Renovations & Extensions in Hume & Craigieburn

Building in Hume & Craigieburn

The northern growth corridor. Craigieburn, Mickleham, Donnybrook and Roxburgh Park are dominated by estate housing from the 1990s onward. Sunbury and Broadmeadows retain older established stock.

The housing stock

Craigieburn, Mickleham, Donnybrook and Roxburgh Park are almost entirely post-1995 estate housing on slab. Greenvale mixes estate stock with larger older holdings. Sunbury and Broadmeadows have genuinely older established housing, including postwar public housing stock now largely in private hands and frequently renovated.

What changes the job here

• Predominantly slab-on-ground estate construction
• Estate design covenants are common and can restrict facade and outbuilding changes
• Northern boundary of the service area. Donnybrook and Mickleham are the practical limit

Access and local constraints

This is the northern boundary of the service area. Donnybrook and Mickleham are the practical limit. Estate covenants are common and, in the newer precincts, actively enforced. Growth-area developer contributions can apply to some works.

Climate and timing

Open, exposed country to the north with hot, dry summers and cold winters. The temperature range is wider than closer to the bay, which matters for material movement and for anything relying on consistent curing conditions. Wind is the other factor and it is underrated. There is little to break it across the newer estates, so scaffolding, sheet material and rendering all become harder on an exposed block, and a windy day can stop external work that rain would not have. Concrete crews work early through summer here for the same reason they work late through winter, which is that the middle of the day is the problem in both seasons.

What we are usually asked for here

Extensions and second living areas on estate housing, garage conversions, concreting and landscaping on new-estate blocks that were handed over as bare ground. A lot of the work through Craigieburn, Roxburgh Park and Greenvale is finishing what the builder never included, since the house was delivered complete and the yard was not. That means driveways widened, alfresco areas added, and retaining and levelling done years after handover. In the older Broadmeadows and Glenroy housing the mix shifts toward renovation of existing rooms rather than addition, along with restumping and the structural work that comes with houses of that age.