Ceiling Insulation in Hume & the Northern Corridor

Building in Hume & the Northern Corridor

Two distinct halves. Broadmeadows, Jacana and Dallas are postwar public and ex-public housing, much of it never insulated properly. Craigieburn, Mickleham and Kalkallo are recent estate housing on slab with truss roofs.

The housing stock

Two bodies of housing with almost nothing in common. Broadmeadows, Jacana, Dallas and Coolaroo are postwar and ex-public housing, built quickly to the standards of the day, and a large amount of it has never had a ceiling upgrade of any kind. Craigieburn, Roxburgh Park, Mickleham and Kalkallo are recent estate development on slab with truss roofs, where whatever went in at construction is still there.

What changes the job here

• The postwar stock frequently has nothing in the ceiling or foil only
• Estate housing to the north has truss roofs with limited crawl room between webs
• Exposed, windy country which makes an uninsulated ceiling more noticeable in both seasons

Access and local constraints

The postwar housing through Broadmeadows, Jacana and Dallas has conventional roofs with reasonable access and generally straightforward working conditions once you are inside. Estate truss roofs to the north are the harder of the two, because the webs restrict how far anyone can move across the space and every batt has to be fed between them. Parking and access on the estates is easy. In the older suburbs, front setbacks are short and driveways narrow, but a vehicle can normally get close enough for an extraction line to reach without difficulty.

Climate and timing

Open, exposed country to the north with hot dry summers and cold winters, and a wider annual range than anywhere closer to the bay. Wind is constant here and underrated, and it makes an uninsulated ceiling more noticeable in both seasons rather than just one. The enquiry pattern is strongly seasonal and it runs hard in both directions, with a summer peak as strong as the winter one. That is unusual in Melbourne and it reflects how little shelter there is across this part of the catchment.

What we are usually asked for here

The postwar and ex-public housing through Broadmeadows, Jacana, Dallas and Coolaroo frequently has nothing in the ceiling or foil only, which makes it the clearest case in the catchment and the part both datasets underweight because neither site ever targeted it. The estate housing to the north at Craigieburn, Mickleham and Kalkallo generally has builder-grade material that is thinner than owners assume but not always thin enough to be in scope. The dominant blocker on the estates is construction age, since much of that housing has gone up recently, and in the older suburbs it is downlights installed during a renovation.