed. If you need it done at short notice before a Saturday auction, the Auction-Ready Express is $650. All prices are inc. GST.

Do I need a timber pest inspection as well in Ivanhoe?

For most Ivanhoe houses, yes, because so much of the suburb is period housing on timber stumps with timber floors and a subfloor. Timber pests need moisture, and the damp subfloors common in older Ivanhoe homes are exactly the conditions they like. The combined building and timber pest inspection is $650, which is $55 more than the building inspection on its own. Timber pest work references AS 4349.3.

How quickly can you inspect a property before an Ivanhoe auction?

Usually within a couple of days, though it depends on what is already booked that week. Ring 1300 489 150 with the address and the auction date and Nathan will check the calendar and tell you where he can fit it in rather than promise a slot he cannot keep. The Auction-Ready Express at $650 exists for exactly this, where the campaign is short and you need the report before you bid.

Does a heritage overlay change what the inspection covers?

No, the inspection reports on the condition of the building, not on planning controls. The overlay matters for what you do afterwards. Ivanhoe has heritage overlay precincts including HO4 the A.V. Jennings Beaumont Estate, HO5 the Marshall Street, Thoresby Grove and Sherwood Road precinct, and HO91 the A.V. Jennings Beauview Estate, plus many individually listed houses. External paint controls apply in those precincts, and fences and outbuildings are not exempt, so repainting the front of the house a new colour or putting up a new fence can need a planning permit. Banyule Council's planning team are the ones to confirm it for a specific address.

Can you tell me whether the renovation had a building permit?

No, permit records come from Banyule City Council and your conveyancer should be checking the vendor statement for them. What an inspection tells you is whether the work was done properly, which is often the more useful answer. A wall taken out with no sign of support above it, a shower with no fall to the waste, or new plaster sitting over old cracking are all things the report will describe, whether or not a permit was ever issued.

What does the report actually include?

The report covers the accessible areas of the property, prepared with reference to AS 4349.1, with photographs of anything worth knowing about. That means the exterior and roof, the roof space, the subfloor, the interior, wet areas, and the site around the building including drainage, paving and retaining walls. It is a visual inspection, so nothing is cut open or pulled apart. Electrical, plumbing and mechanical imaging work is arranged through licensed tradespeople when a property needs it.

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