House Inspections Melbourne was recently called to do an inspection on a newly built house in Mickleham prior to handover. Mickleham is a newly developed suburb in Melbourne’s North, approx. 32 km from the CBD. Our Mickleham new home inspection found that the building was not built up to code.
The suburb is still in development with aims to develop the area to sustain multiple schools and businesses, with a large city centre and business park. The area has buying potential for young families planning for a future. Our customer wanted to have confidence in the construction of their new property, and reached out to us to conduct a pre-handover inspection.
It can be easy to see only the nice modern features in a newly built house, but we at House Inspections Melbourne pride ourselves in being able to assess the quality of the construction. This allows us to give insight into how the house will hold-up for years to come.
Overall the property featured mostly minor finishing faults. We found a fair few areas where the paint was finished poorly, not meeting acceptable standards for new home handovers. The paint was a problem throughout the house. Similar problems were found with the doors across the house not up to code, being slightly off hinge, or not lining up with the frame properly. This is another problem needing to be rectified before handover.
Plumbing in bathrooms, laundry and kitchen was fair, with everything working and found to be up to code. The only problems found was the untidy paint, a recurring problem. The paint had also affected the cleanliness of the tiles, which also needed to be addressed. No water leaks or potential leaks were found. When moving on to the roof, we found it to also be in reasonable condition, with thick installation and adequate roof coverings. The exterior of the roof was also reasonable, with only two tiles and one down-pipe requiring minor but easy adjustment
The biggest, and most troubling issue with the house was the flooring. In the kitchen and garage the floor was found to be not level. The floors need to to relayed in these areas to comply with standards. Floors that are out of level upon construction have the potential to become worse overtime. As they are a key structural feature in the house, it is important that they are held to standard. The flooring was a major problem, which lead to our report deeming the house ‘below average’ quality.
With newly built houses, builders are required to build the property in a way that is up to code. This means that all minor and major faults noted by House Inspections Melbourne must be rectified by the builders before our clients move in. Many of the issues found in this house would have not been noticeable to an untrained eye. The major advantage of having your inspection completed by a professional prior to moving in, is that when you can approach the builders to address the issues before making your final payment.
The owners of this property have ensured that they know what needs to be addressed to be confident that their home is safe for them to move in. If you are after the same peace of mind for yourself and your new home, arrange an inspection online or by calling 0422 228 716.
