Building and pest inspection in Melville

Melville is the namesake suburb of the City of Melville, named after the section of the Swan River that Admiral Stirling called Melville Water in 1827, and it carries one of the more unusual histories of any inner southern suburb: its settlement was minimal until the 1890s because the Swan foreshore that borders it to the north was swampy and limiting, and its most distinctive feature is a hill that was a Commonwealth government radio transmission facility for most of the twentieth century. Wireless Hill Park — the former Applecross Wireless Station, built in 1912 and decommissioned by 1989 — still holds the transmitter buildings on its summit, and the park covers the hill that gives much of Melville its topography. A building and timber pest inspection at Melville reads for that swampy foreshore ground and for the heritage transmission facility on the hill above it.

The swampy Swan foreshore is the ground lead for the lowest-lying parts of the suburb. The swampy character of the Swan foreshore that held back Melville’s settlement until the late 1890s does not disappear when a suburb is built over it, and homes nearest the river in the lower-lying positions retain the drainage and moisture character that limited the foreshore in the first place. We read the site drainage, the subfloor and the wall bases on those blocks for what the low, formerly-swampy foreshore position has done over the decades since the suburb was built.

Wireless Hill and the former Commonwealth transmission facility is a site context for homes adjacent to or near the park. The Applecross Wireless Station was a significant Commonwealth facility — the transmitter buildings and the hill infrastructure are now heritage-listed — and the park covers ground that carried major Commonwealth industrial and communications infrastructure for most of the twentieth century. We note the park boundary and its former-facility context for homes adjacent to it.

The housing stock runs from the earliest homes of the 1896 Melville Park Estate and the early-1900s growth through interwar, postwar and mid-century housing to the modern renovations and rebuilds that have followed. Each generation earns its own age read on the ground conditions that apply to its position in the suburb.

The timber pest side follows the river and the hill. Swampy foreshore ground on the lower blocks, established older gardens, and the tree cover on Wireless Hill give termites the moisture and the cover they use. We read subfloor, roof timbers and the perimeter carefully.

What you get is a plain reading of the Melville home on its foreshore or hillside position, with the report inside 24 hours and the real defects separated clearly from the cosmetic.

We run the same two-scope visit across the area, including nearby Applecross and Attadale.