Pre-purchase building inspections in Mildura

Mildura is the largest town in the Sunraysia, and its housing reflects every era of that history. Pre-war weatherboards from the original soldier settlement, brick-veneer subdivisions from the 1960s and 70s, fibro-and-tile cottages out in the older suburbs, and a growing belt of new-build estates around the edges.

That variety is the first reason a builder’s eye matters when you’re inspecting a Mildura home. The defects that show up in a 1955 weatherboard near the river are not the same ones you’d flag in a 2018 brick-veneer in a new estate. A generic inspection checklist treats them the same. I don’t.

The climate adds a second wrinkle. Long hot summers, big diurnal temperature swings, occasional cold snaps, and prevailing dry conditions broken by sudden heavy rain. That combination is hard on render, hard on roofing, hard on timber joinery, and hard on evaporative cooling units. Most homes here have aged faster than their owners realise — and most reports don’t catch it.