Reservoir's roofs, in history and numbers
A post-war suburb
Before the war, housing hugged High and Edwardes streets and the rest was farmland. Then residential development happened quickly, and the Housing Commission built large estates in the east of the suburb.
Brick or weatherboard
Wikipedia sums up the housing as 'standard brick or weatherboard homes', with a growing number of new developments among them.
One in three is a townhouse or semi
At the 2021 Census, 32.5% of occupied dwellings were semi-detached, row, terrace or townhouses, 63.2% were separate houses and just 3.9% were flats.
An older garden-suburb pocket
The Merrilands Estate (1918), around Hughes Parade and Botha Avenue, was a garden city design by Saxil Tuxen, so not every house here is post-war.
Check for asbestos first
Post-war houses can have asbestos cement sheeting in eaves, sheds, fences or the roof itself. Don't drill, cut, water-blast or walk on anything you're unsure about, and have it identified before a clean or restoration is quoted. Is my roof asbestos? explains what to look for.
Old house or new townhouse: two different jobs
On an original 1950s or 1960s house, the usual calls are cracked tiles, crumbling ridge mortar and tired metal. If the roof is sound underneath, a restoration brings it back. If it's asbestos cement, a replacement, with the asbestos handled by a specialist, is usually the longer-term answer.
Townhouses are a different animal. Box gutters (gutters built into the roof, often between two units), short steep sections and lots of flashings where roofs meet walls are common. A blocked box gutter overflows inside rather than over the edge, so it needs checking more often than a normal gutter. Our page on box gutters explains why.
If your townhouse shares a roof or gutter with a neighbour, agree who's arranging the job before anyone books a roofer.
What a good quote should cover here
- Whether any sheeting on the house might be asbestos, and how it will be handled
- How many tiles, how much ridge and which flashings are included
- Box gutters, outlets and downpipes, if it's a townhouse
- Workmanship warranty and the roofer's licence or registration number
Our take
On an original post-war house, we'd get the asbestos question answered before anything else, then compare a restoration price and a replacement price side by side. On a townhouse, we'd have the box gutters checked every year whether or not they're leaking. Send us the job and your postcode and we'll pass it to one licence-checked roofer for your area if we have one, or tell you plainly that we don't.
Want a roofer to take a look?
Tell us the job and your postcode. We match it with a Find My Roofer certified roofer who specialises in that kind of work, and they call you to quote. Your number goes to them alone.
