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.
A pre-purchase building inspection in North Perth is usually the structural reading of an old home that has grown upward. More than most inner-north suburbs, North Perth is a place where families extended rather than left, so the building inspection to AS 4349.1 spends much of its time on additions, and on whether the original structure was up to carrying what was later put on top of it.
The second storey is the North Perth question. Adding a floor loads footings and single-storey walls that were sized for a bungalow, not a two-storey home, and the structural read follows that load from the top down. The new upper walls and floor are checked for deflection and cracking, the original walls beneath for the stepped cracking, bowing and lintel distress that overloading produces, and the connection between the two for signs of separation. Whether an engineer designed the addition and whether it was approved are central questions, because an under-designed or unapproved second storey is a structural risk that the building inspection exists to surface.
Beneath the additions, the original stock is period masonry that behaves in period ways. On both the grand villas and the modest cottages, solid or early cavity brick without a damp-proof course draws ground moisture up, and the inspection reads that damp for what it is doing to the brick, plaster and timber. Cracking is read for meaning rather than tallied, cosmetic shrinkage against genuine structural movement, and interpreted against the ground and the load above. Original jarrah floors are checked for spring and rot, and the roof structure for sag, water entry and the marks of past alteration.
The subdivision that has reshaped so many North Perth lots brings its own structural questions. A rear grouped dwelling or battle-axe build sits on a tight site, often at a different level from the original front home, so the inspection reads retaining walls for adequacy and drainage, the newer structure for the workmanship of a quick build, and the boundary conditions the subdivision created. A newer dwelling is judged on build quality rather than age, from articulation on reactive ground to the finishing that infill builds tend to rush.
The roof space is where the longest time goes. Under the original terracotta or early concrete tiles, now brittle and often over perished sarking, the framing is read for sag, water entry and past repair, and specifically for chemical delignification, the surface breakdown that leaves the hardwood soft and reduces what it can carry.
Because it reports to AS 4349.1, the building inspection excludes timber pests by name, and in most of North Perth, with its old timber and established gardens, the timber pest scope is worth adding in the same visit. Across all of it, the building inspection's value here is judgement: reading a much-altered, often-extended North Perth home and telling the structural issue that should change your decision from the cosmetic wear that a century of living naturally leaves behind.
We run the same inspection across the area, including nearby Menora and Leederville.
MISSING: phone number · Book online → · Flat $440 inc GST, report within 24 hours.
A visual inspection to AS 4349.1 of the readily accessible parts of the property: the roof space, subfloor, interior, exterior walls and site. In North Perth that usually means close attention to any second-storey addition, the original walls beneath it, the period roof structure and any subdivision, reported as significant defects with the areas not safely accessed.
Because a second floor loads footings and walls sized for a single storey. We follow the load path down, reading the new structure for deflection, the original walls for overloading, and the junction for separation, and we flag whether the addition looks engineered and approved. It is the most common structural question in North Perth.
For meaning, not by counting. We separate cosmetic shrinkage from structural movement, reading stepped cracking, bowing, lintel distress and floor level, and interpreting it against the ground and any load added above. The pattern points back to the cause, which is what matters to a buyer.
It is read as a building defect. The older North Perth stock, built without a damp-proof course, draws ground moisture into the walls, and we map how high it reaches and what it is doing to the brick, plaster and timber, separating rising damp from a leak because each is fixed differently.
The structural conditions the subdivision created: retaining where levels change, drainage on a tight site, and the workmanship of the infill build. A newer dwelling is judged on build quality rather than age, from articulation on reactive ground to the finishing quick builds tend to rush.
Yes. Original jarrah floors are checked for spring and rot, and the roof framing for sag, water entry and chemical delignification, the surface breakdown common in older North Perth roofs that leaves hardwood soft and reduces its strength.
A flat $440 including GST for the pre-purchase building inspection, or $616 including GST with the timber pest scope added in the same visit. The fee is the same in every suburb, and you have the report within 24 hours.
In most of North Perth, yes. The building inspection reports to AS 4349.1 and excludes pests by name, and the old timber and established gardens here suit termites, so the two scopes are usually done together in the one visit.
It changes what a defect will cost. We note the original fabric that a listing constrains to like-for-like repair with approval, because that makes a heritage North Perth home slower and dearer to maintain, which is worth knowing before you buy.
Yes. A much-altered North Perth home accumulates cosmetic notes, and a clear, prioritised building report separates those from the structural issue, an overloaded wall or an under-designed addition, that should change your price, giving you a concrete basis to renegotiate.
Also available as a combined building and timber pest inspection in North Perth — 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.
PERTH