What we look for in Hillman, and why it differs from the suburb next door. 37.9 km from the CBD, 2.8 km from the coast, postcode 6168.
Hillman is small, about a square kilometre, created and named in 1970 after surveyor Alfred Hillman. It is principally residential and fairly contained, with its northern and eastern portions taken into the Rockingham Lakes Regional Park around the salt lakes.
Being small and built in a short window makes Hillman unusually predictable. The stock is largely 1970s brick and tile, now around fifty years old, so the same era problems recur across the suburb and knowing the standard build tells us where to look before arriving.
At that age services sit between cycles. Some done, some due. Some done once, now due again. Concrete tile roofs need their fixings and roof plumbing assessed. Wet area waterproofing is well past its life. Asbestos era materials are likely wherever renovation has not reached.
Uniformity has a second consequence worth using. If a neighbour has already replaced a roof, re-plumbed or found something in the subfloor, the same is very likely queued up for the house you are buying. Local knowledge travels unusually well in a suburb built this tightly, and it is worth collecting before you make an offer.
Roughly a third of Hillman was absorbed into the regional park, which means a high proportion of properties here have a reserve rather than a neighbour on at least one side. A 2009 boundary change also moved the railway station out of the suburb, so check actual walking distances rather than assumptions.
Because so much of the suburb borders reserve, a large proportion of properties sit on an interface rather than in the middle of a street. That is the practical difference here. Retained bushland holds colonies permanently and cannot be cleared away.
The fence line is where we concentrate on those blocks. Boundary fencing and any timber retaining along the reserve edge is untreated wood sitting in ground directly against habitat, and it tends to be the oldest timber on the property because nobody looks at it.
Across the rest of the suburb, fifty year old houses have no functioning barrier and the slab edge has disappeared under decades of paving and beds. Uniform stock means uniform exposure, which at least makes the pattern predictable.
On a compact single storey house the two inspections cover the same perimeter and roof space, and on a park boundary block one person assessing what comes across that edge serves both reports. Reported under AS 4349.1 and AS 4349.3.
Walk the reserve boundary before you buy. On a park edge block the fence, the retaining and whatever has been stacked against them tell you more than the front of the house does.
We assess additions for approval. On stock with a long rental history the paperwork is frequently missing entirely, which becomes your problem at resale rather than theirs. Subdivision brings condition records for the original dwelling when a new build goes in behind it, and we do the final inspection before settlement on tenanted properties.
Hillman sits on the Spearwood dune system — residual yellow and grey sand over a Tamala Limestone core, with the rock often close to the surface. Limestone near the surface makes for stable footings and expensive excavation. Where the rock is shallow, older houses often sit directly on limestone footings, and those are the ones to look at for rising damp and salt damp at the base of the wall.
What that means in practice, on a house in Hillman:
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.
Rockingham Lakes Regional Park is the fixed point most people in Hillman navigate by. Buildings like it are useful to an inspector for a duller reason: they date the area. Whatever era put that up is usually the era that put up the houses around it, and the construction methods of that decade are what we expect to find in the roof.
Cooloongup and Leda sit on the same ground as Hillman, 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.
Rockingham is 2.7 km away but sits on the Quindalup dune system; East Rockingham is 2.7 km away but sits on the Quindalup dune system; Rockingham Beach is 2.8 km away but sits on the Quindalup dune system; Waikiki is 3.7 km away but sits on the Quindalup 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 Hillman 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 →
At 2.8 km from the water, Hillman sits inside the coastal-salt band — the band where coastal salt drives the defects. The fee concentrates on delignified battens, corroded ties and fixings, and the salt staining that starts inside the masonry, with the roof space taking the longest on a tiled roof past its first decade.
Pre-purchase building inspection in Hillman →
Building and pest inspection in Hillman →
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.
Hillman is 2.8 km from the coast, inside the band where delignification should be expected in tile battens. On a tiled roof more than about ten years old it is one of the first things we look at.
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.
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