What we look for in Como, and why it differs from the suburb next door. 5.4 km from the CBD, 9.4 km from the coast, postcode 6152.
Como has a piece of building history that changes how its houses should be inspected. In 1948 and 1949 more than a thousand blocks were created here, and the suburb became a testing ground for experimental prefabricated and expansible houses. The post-war housing shortage was severe. It was severe enough that the City let families live in caravans on their own blocks while their houses went up.
Experimental housing was built for speed. Not for longevity, and not to conventional details. Where those houses survive, or where later work has been grafted onto them, we find wall and floor systems that do not follow standard practice and junctions that were never meant to last seventy five years. A normal checklist applied to a house like that misses the things most likely to be wrong with it, so the first job is establishing what the building actually is.
The scale of the 1948 release also means whole streets of near identical vintage. Services long past their life. Asbestos era materials in anything unrenovated. Roof and wet area fabric at or beyond a second cycle. Canning Highway cuts the suburb in two, so traffic noise is a real difference between one half and the other, and the streets running down toward the Swan carry a higher water table and estuarine damp in the masonry.
Non-standard construction is the issue here as well. Termites travel where they cannot be seen, and a building system nobody quite recognises tends to have cavities, junctions and concealed timbers that an inspector has to work out from first principles rather than from experience of the usual details.
Add the ordinary drivers. Seventy year old gardens with buried stumps and old sleepers. Reticulation that has kept soil damp against footings for decades. Original chemical barriers that expired long ago. Where the ground falls toward the river the soil stays wetter for longer, and that is where we look hardest. On the timber floored examples the subfloor is the priority, and we will tell you plainly if access was too tight to see all of it.
On an unusual building the case for one combined inspection is stronger than normal, because both assessments depend on first working out how the house is put together. Doing that once, with one inspector who then looks at structure and timber pests in the same visit, produces a more coherent report than two separate attendances by two people forming their own theories. One appointment, two standards, AS 4349.1 and AS 4349.3.
Large 1940s and 50s blocks make Como a subdivision suburb, so we do plenty of new build work alongside the old stock. Staged inspections during construction, then a practical completion inspection before handover while faults are still the builder's problem. Dilapidation reports where a neighbouring block is being developed and your seventy year old house is next to the works.
There are apartments and units along the highway and toward the river too, which means strata inspections, common property and levy history. Pre-settlement inspections apply whatever you are buying.
Como sits on the Bassendean dune system — deep leached grey quartz sand, almost pure, and very free draining. Bassendean sand is about as unreactive as a building site gets, so seasonal footing movement is rarely the story here. The water table is the story. Parts of this system sit over the Gnangara Mound and the standing water level can be within a couple of metres of the surface.
What that means in practice, on a house in Como:
Landform is assigned from the suburb's position on the Swan Coastal Plain rather than from a site soil test. It tells you what to expect, not what you have. A site classification to AS 2870 is a different exercise and a different report.
Manning, Karawara, Salter Point, South Perth and Kensington sit on the same ground as Como, so the footing behaviour and the drainage problems tend to repeat across all of them. If you are comparing houses across those suburbs, you are largely comparing the same site conditions.
Applecross is 2.5 km away but sits on the Spearwood dune system. That is the useful thing about this part of Perth: the ground can change inside a few kilometres, and with it what an inspection is looking for.
On site classification: any soil zone quoted for a suburb is indicative, inferred from geography rather than surveyed. A real AS 2870 classification comes from geotechnical work on your actual block and can differ from the one next door. We report what we observe; we do not read your soil class off a map.
The inspection is visual and non-invasive, over the readily accessible areas, reported to AS 4349.1. Our inspectors physically enter the roof space, as long as there is sufficient access. Report within 24 hours of the inspection.
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Flat fee, the same in Como as anywhere: $440 inc. GST for a pre-purchase building inspection, or $616 inc. GST with the timber pest scope added in the same visit. Full price list →
9.4 km inland through South Perth, Como sits between the coastal and inland problems, and the fee reflects it — some salt-corrosion checking on an older tiled roof, but more attention to drainage, wet areas and ground movement across the South Perth area.
Pre-purchase building inspection in Como →
Building and pest inspection in Como →
Yes. Our inspectors physically enter and inspect the roof space, as long as there is sufficient access to do so safely. Where access is restricted, the report says so plainly rather than implying we saw more than we did.
Como is 9.4 km from the coast — outside the highest-exposure band, but close enough that salt-driven delignification is worth checking in an older tiled roof.
Within 24 hours of the inspection itself, not 24 hours from booking. On a pre-purchase or pre-settlement job that timing is the whole point, because your leverage disappears once you are committed.
We would rather you checked than took our word for it. These are the bodies that actually hold the records and set the rules:
Tell us about the property and what you need. We'll come back to you with a firm quote and a time.
PERTH