Steel windows were used from the 1940s to the early 1960s. That two tone brick style was common in the mid 1950s. If you have 9 foot ceilings it's more likely to be 1950s than 1960s.
My dad was a builder in the 1950s and 1960s. We used to drive around suburbs looking at houses he built when I was a kid while he told us all about them. I think it was his idea of spending quality time with the kids 😂
My grandfather was a builder through that era and told me that they would take all sorts of things into consideration before drawing the plans for a house.
Which way the sun will shine at different times of the year, where the breeze usually comes from. And a bunch of other things modern builders don't even seem to care about.
An older tradie I used to see at family gatherings once told me back in the day they would put in the footings and let them settle for a few months before doing anything, if they didn't you would get cracks from the movement.
Modern builders just call the cracks "within tolerance" and move on.
Every generation says that about the generation before. It's been going on for centuries. I literally read a book written by someone on the early 1800's complaining about these new generation builders are lazy and using poor quality materials like this new tin roof thing. He grew up doing thatched roofs. People are starting to call my generation the old school skilled tradespeople.... We were called new school lazy know nothing when I was an apprentice
More consideration goes into building a house today.
Site placement, planning, permits, energy reports, environmental impact statements, community feedback, infrastructure analysis and suburb requirements. Water retention systems. Flood planning, bushfire planning,. . . And the list goes on.
Not in the apartment buildings they build these days. Most of them have bathrooms in the middle with no window for ventilation. They smell of mould after the first year.
If you really want to get into it, Google Andrew Marsh 3D Sun path. You can input latitude & longitude to get the location and track the Sun path and shadows throughout any time of any day of the year.
Not necessarily, not because of any defect in construction.There are houses being knocked down left and right in my immediate area ,for the double storeys and the new Beirut Bunker design that is gaining poularity.
You clealry learned a bit from him I would say while you may have found it boring you dad imparted knowledge. In that regard he did alright.
Based solely on that. Obviously, i dont know you or how else he treated you though I hope it was well.
Yep my dad owned a concrete business and used to drive us around town pointing at houses and say “I built that house” 😂 Back then I would think 🙄 you just laid the foundation. Now I realise of course, you can’t build anything good without a solid foundation.
He was very proud of his work and wanted to show you what he had created.As a metalworker I did the same with my family as we lived in a small town as we would drive around I would point out things and I would say I built that!
That sounds like perfect quality time with your kids! How great for him to have gifted you his knowledge! Not all Dad’s know how to throw a ball or teach a skill but sounds like he knew how to include you in his life. The 1950s didn’t have huge expectations on fathers back then. Sounds like he was a trailblazer!
Not much. I think his ideas on building froze around 1975. He was very keen on insulation and we did have a DIY solar hot water system from the mid 1960s until the late 1980s.
Always wondered what the go was with the tiny brick fence things. My previous house was very similar to this and also had the little half brick fence on the front.
Yellow brick came in around the sevenities,I think.After WW2 there were material shortages,Fibro houses were for the peasants and the better off had red double brick.
The steel windows definately are older.i suppose the brick colour depends on the colour of the clay available and where the Brickworks are located.I used to work in kitchen renos and In Sydney i saw very few yellow bricked houses.Also this treatment around the windows seems very South Australian.
This is a cream clinker brick Post War home. Generally the wrought iron railing suggests it to be a 1950's -60's build rather than the late 60's -70's.
We bought one for our first house and adored it. They are solidly built, have beautiful hardwood (Tasmanian Oak in Melbourne is what was used predominantly) flooring underneath the carpet and the window's are typically very large allowing them to be bright and open. They will have insulation issues but unless you are buying a new build, most houses in Australia will.
We sympathetically renovated ours keeping to the mid century style, it's a shame when people render them and paint them grey in an attempt to modernize them instead of appreciating their unique beauty.
u/Environmental-Day794 Do you have any before and after photos of the reno of your house you'd be willing to share? We recently bought one built in 1960 and the only original features it has left are the 2.7m high ceilings, the floorboards and the original brick fireplace (which has been covered up with one of those newish thin gas heaters). Luckily it hasn't been rendered or painted on the outside and still has its little brick fence and iron gate, so we'll be able to restore it without too much expense, but I've been struggling to find lots of inspo for sympathetically restored/renoed cream clinker brick homes.
1950 rail styling, far enough on the other side of WW2 to not be built with clad and instead brick. Early enough to still be built with a chimney. Many homes built around this suburb with the same builder in various streets (2 Hilma, 33 Couch, 66 Hilma). Prominent suburb for Maltese migrants post war. Solid, well built homes. 1950-60 with certainty.
At some point houses lost their chimneys as gas or oil heating became popular and affordable, I think around ‘67. The cheapest spec home in the mid 80s was still a very similar plan, and maybe only a couple of squares bigger if you were lucky. One ‘improvement’ that was made that dates certain homes (eg. Grandparents house built in ‘63, my folks place in ‘64), was the ‘modern’ idea of hiding the gutters. My folks picked the ‘streamlined’ look and boy did they pay for that. The gutters would back up and run down the walls from the top cornices in certain rooms when it rained heavily. The fascia boards rotted too. That was a pretty short-lived architectural idea of that era.
Reverse image search on Google. Best way to find any information in 2023.
https://preview.redd.it/xs9liprwf0tb1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1fd0f711a384da7c55968aecd9d6da3a8bd7678a
Lots of these in my suburb. Renovations often include rendering over that lovely tuck point work. A real shame that there’s no appreciation for them where I live.
1968 in my case. My ex-house (Adelaide) had the same brick (without the 2-tone around the windows) , same windows, same porch, same concrete around the edge that creeps away from house, same roof tiles, same wooden pergola which eventually rotted and same driveway without reo and same street setback. Even where the gas runs in is the same. We had the triple fronted version. Nothing was square in it and doorframes were f%$#ing metal. Poor water proofing if any and effing pink terrazzo rounded floor corners making tiling a nightmare. Not enough power points and elec box a nightmare of only 3 circuits protected by bolt "fuses". No earthing on any metal light fixtures. (Elec was 1st issue rectified) Poor fall on gutters meant they didn't drain properly. Only saving grace was wooden floors, hardwood in hallway, pine in bedrooms, freshly sealed quite well and then (!) covered in disgusting carpet for 25 years from when the house was new and discovered when we removed the carpet.
Ugh. We are dealing with similar issues, our house is ‘74, and fancy enough to have ensuite, even though it’s the smallest you’ve probably ever seen. I’m still procrastinating with getting more electric plugs installed, had to get all the gutters, fascia and pipes replaced due to flooding - lifted up the lino and carpet - bloody all soft pine!! 😕The windows shake at the merest footfall, there are gaps everywhere and some of the windows are rotting. Sigh.
Why do say that? Considering I was alive when it was built I'm pretty sure you have no idea about my house. PS Welcome to Reddit , are you new here or is this another abusive sock puppet account?
Thank you for sharing. I've had someone else day they have this style and it was also built in the 50s so I guess most of these house should be around those years
I personally think it's beautiful and has a certain charm about it. It's a real shame many get rendered into looking like a modern cookie cutter homes.
I have the same windows and front fence. 1964 build.
If anyone knows where I get new window winders from be very keen to know - have a few gears missing.
Also whoever said the windows are like paper - 100%. Super thin and super leaky... gradually getting on top of it with stick-on-seals.
Yes that sounds about right. My grandparents built a mirror image of this house in 1963. This house is fancy in that it is two tone, with different chimney brickwork and quite a bit of decorative wrought iron. I think those steel windows are called casement, and had this handle. And yes to to very thin glass, I’ve got a 1966 build, and have had 3 windows break with only the slightest nudge, when they are replaced by the glazier, he told me that they use a thicker and safer glass now.
https://preview.redd.it/c3twlhayaysb1.jpeg?width=2360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f5ec5a20f2aea474d395f9475b6f6c5e32dd6c2c
Here's [one](https://www.windowwinders.com.au/casement-winder-km-style/) but i havent tried contacting them, so cant guarantee they always have stock. There're also a few on ebay, if you search the keywords 'casement window winder whitco lockwood'
I also found out that some of the windows that are hard to open or close due to rust can be repaired by simply spraying wd40 to the guide rails on the underside of the window frames. Repeat for a few times and the actions will be smooth as new.
Cheers - I'll keep a search out.
Agree, with. a combination of WD40 and spray in lithium grease I got almost all of them working. There are a couple that the gear mechanisms has chips in it, so it doesn't wind all the way out or all the way in.
I have been looking at so many of these blond brick houses the last few months. Love them but house hunting in the one suburb has me a little bored of the exact same layout inside (I know I know… it’s mass produced estate stuff.. and I’ve probably just gone to too many inspections) but they are so charming when they’ve been renovated and it’s all polished floor boards and updated kitchens. They can really scrub up nice with an update.
Ok thanks everybody for all of your help. I now have a rough estimate on when these homes were built and have received plenty of good advice so a few thing to keep in mind if I do decide to go with this style.
Cheers 😊
Only buy a house like this if it's already been renovated or you know what you're doing.
They have no decent insulation,
the windows may as well be made of paper,
the heating costs a mint as gas used to be super super cheap, the rooms are small and you can hear everyone in every room. There is no water proofing in the wet areas, so mould is just part of the game..
They didn't cover the roof tiles with any sort of plastic back then so your roof will be full of either mice of possums every winter.
The concrete around the perimeter of the building causes the water table to rise, and thus sagging will have occured and you'll have uneven flooring.
Long Story Short these were some of the first mass produced houses Australia started to build and if I was king of Australia I would make it illegal for anyone to buy one of these without being forced to demolish them... They are shit.
These issues really lasted until late 80s. Insulation and Water Proofing are two things that we didn't really take seriously for a long time, and even in new houses these things are not perfect.. But it's definitely better.
Newer houses though are generally on smaller lands blocks so it's always a give and take. You ultimately need to decide what's important.
Whatever house you're looking at just keep in mind that owning is different to renting, when you rent you pay month to month and that's it, when owning you need to pay the mortgage and keep a few thousand saved away for when things break. Obviously older houses have more things that break.. but maybe you like the location, or the size, so paying that extra might be worth it.
If you absolutely were to buy an older house though, some great improvements you can make are, replacing windows with uPVC ones, removing old insulation and installing new stuff, and installing zoned AC, or at the very least split systems. Then whenever painting remove the plastered vents in the top corners of each wall, that are not required if you don't have a old panel heater and all they do is make the room colder and blow 50year old dust into your room for you to breath in.
Wow, you seem to know your stuff. I guess I'll be looking for something a bit newer than, perhaps around ta 90s build. Thanks again so much for sharing all of your knowledge ☺️
u/nightskye1990 Ours kind of looks like this one but a bit older (1960) and it has big rooms (incl a huge laundry for some reason), no mould and no sagging floors. We insulated the roof before we moved in as a precaution, but even when we'd come to look at it several times when it was for sale (in deep winter), despite being closed up for months it was never freezing cold or damp smelling (partly why we bought it). Obviously some of them were well built and have lasted, ours can't be the only one.
Get onto realestate.com.au and search the address utilising 'sold'.
If the information is available, it will list all the times it sold, and this will include the amount and date. It should start from when it was just an empty block.
Depending on the suburb it looks like late 60s - 70s the biggest give away with these houses is the space between the eave and the start of the window. Fire hazard and houses 90s onwards no longer have this design.
1960’s - plenty of the good stuff hidden in these gems so be aware - lead paint used in a lot of the undercoat for the timber windows/ frame and asbestos in the sheets for under the eaves
Steel frame windows helps date the house as above said. Be careful if you remove the steel frame windows as steel frame putty can contain asbestos. And a lot of the time the fixings for the window frame is under the putty itself.
How does one tell how old their house is ? Is it on the deed ? Can you call the local council ? Is there a procedure for finding out when the house was built ? Apologies for the skew sideways and I'm not sure what decade this house was built.
It might be in your contract of sale - the plan of subdivision in there will definitely have the date when they marked out the lot that your house sits on, and the house will have been built very soon after that. You can also get early plans, permits, build date, etc from your council, but they will charge you for it.
Steel windows were used from the 1940s to the early 1960s. That two tone brick style was common in the mid 1950s. If you have 9 foot ceilings it's more likely to be 1950s than 1960s.
You seem very knowledgeable. Thanks for your reply 🙂
My dad was a builder in the 1950s and 1960s. We used to drive around suburbs looking at houses he built when I was a kid while he told us all about them. I think it was his idea of spending quality time with the kids 😂
I live in a similar house with the exact windows and it is a 1953
We have these windows too -50’s build.
Unlike builds of today his are probably mostly still standing.
I would expect builds of today to be still standing today.
Mostly: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-05/condell-park-home-collapse-company-loses-licence/102307294
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I understood his joke, but felt this was too amusing not to share.
Today for new builds being 70 years from now, half of them look about 30yo after a year with the "eaveless" designs.
Your new-build should definitely last almost as long as your toaster and kettle.
I'm not sure I want a Breville-Target house!
Haha dad
My grandfather was a builder through that era and told me that they would take all sorts of things into consideration before drawing the plans for a house. Which way the sun will shine at different times of the year, where the breeze usually comes from. And a bunch of other things modern builders don't even seem to care about.
An older tradie I used to see at family gatherings once told me back in the day they would put in the footings and let them settle for a few months before doing anything, if they didn't you would get cracks from the movement. Modern builders just call the cracks "within tolerance" and move on.
They never let footings settle
Every generation says that about the generation before. It's been going on for centuries. I literally read a book written by someone on the early 1800's complaining about these new generation builders are lazy and using poor quality materials like this new tin roof thing. He grew up doing thatched roofs. People are starting to call my generation the old school skilled tradespeople.... We were called new school lazy know nothing when I was an apprentice
More consideration goes into building a house today. Site placement, planning, permits, energy reports, environmental impact statements, community feedback, infrastructure analysis and suburb requirements. Water retention systems. Flood planning, bushfire planning,. . . And the list goes on.
Not in the apartment buildings they build these days. Most of them have bathrooms in the middle with no window for ventilation. They smell of mould after the first year.
Not really
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If you really want to get into it, Google Andrew Marsh 3D Sun path. You can input latitude & longitude to get the location and track the Sun path and shadows throughout any time of any day of the year.
All things which even the most basic of architects can do, at it is built into most software.
Yes! My 1959 house lets sun in all winter but no direct rays in summer. It still all works fine without AC
Lol what? That’s a legal requirement to adhere to in all builds.
Then how to they fuck it up so badly these day on new builds.
Not necessarily, not because of any defect in construction.There are houses being knocked down left and right in my immediate area ,for the double storeys and the new Beirut Bunker design that is gaining poularity.
Sudden Valley is solid as a rock!
Post war builds were notably cheap and nasty, especially 50's60's
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Congratulations 🎉
You clealry learned a bit from him I would say while you may have found it boring you dad imparted knowledge. In that regard he did alright. Based solely on that. Obviously, i dont know you or how else he treated you though I hope it was well.
Did any of the children become a builder?
All girl children so no we didn't. We are all pretty good at DIY though and one BIL is now a highly skilled timber kayak maker (taught by my dad).
Rite of passage for kids of boomer dads that worked in construction 🤣
Yep my dad owned a concrete business and used to drive us around town pointing at houses and say “I built that house” 😂 Back then I would think 🙄 you just laid the foundation. Now I realise of course, you can’t build anything good without a solid foundation.
He was very proud of his work and wanted to show you what he had created.As a metalworker I did the same with my family as we lived in a small town as we would drive around I would point out things and I would say I built that!
That’s kind of wholesome tho. My dad used to get wasted and emotionally abuse my mother and my siblings.
That sounds like perfect quality time with your kids! How great for him to have gifted you his knowledge! Not all Dad’s know how to throw a ball or teach a skill but sounds like he knew how to include you in his life. The 1950s didn’t have huge expectations on fathers back then. Sounds like he was a trailblazer!
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Not much. I think his ideas on building froze around 1975. He was very keen on insulation and we did have a DIY solar hot water system from the mid 1960s until the late 1980s.
Always wondered what the go was with the tiny brick fence things. My previous house was very similar to this and also had the little half brick fence on the front.
Used rather less bricks. £££
I think they’re so cute. It matched and came as part of the house my parents had built, but in the 70s my mum hated it and had it knocked down.
Looks like someone has removed the matching wrought iron panels from it. Shame.
60’s 70’s probably late 70’s
Fuck mate dont say “homes” in the title and then only have one photo with those little triangle thingys on the side. Spent too long trying to scroll.
Bloody catfished us ey?
I want to give this an award but they no longer exist :(
Austerity, just after WW2. Yellow brick, steel windowframes, pink bathrooms.
Thanks so like 50s you reckon?
Too right. [50s wasn't great for choice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_residential_architectural_styles#Austere).
Wow that council housing in Perth is from the 50s? That's a cool building
the pink bathrooms are terrible haha have no idea why people thought they were a good idea, same with the yellow stained glass and brown carpets
Yellow brick came in around the sevenities,I think.After WW2 there were material shortages,Fibro houses were for the peasants and the better off had red double brick.
[ Not so.](https://www.realestate.com.au/news/retro-revival-sees-buyers-embrace-the-suburban-classic-brickveneer-home/)
So wrong. So far from being close.
The steel windows definately are older.i suppose the brick colour depends on the colour of the clay available and where the Brickworks are located.I used to work in kitchen renos and In Sydney i saw very few yellow bricked houses.Also this treatment around the windows seems very South Australian.
This is a cream clinker brick Post War home. Generally the wrought iron railing suggests it to be a 1950's -60's build rather than the late 60's -70's. We bought one for our first house and adored it. They are solidly built, have beautiful hardwood (Tasmanian Oak in Melbourne is what was used predominantly) flooring underneath the carpet and the window's are typically very large allowing them to be bright and open. They will have insulation issues but unless you are buying a new build, most houses in Australia will. We sympathetically renovated ours keeping to the mid century style, it's a shame when people render them and paint them grey in an attempt to modernize them instead of appreciating their unique beauty.
PS if you have a lender or a broker ask them for a core logic RP data property report, it should tell you the exact year it was built on it.
u/Environmental-Day794 Do you have any before and after photos of the reno of your house you'd be willing to share? We recently bought one built in 1960 and the only original features it has left are the 2.7m high ceilings, the floorboards and the original brick fireplace (which has been covered up with one of those newish thin gas heaters). Luckily it hasn't been rendered or painted on the outside and still has its little brick fence and iron gate, so we'll be able to restore it without too much expense, but I've been struggling to find lots of inspo for sympathetically restored/renoed cream clinker brick homes.
Ooo just saw this. I'll DM you.
Thank you!!
1950 rail styling, far enough on the other side of WW2 to not be built with clad and instead brick. Early enough to still be built with a chimney. Many homes built around this suburb with the same builder in various streets (2 Hilma, 33 Couch, 66 Hilma). Prominent suburb for Maltese migrants post war. Solid, well built homes. 1950-60 with certainty.
At some point houses lost their chimneys as gas or oil heating became popular and affordable, I think around ‘67. The cheapest spec home in the mid 80s was still a very similar plan, and maybe only a couple of squares bigger if you were lucky. One ‘improvement’ that was made that dates certain homes (eg. Grandparents house built in ‘63, my folks place in ‘64), was the ‘modern’ idea of hiding the gutters. My folks picked the ‘streamlined’ look and boy did they pay for that. The gutters would back up and run down the walls from the top cornices in certain rooms when it rained heavily. The fascia boards rotted too. That was a pretty short-lived architectural idea of that era.
Love it - sounds like a blessing it was short lived
Thankyou so much for sharing your knowledge. Very helpful :)
Where can you see the suburb? I can’t see that…
Reverse image search on Google. Best way to find any information in 2023. https://preview.redd.it/xs9liprwf0tb1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1fd0f711a384da7c55968aecd9d6da3a8bd7678a
Whatever year it is dont.fucking.render.over.that.brick.
Or paint
Why it's ugly
Render is far uglier
I still think these look nicer than the modern monstrosities taking over 😔
Modern home design is all build to cost minimisation. They're all shite. Decent homes stopped being built after the 90s.
It’s funny how when I was a kid those homes looked so daggy, but now in my kid 40’s I can appreciate their beauty. And they sure have lasted
Challenging aesthetically but generally very well built.
The finest era of Australian house design
Aaaah. The beautiful “piss yellow brick”. An Australian classic.
Lots of these in my suburb. Renovations often include rendering over that lovely tuck point work. A real shame that there’s no appreciation for them where I live.
They are quite charming aren't they :)
This is a ducking sexy looking house. My guess 1955-1963.
Our place has the same duo-tone bricks and was built in 1957
Thankyou, that's very helpful :)
1968 in my case. My ex-house (Adelaide) had the same brick (without the 2-tone around the windows) , same windows, same porch, same concrete around the edge that creeps away from house, same roof tiles, same wooden pergola which eventually rotted and same driveway without reo and same street setback. Even where the gas runs in is the same. We had the triple fronted version. Nothing was square in it and doorframes were f%$#ing metal. Poor water proofing if any and effing pink terrazzo rounded floor corners making tiling a nightmare. Not enough power points and elec box a nightmare of only 3 circuits protected by bolt "fuses". No earthing on any metal light fixtures. (Elec was 1st issue rectified) Poor fall on gutters meant they didn't drain properly. Only saving grace was wooden floors, hardwood in hallway, pine in bedrooms, freshly sealed quite well and then (!) covered in disgusting carpet for 25 years from when the house was new and discovered when we removed the carpet.
Ugh. We are dealing with similar issues, our house is ‘74, and fancy enough to have ensuite, even though it’s the smallest you’ve probably ever seen. I’m still procrastinating with getting more electric plugs installed, had to get all the gutters, fascia and pipes replaced due to flooding - lifted up the lino and carpet - bloody all soft pine!! 😕The windows shake at the merest footfall, there are gaps everywhere and some of the windows are rotting. Sigh.
So much writing, yet so wrong by 15 years.
Why do say that? Considering I was alive when it was built I'm pretty sure you have no idea about my house. PS Welcome to Reddit , are you new here or is this another abusive sock puppet account?
60's would be my guess. Looks very similar to my house.
Mine is same brick and roof and rails, but without the contrasting brown colour through the brick. And it's late 60s/early 70s
Oh awesome thanks for the reply
There isn't a hope in hell that's 70s. Late 50s-mid 60s. There's no way to debating that.
I'd go early 60s. My suburb was built in the 50s and 60s, and there's a mixture of weatherboard and brick, and the brick are generally a bit newer.
That style looks similar to my grandfather's and it was built in the 50s it was refreshing to crawl in the roof cavities to discover hardwood trusses.
Thank you for sharing. I've had someone else day they have this style and it was also built in the 50s so I guess most of these house should be around those years
I personally think it's beautiful and has a certain charm about it. It's a real shame many get rendered into looking like a modern cookie cutter homes.
I have the same windows and front fence. 1964 build. If anyone knows where I get new window winders from be very keen to know - have a few gears missing. Also whoever said the windows are like paper - 100%. Super thin and super leaky... gradually getting on top of it with stick-on-seals.
Yes that sounds about right. My grandparents built a mirror image of this house in 1963. This house is fancy in that it is two tone, with different chimney brickwork and quite a bit of decorative wrought iron. I think those steel windows are called casement, and had this handle. And yes to to very thin glass, I’ve got a 1966 build, and have had 3 windows break with only the slightest nudge, when they are replaced by the glazier, he told me that they use a thicker and safer glass now. https://preview.redd.it/c3twlhayaysb1.jpeg?width=2360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f5ec5a20f2aea474d395f9475b6f6c5e32dd6c2c
That's the ones, ta!
Here's [one](https://www.windowwinders.com.au/casement-winder-km-style/) but i havent tried contacting them, so cant guarantee they always have stock. There're also a few on ebay, if you search the keywords 'casement window winder whitco lockwood' I also found out that some of the windows that are hard to open or close due to rust can be repaired by simply spraying wd40 to the guide rails on the underside of the window frames. Repeat for a few times and the actions will be smooth as new.
Cheers - I'll keep a search out. Agree, with. a combination of WD40 and spray in lithium grease I got almost all of them working. There are a couple that the gear mechanisms has chips in it, so it doesn't wind all the way out or all the way in.
https://www.booktopia.com.au/australian-house-styles-maisy-stapleton/book/9781875253081.html grab a copy of that book, quite informative :)
Thanks so much it will surely help :)
I have been looking at so many of these blond brick houses the last few months. Love them but house hunting in the one suburb has me a little bored of the exact same layout inside (I know I know… it’s mass produced estate stuff.. and I’ve probably just gone to too many inspections) but they are so charming when they’ve been renovated and it’s all polished floor boards and updated kitchens. They can really scrub up nice with an update.
They often have beautiful floorboards if it’s hardwood.
Ok thanks everybody for all of your help. I now have a rough estimate on when these homes were built and have received plenty of good advice so a few thing to keep in mind if I do decide to go with this style. Cheers 😊
Well I tried clicking that arrow twice...
Idk but these houses give me the ick. I dunno why but I really just don’t like how they look
1971 to 74
Thanks but curious How can you tell?
Because it looks like West Sunshine where everything was built in those years. Also Watsonia is the same.
You have a good eye, it is sunshine
My guess was Maribyrnong area. Ol mate has it really dialed in to get an exact suburb.
I know right, amazed me :)
Lalor/ Thomastown too.
Yep, sunshine west - hilma street to be exact. We’ve got one up the road with similar brick. Heaps around here
1940's- to 60's I believe.
Thankyou
Ok thanks for your input :)
Only buy a house like this if it's already been renovated or you know what you're doing. They have no decent insulation, the windows may as well be made of paper, the heating costs a mint as gas used to be super super cheap, the rooms are small and you can hear everyone in every room. There is no water proofing in the wet areas, so mould is just part of the game.. They didn't cover the roof tiles with any sort of plastic back then so your roof will be full of either mice of possums every winter. The concrete around the perimeter of the building causes the water table to rise, and thus sagging will have occured and you'll have uneven flooring. Long Story Short these were some of the first mass produced houses Australia started to build and if I was king of Australia I would make it illegal for anyone to buy one of these without being forced to demolish them... They are shit.
A lot of exaggeration
maybe depends on what state but this definitely applies if you are in Victoria Melbourne.
Bro it sounds like you bought a lemon lol
I'm not talking about one house I'm talking about many.
Wow, thanks for the detailed reply. That all sounds like a giant headache. What year and styles of homes would you suggest don't have these issues?
These issues really lasted until late 80s. Insulation and Water Proofing are two things that we didn't really take seriously for a long time, and even in new houses these things are not perfect.. But it's definitely better. Newer houses though are generally on smaller lands blocks so it's always a give and take. You ultimately need to decide what's important. Whatever house you're looking at just keep in mind that owning is different to renting, when you rent you pay month to month and that's it, when owning you need to pay the mortgage and keep a few thousand saved away for when things break. Obviously older houses have more things that break.. but maybe you like the location, or the size, so paying that extra might be worth it. If you absolutely were to buy an older house though, some great improvements you can make are, replacing windows with uPVC ones, removing old insulation and installing new stuff, and installing zoned AC, or at the very least split systems. Then whenever painting remove the plastered vents in the top corners of each wall, that are not required if you don't have a old panel heater and all they do is make the room colder and blow 50year old dust into your room for you to breath in.
Wow, you seem to know your stuff. I guess I'll be looking for something a bit newer than, perhaps around ta 90s build. Thanks again so much for sharing all of your knowledge ☺️
The concrete is not causing the water table to rise
u/nightskye1990 Ours kind of looks like this one but a bit older (1960) and it has big rooms (incl a huge laundry for some reason), no mould and no sagging floors. We insulated the roof before we moved in as a precaution, but even when we'd come to look at it several times when it was for sale (in deep winter), despite being closed up for months it was never freezing cold or damp smelling (partly why we bought it). Obviously some of them were well built and have lasted, ours can't be the only one.
1950s. Fair bit of asbestos in and out also
I think this house is very early 60s, but asbestos warning for sure. Eaves, flooring under lino and in the bathroom.
I think early to mid 70s.
I’d say 60’s to early 70’s
70s?
I have a similar style house in metro Adelaide. It was built in '67.
40’s-60’s
Get onto realestate.com.au and search the address utilising 'sold'. If the information is available, it will list all the times it sold, and this will include the amount and date. It should start from when it was just an empty block.
Depending on the suburb it looks like late 60s - 70s the biggest give away with these houses is the space between the eave and the start of the window. Fire hazard and houses 90s onwards no longer have this design.
50’s & 60’s
Ours is similar and 1972
50s
Yellow brick is 1960s I believe / assume
Melb western suburbs like West Sunshine late 50’s early 69’s
1960’s - plenty of the good stuff hidden in these gems so be aware - lead paint used in a lot of the undercoat for the timber windows/ frame and asbestos in the sheets for under the eaves
mid last century, 1950's is a fairly safe bet.
My guess was 60s, but without the architectural knowledge to back it up like others in here 😄
Steel frame windows helps date the house as above said. Be careful if you remove the steel frame windows as steel frame putty can contain asbestos. And a lot of the time the fixings for the window frame is under the putty itself.
Postwar up to the late 1970s
Austerity - 50s
How does one tell how old their house is ? Is it on the deed ? Can you call the local council ? Is there a procedure for finding out when the house was built ? Apologies for the skew sideways and I'm not sure what decade this house was built.
Rpdata. Ask your bank or a real estate for a property report.
It might be in your contract of sale - the plan of subdivision in there will definitely have the date when they marked out the lot that your house sits on, and the house will have been built very soon after that. You can also get early plans, permits, build date, etc from your council, but they will charge you for it.