Ceiling Insulation in Outer East

Building in Outer East

Postwar and 1960s to 80s brick veneer on large blocks through Glen Waverley, Wheelers Hill, Rowville and Wantirna. Well-built conventional roofs, generous ceiling spaces, and a lot of original insulation now decades past its best.

The housing stock

Postwar through to 1980s brick veneer on large blocks across Glen Waverley, Mount Waverley, Wheelers Hill, Rowville, Wantirna and Boronia. Conventional and truss roofs with generous ceiling spaces, built when land was cheap and houses were single storey. From a roof space point of view this is the most straightforward housing stock in metropolitan Melbourne, and the ceilings are large, which matters because area is the main cost driver.

What changes the job here

• Roomy truss and conventional roofs that are straightforward to work in
• Original 1970s and 80s batts are common and usually well compressed
• Storage platforms in the roof space are frequent here and compress whatever is under them

Access and local constraints

Driveways, side access and room to park a vehicle close to the house are the norm. Roof spaces can generally be moved through near the ridge and reached at the eaves without difficulty. The one recurring obstacle is storage. These houses have big roof spaces and forty years of accumulation in them, and boxes sitting directly on the insulation have usually flattened it. That has to come out or be worked around before anything useful can happen.

Climate and timing

Cooler and wetter toward the Dandenong foothills through Ferntree Gully and Boronia than on the flatter ground around Glen Waverley. Enquiries are strongly seasonal here, arriving with the first cold week and again in a heatwave, since a large single-storey house under an uninsulated ceiling is uncomfortable in both directions. Tree cover through the foothills keeps roof spaces damp longer through winter.

What we are usually asked for here

Almost every house here has something in the ceiling already, installed when it was built or in the decades since, and almost all of it has settled well below its rated value. That makes this the strongest catchment in Melbourne for removal and replacement rather than a first install. Rodent activity is common given the tree cover. The usual blocker is a renovation or an extension in the last few years, which is frequent as these houses turn over to younger families.