What we look for in Medina, and why it differs from the suburb next door. 32.0 km from the CBD, 3.9 km from the coast, postcode 6167.
Medina was Kwinana's first suburb, designed in the early 1950s by Margaret Feilman, Perth's first female town planner, as the first of four neighbourhood units built for workers in the new industrial area. The original houses were built to a very specific recipe. Knowing it changes the inspection completely.
The signature Medina house is jarrah weatherboard to window height with asbestos sheeting above, on jarrah frames, jarrah floors and jarrah stumps. That is an unusual construction and it needs to be understood before anything else.
Two consequences follow. The asbestos is not incidental, it is a designed part of the wall, so any renovation, drilling or demolition above window height needs proper assessment first rather than afterwards. And the timber below is jarrah throughout, which is durable and has lasted seventy years, but seventy years is still seventy years, and stumps and floor framing sitting close to the ground need looking at directly.
The Feilman layout survives as curved streets with mature street trees, and some community buildings are heritage listed. Medina sits close to the Kwinana Industrial Area, built for the refineries and works of the 1950s boom, so air quality, emissions and heavy vehicle traffic are genuine local considerations rather than background detail.
Being near the coast and the industry, atmospheric salt is a minor factor and delignification sits low to moderate.
Jarrah is naturally resistant to termites, which is a real advantage and part of why these houses are still standing. It is not immunity. After seventy years the softer replacement timbers, later pine additions, and any framing installed during renovation are all vulnerable, and the original jarrah stumps sit in ground that holds moisture.
The subfloor is therefore the priority here, and access under a 1950s cottage varies from reasonable to tight. We report what we reached.
The asbestos sheeting above adds a practical constraint. Inspection is visual and non invasive, and we do not disturb sheeting to look behind it. Where that limits what can be seen, the report says so plainly rather than implying full coverage.
On a timber framed house the two inspections are physically the same exercise, under the same floor, looking at the same jarrah bearers. Splitting them across two visits duplicates the awkward part and risks two different accounts of one subfloor. Reported under AS 4349.1 and AS 4349.3.
Because of how these houses are built, buyers here often want an asbestos assessment discussed alongside the inspection, particularly if they intend to renovate. Knowing where the material sits changes what a renovation costs.
We also inspect the later infill housing, which is conventional by comparison, and prepare condition records where new building goes in beside an original cottage. On heritage listed places in the Feilman layout, what can be altered is constrained and worth checking before plans are drawn.
If you are buying an original Medina cottage, get the roof space and subfloor assessed before you set a renovation budget. Both are where the money is on a house of this construction, and neither is visible from the living room.
Medina 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 Medina:
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.
Calista, Orelia, Kwinana Town Centre, Parmelia, Mandogalup and Leda sit on the same ground as Medina, 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.
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 Medina 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 3.9 km from the water, Medina sits inside the coastal-salt band, in postcode 6167, the fee here is spent chasing salt. Chemical delignification in the tile battens, wall ties rusting inside the cavity, fixings going to lace where the sea air reaches them — on an older tiled roof the roof space is where most of the inspection time lands.
Pre-purchase building inspection in Medina →
Building and pest inspection in Medina →
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.
Medina is 3.9 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.
PERTH