What we look for in Wellard, and why it differs from the suburb next door. 34.6 km from the CBD, 10.1 km from the coast, postcode 6170.
Wellard was rural until very recently. It was 13 Mile Camp, part of Thomas Peel's ill fated land scheme, and named in 1923 after settler John Wellard. Then it grew from 3,246 people in 2011 to 14,127 in 2021, making it one of Perth's fastest growing suburbs.
The Village at Wellard, a joint venture running since 2003, was Perth's first transit oriented development on the Mandurah rail line. That produced a deliberately mixed density, so the suburb holds detached houses, townhouses, villas and higher density near the station, all built to different specifications.
Establish the dwelling type before anything else, because a detached house and a strata townhouse a street apart are entirely different purchases. In strata, the common property and the levy position matter as much as what is inside the lot.
Nearly everything here is 2003 onward. This is new build territory. The oldest is now around twenty years and arriving at first cycle items. The newest is close to new, where handover defects and the builder's liability window are the issues.
The ground was Peel Estate rural and pastoral land, so made ground sits on some parcels, and low wet pockets exist across the coastal plain here. Establish drainage on a particular block rather than assuming. Near the coast and the industrial area, atmospheric salt is a minor factor and delignification sits low to moderate.
Estate housing built from 2003 all carries a termite management system installed at construction, either a physical barrier or a chemical treatment, and there should be a durable notice recording which. Find it and note the date, because on the earliest stages that system is now approaching the end of its useful life.
Then look at what has happened around it. Gardens bury barriers. In an estate where everyone landscaped within a few years of handover, soil, mulch and paving routinely get built up over the slab edge, and that bridges a barrier completely.
Former rural ground can hold buried timber from fencing and farm structures. On the low wet pockets moisture sits closer to the surface, which raises pressure on those blocks specifically. In the townhouse and villa stock, termite management may be a scheme responsibility rather than yours, so ask who is accountable before something is found.
On a young slab built house the two inspections converge on the same few metres. The slab edge, the perimeter, the landscaping and the drainage. One attendance covers all of it, and on strata it also means one set of access arrangements. Reported under AS 4349.1 and AS 4349.3.
With ongoing construction across the estate, condition records before a neighbouring build starts are worth having, particularly on the tighter townhouse lots where the works will be close to your wall.
We do staged inspections during construction and handover checks at completion. The inspection owners forget is the one before the defect liability period runs out, and in a suburb built this recently that window is still open on a lot of houses. Worth checking whether yours is.
Wellard 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 Wellard:
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.
Casuarina, Oldbury and Anketell sit on the same ground as Wellard, 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.
Bertram is 2.3 km away but sits on the Spearwood dune system; Parmelia is 3.8 km away but sits on the Spearwood dune system; Kwinana Town Centre is 5.0 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 Wellard 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 →
10.1 km inland through Kwinana, coastal salt is not the first thing an inspection in Wellard chases. The fee buys closer work on footing movement, site drainage and the reactive-ground behaviour of the South West suburbs, with delignification checked only where a tiled roof meets a busy corridor.
Pre-purchase building inspection in Wellard →
Building and pest inspection in Wellard →
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.
At 10.1 km inland, Wellard carries lower coastal-salt exposure, so delignification is not the first thing we would expect. It remains possible near heavy arterial corridors or industrial emissions.
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