What we look for in Secret Harbour, and why it differs from the suburb next door. 51.2 km from the CBD, on the coast, postcode 6173.
Secret Harbour has no harbour. The name was approved in 1984 for a proposed marina that never got built, and the suburb that grew instead is a 2000s masterplanned coastal estate on the Indian Ocean, with a links golf course and a patrolled surf beach.
Almost everything here is 2000s onward, so this is newer stock rather than old. The oldest is now around twenty years and arriving at first round services, with hot water systems, roof fixings and shower waterproofing coming due together. The newer parts are younger again.
This is a higher income suburb. The homes reflect it. Larger contemporary houses, frequently two storey and often with pools. That broadens the inspection to upper floor structure, stair construction, balcony waterproofing, pool and wet area membranes, and roof geometry complicated enough to create junctions that leak. Safe roof access on a two storey house needs arranging in advance.
Genuine ocean frontage on a surf beach means full coastal salt on the exposed western blocks. Delignification is worth checking in any tiled roof that has passed a decade, and corrosion of fixings, flashings and external metalwork runs faster here than inland. Whether coastal grade hardware was actually specified is a fair question on a volume built house.
The ground is sandy coastal dune, free draining, with some dune slope, and the links course brings irrigation to fairway margin blocks.
Coastal dune sand sits at the lower end of termite pressure, and the links course is what changes the picture on part of the suburb. A golf course is irrigated continuously through summer on a scale no domestic garden matches, and that keeps ground along the fairway margins damp when the surrounding sand has dried out.
Moisture is the limiting factor for subterranean colonies, so a fairway frontage block carries more exposure than one three streets inland.
Elsewhere, timber in ground contact is the main route. On a large home with extensive landscaping there is more of it than on a compact lot, and coastal conditions degrade it faster so it gets replaced piecemeal. Every house should have a durable notice recording its termite management system, and on the earliest stages that system is now reaching the end of its life.
On a large two storey house with a pool and extensive grounds, one thorough attendance beats two partial ones. The perimeter, the landscaping, the drainage and the roof serve both assessments, and safe roof access gets arranged once. Reported under AS 4349.1 and AS 4349.3.
If you are on the course boundary, walk the rear of the block after a week of irrigation. How the ground feels underfoot in February tells you what to expect the rest of the year.
We do handover inspections on newly completed homes and the follow up before the builder's liability period expires, which on a suburb still building is often still open. Condition records apply where construction adjoins a finished house, and on larger custom builds staged inspections catch problems while they remain cheap.
Secret Harbour sits on the Quindalup dune system — young calcareous sand, still mobile in places, and thin over the water table near the front. Sand this young has low bearing capacity but very little reactivity, so footing movement is uncommon and drainage problems are not. What the ground gives you here it takes back in the air.
What that means in practice, on a house in Secret Harbour:
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.
Surf Life Saving Club and Comet Bay College are the fixed points in Secret Harbour. They matter to an inspection for an unromantic reason: they date the surrounding stock. The decade that built them is usually the decade that built the houses around them, and that decade decides what is in the roof, what is in the walls, and what the wiring looks like.
Golden Bay, Port Kennedy, Singleton, Lakelands and Warnbro sit on the same ground as Secret Harbour, 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.
Karnup is 3.6 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 Secret Harbour 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 →
Right on the coast in Rockingham, and salt does the damage this close to the water. The flat fee buys a hard look at the tile battens for delignification, at the wall ties and metal fixings for corrosion, and at the rust bleed through render that looks cosmetic and is not. The tiled-roof void is the priority. Secret Harbour is 51.2 km from the Perth CBD, out toward the Peel end of the area, and the flat fee still applies with no distance loading.
Pre-purchase building inspection in Secret Harbour →
Building and pest inspection in Secret Harbour →
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.
Secret Harbour is on 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