Why Bass Hill is different from its neighbours
Bass Hill occupies the rising ground west of Yagoona along the Hume Highway. It filled in slightly later than the suburbs closer to Bankstown, mostly through the 1950s and 1960s, and it was subdivided generously: the blocks are wider than average for the district and a lot of them are deep.
That one fact shapes most of the work we do here. Wide, deep blocks have attracted secondary dwellings, duplex development and rear additions for the last two decades, and almost all of that involves a bathroom.
The housing, in two layers
The original layer
Single-storey brick and brick veneer, three bedrooms, hip tiled roof, one bathroom plus a separate toilet, laundry in a back room or on an enclosed verandah. Floors are slab in the later houses and timber over a crawl space in the earlier ones, which matters because it changes how easily a waste can be moved.
The original bathroom is around 1.7 by 2.2 metres with a steel bath, a shower over it, tiles to chest height and a window above the bath. Sixty years on, the grout is doing work the waterproofing should be doing.
The added layer
Granny flats, duplex halves and rear additions. These are newer, built on slab, tighter in layout, and much less likely to involve asbestos. Their bathrooms are small single wet rooms where every decision is a space decision.
What we get called about most in Bass Hill
A second bathroom for a full house. The commonest brief. Three generations in one house and one shower is the problem; where to put the second shower is the question. Because the houses here are often wide rather than long, there is frequently more than one viable answer, and the sewer route decides between them. The ensuites page sets out the four places the space usually comes from.
A ground-floor bathroom an older parent can use. Step-free entry, a shower that can be used sitting down, and real backing in the walls for grab rails. Fitting that backing while the wall is open costs very little; retrofitting it means breaking tiles and membrane. The accessible bathrooms page goes through it.
Finishing or upgrading a granny flat wet room. Small, durable, easy to clean, and usually built for family rather than a tenant.
A laundry that has given up. Concrete trough, cold floor, one light, and a household washing every day. Covered on the laundry page.
Asbestos in the original stock
Anything built or altered before about 1990 can contain asbestos, and most of Bass Hill's original houses sit inside that window. In a bathroom the likely places are the fibre cement sheeting behind the wall tiles, the ceiling sheet, and some older vinyl and adhesives.
This is routine rather than alarming. A sample is tested before demolition, the result decides what happens next, and if it is positive the removal is done by a separately licensed asbestos removalist and priced separately so you can see the figure.
Council
Bass Hill is in the City of Canterbury-Bankstown. Work inside an existing bathroom usually needs no development application; adding a bathroom, altering drainage or anything structural can, and secondary dwellings follow their own path. We tell you which at the measure.
Next step
Ring for a free measure, or send the suburb, the room and a photo from the doorway. Rough price bands are on the price guide.
Renovation work is carried out in partnership with Coastal Renovation Group, a licensed NSW builder. Licence and insurance details are provided on request.