Builder in Shellharbour

Full home renovations

A full home renovation in Shellharbour covers the whole house in one go, with a reworked layout, a new kitchen, bathrooms, flooring, and wiring and plumbing brought up to standard. We run it as one job with one builder, on a fixed-price proposal that is settled before demolition starts.

The town has two quite different kinds of house to renovate. Brick and fibro homes closer to the village are usually sound, and the problem is the layout. Closed-in kitchens, a separate toilet and a bathroom that has never been moved are typical, so the work is opening walls and replacing wet areas. Estate homes from the last few decades are more often a fit-out job. The structure is fine, and the kitchen, bathrooms and the link to the yard are what get rebuilt.

If the house is old, we check for asbestos-containing material and the condition of the wiring, framing and drainage before pricing. Our post on asbestos in older Illawarra homes explains what that check involves. See the home renovations service for how a whole-house job is run from start to handover.

First floor additions and ground-floor extensions

For a first floor addition or a ground-floor extension in Shellharbour, the deciding factor is usually the block. Estate lots are often tight at the back but sound enough to build up, while older beachside blocks tend to be deeper and make going out the cheaper choice.

Going up means an engineer must establish what the footings and walls below can carry before any floor area is added. Our comparison of a rear extension versus a second storey sets out the trade-offs, and the home extension cost guide covers what drives the price. We price the ground-floor option first unless the lot rules it out, because it avoids that structural assessment.

Either way the work adds floor area, so it runs through a Complying Development Certificate or a development application with Shellharbour City Council. We prepare the design, the engineering and the approval documents as part of the job. The home extensions service page has the full process.

Specifying for salt air

Anything built close to the water in Shellharbour gets different materials from the same job inland. Fixings, flashings, gutters, external hardware and window furniture are chosen for the air they will sit in. Ordinary chrome tapware pits within a few years this close to the beach, so we specify fittings that hold up.

Bathrooms are hit hardest because moisture and salt arrive together. We design extraction in rather than leaving it to a standard fan, and waterproofing is done to the Australian Standard. The bathroom renovations service shows how we run strip-out through to fit-off as one contract.

Custom homes and granny flats

We also build custom homes in Shellharbour, designed around the block and its orientation instead of drawn from a catalogue. That suits narrow estate lots and the odd-shaped older parcels where no standard plan sits well. The new homes service explains the sequence of design, engineering, approval and a fixed price.

For granny flats we have a dedicated page, so the detail on lot size, setbacks and approvals lives on granny flat builders in Shellharbour. The short version is that a lot of at least 450 square metres can often take a secondary dwelling of up to 60 square metres through the complying development path.

If your property is in the new harbour suburb, our Shell Cove page covers the estate guidelines that apply there.