Independent inspection to AS 4349.1 by a registered building contractor. What you are buying, read by someone who has built. Report within 24 hours.
Leda has a ground condition that does not appear in this way anywhere else in the coverage area: the local groundwater, at around sixteen metres depth, is naturally high in salt. This is not contamination or the result of irrigation — it is the natural groundwater chemistry of this part of the Kwinana coastal plain. A pre-purchase building inspection at Leda reads for what that naturally saline substrate means for the homes above it, alongside the age read of the 1950s and 1960s State Housing Commission stock that was built here for Kwinana’s industrial workforce.
The saline groundwater is the specific pre-purchase ground context. At sixteen metres the water table is below the footing level, but in wetter years salt-laden groundwater can rise closer to the surface through capillary action, affecting the moisture behaviour of the soil above it in ways that a standard suburban sand substrate does not produce. We carry that context into the subfloor and the site drainage read, and we note it as a consideration for any buyer planning excavation or earthworks on those blocks, because what is below the surface in Leda is different from what is below the surface in most of the metro.
The SHC housing age is the second pre-purchase read. Homes built in the 1950s and 1960s for the workers of the BP oil refinery, BHP steel and the other Kwinana industries are now sixty to seventy years old. The tile roof and its mortar, the original wet area in continuous use since the industrial boom of that era, and the services where these have never been renewed all belong in the price before you pay it. The SHC specification was sound, but sixty-five years is sixty-five years.
The Leda Nature Reserve around the heritage-listed Sloan’s Cottage (1911) adds the reserve-boundary moisture and termite context for adjacent lots.
A pre-purchase inspection gives you the building scope on its own, to AS 4349.1, with the defects that matter set out plainly and separated from the cosmetic. In Leda, where the ground chemistry and the SHC age both shape the read, that inspection tells you what you are buying. The report follows within 24 hours.
We run the same inspection across the area, including nearby Calista and Kwinana Town Centre.
MISSING: phone number · Book online → · Flat $440 inc GST, report within 24 hours.
A building inspection to AS 4349.1 that reads the structure and fabric before you buy, where naturally saline groundwater at 16 metres and 1950s-60s SHC housing at sixty to seventy years old are the two specific pre-purchase contexts.
No, it is the building scope only. If you want the pest check too, the combined building and pest inspection covers both in one visit.
It is a natural characteristic of this coastal plain position, not contamination. In wetter years it can rise through capillary action and affect the moisture behaviour of the soil above it, which we carry into the subfloor and drainage read.
At 16 metres it is below the footing level. The concern is what it means for the moisture behaviour of the soil above it and for any future excavation or earthworks.
At sixty to seventy years: the tile roof and mortar, the original wet area in continuous use, and the services where never renewed.
The reserve around heritage-listed Sloan's Cottage (1911) creates a bushland and permaculture moisture boundary for adjacent lots.
Yes. It sets the defects that matter out plainly and apart from the cosmetic, giving you a concrete basis to renegotiate.
Yes. Saline coastal plain soil, older SHC subfloors and the nature reserve vegetation all give termites the conditions they use. The combined inspection covers this.
Yes. On SHC homes at this age the subfloor condition and drainage are central to both the age and the saline-ground moisture read.
Within 24 hours of the inspection, with photos and a plain read of what matters, so you can act before your offer conditions close.
Also available as a combined building and timber pest inspection in Leda — both scopes in one visit to AS 4349.1 and AS 4349.3, one report within 24 hours.
Combined B&P inspection →Our office is at Suite 55, 15 Labouchere Road, South Perth WA 6151 — on the Swan River foreshore near the Perth Zoo.
Tell us about the property and what you need. We'll come back to you with a firm quote and a time.
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