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We extend and re-clad Anglesea’s old beach shacks, rebuild decks to the bushfire rating the lot carries, and look after the town’s holiday homes and Airbnb rentals between bookings. Anglesea has almost no new land left, so nearly every home project here is about getting more out of a house that is already standing.
The bush and the national park hold Anglesea in place. Council records an average of about three new lots a year, so the work comes from the houses already here.
Council’s growth profile records an average of about three new lots a year in Anglesea, almost all from splitting existing blocks, and the settlement boundary is not moving. Through the older streets the neighbourhood character study counts plenty of small fibro and weatherboard houses built before the 1970s. That is where we come in: an extra bedroom, a re-clad wall, a studio out the back now that the state rules for small second dwellings have changed. Fibro gets tested before anyone cuts it.
The Anglesea, Aireys Inlet and Lorne bushfire schedule says a new or extended dwelling must be built to BAL-29. That decides which timbers we can use on a deck, how it is detailed underneath and what goes into a new window. Ash Wednesday took well over a hundred Anglesea homes in 1983, so much of what was rebuilt is now about 40 years old, and many of those decks are near the end of their life. We replace them to the rating the lot carries today, not the one it had then.
Under the Anglesea character overlay a house can cover 30% of the block, or 35% if the extra is unroofed deck, and the overlay itself asks for timber, glass and decks. On a tight lot a well-built deck is often the cheapest living space you can add. More than half of Anglesea’s homes are holiday homes and short-stay rentals rather than full-time homes, so we also look after holiday and Airbnb homes: the pre-summer check-over, repairs between bookings, and photos and a written scope before anything starts.
Looking after a shop on the Great Ocean Road or a building in the industrial estate? That side of our work is on the commercial carpentry page for Anglesea.
Doors are the job we have done most in Anglesea, 11 of our 18 jobs here. The rest follows the fire rating, the overlay and the age of the houses.
Sticking, dropped and damaged doors, and the locks and hardware on them.
New decks built to the lot’s BAL rating and inside the site-coverage limit.
Rebuilding the decks that went in after 1983.
Boards on old beach houses, matched and refixed.
Extensions, re-cladding and studio additions on existing houses.
Old windows swapped out to suit a rated extension.
Open timber front fences that meet the overlay.
Pre-summer checks and repairs between bookings for holiday and Airbnb homes.
A call, a message or a few photos. If you are in Melbourne, photos are a good start.
Bushfire rating, site coverage and whether the fence or extension needs a permit. In Anglesea those three decide most jobs.
Itemised and free, with the BAL rating and any permit step written into it.
The same crew start to finish, photos as we go if you are not down, and a check once it has been through a season.
Michael worked with our budget and we were so impressed by their diligence and workmanship. They did not cut corners but went the extra mile. So impressed we engaged them again at another property.
Beyond our expectations, and it was great to work with people who could turn our ideas into something better than we imagined. Couldn’t recommend them highly enough.
Prompt, great communication and a terrific job. Have used JF Maintenance for lots of work over the years and would recommend.
The river was first called Swampy Creek. Land here was cut into 8-hectare lots in 1884, the town took its name from Anglesey in Wales, and the post office only changed from Anglesea River to plain Anglesea in 1950. For 46 years Anglesea also had a coal mine and power station on its edge, run by Alcoa from 1969 until it closed in 2015.
Today the town is boxed in by the Great Otway National Park, and council has said the boundary will not grow. The 2021 census counted 3,208 residents and more than half its homes were holiday homes or short-stay rentals rather than full-time homes. A fixed boundary and a town full of holiday houses is why the carpentry here is extensions, decks and upkeep rather than new estates.
Jan Juc • Torquay • Lorne • Surf Coast
Aireys Inlet and Bells Beach border Anglesea along the coast, with Bellbrae, Gherang, Paraparap and Wensleydale inland.
Tell us what is going on, with photos if you are not down, and we will come back with a straight answer and a free estimate.