Two Panania houses, not one
Panania sits in the south of the Canterbury-Bankstown area, on the East Hills railway line, with its southern edge running down toward the Georges River and the flats around it. Walking the suburb you can see two distinct housing eras, and they behave very differently under renovation.
The older, lighter houses are closer to the river and the creek lines: fibro or part-fibro, weatherboard, timber floors on piers over a crawl space, small rooms and low ceilings. Many are from the 1940s and 1950s.
The later houses are brick and brick veneer, often on slab, mostly from the 1960s onward, with a scattering of two-storey rebuilds and knock-down-rebuild work from the last twenty years on the better blocks.
Which of those you own changes the first three questions we ask.
Timber floors: the good and the bad
A timber floor over a crawl space is the renovator's friend when it comes to plumbing. Waste and water lines can be re-routed under the house without cutting concrete, which means a layout change in Panania is often cheaper than the same change in a slab-floor suburb a few kilometres north.
The catch is condition. Sixty years under a leaking shower does real damage to hardwood, and we find:
- Soft or rotted floor sheeting around the shower and the bath feet
- Joists and bearers that need splicing or replacing
- Borer damage in the lighter framing
- Piers that have moved, giving the floor a noticeable slope
None of that is unusual and all of it is repairable. It is, however, the main reason a Panania quote has to say clearly how structural repairs found during strip-out are priced. Nobody can see under a floor through a tile.
Humidity and ventilation
This is a river frontage, not a coastal one, so the enemy is damp air rather than salt. Low-lying ground, a nearby waterway and a bathroom with a small high window and no fan is a reliable recipe for mould on the ceiling and swelling at the bottom of the vanity.
What we do about it:
- Tile to the ceiling rather than leaving a painted band above a tile line
- Moisture-resistant cabinet carcass with sealed edges, not standard board with a good door
- An exhaust fan ducted to outside — not into the roof space — with a run-on timer so it keeps going after the shower stops
- Full waterproofing to the current standard, which is a different thing from a painted coat, as the waterproofing and tiling page sets out
Flood-related planning, stated carefully
Parts of the low-lying land in the river and creek flats around Panania and neighbouring Picnic Point carry flood-related planning constraints, and they are specific to individual properties rather than to the suburb. The City of Canterbury-Bankstown holds that information for an address.
For an internal bathroom renovation it rarely comes into it. For anything that extends the footprint or changes floor levels, find out first. We will point you at the right place to ask rather than guess on your behalf.
What Panania households ask for
A wider spread than the suburbs further north. Alongside the usual second-bathroom and combine-the-toilet work, we see more full renovations of houses that have been part-renovated before, more two-bathroom houses wanting the second one brought up to the standard of the first, and more accessible ground-floor bathrooms in houses owned by the same family since the 1970s.
Next step
A free measure, half an hour. If you know whether the floor is timber or slab, say so when you ring — it changes the conversation immediately. Rough 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.