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We can repair weatherboards and build verandahs, decks and sheds for Deans Marsh’s township and farm homes below the Otways. The township has its own character rules, so we check them before anything is drawn.
Deans Marsh is a small hinterland township on the road to Lorne, with a store, a primary school, a hall and farms running up into the Otway foothills.
Council’s township character overlay describes Deans Marsh as low scale and historic: one or two storeys, pitched roofs, weatherboard cladding and open front fences. Township blocks are typically about 2,200 square metres. Old weatherboards, verandahs and windows need repairs that keep that look, and new work that doesn’t meet the overlay’s conditions needs a permit.
Inside the township precinct, the character overlay needs no permit if the roof pitch is more than 20 degrees, at least 70% of the walls are weatherboard or look like it, the building is no more than two storeys and 7.5 metres, and a new outbuilding sits behind the house. A fence over 1 metre in the precinct needs a permit. On farmland the zone requires 40 hectares for a house without a permit.
All of Deans Marsh is bushfire prone, and the Bushfire Management Overlay covers about half the land and 101 addresses, none of them in the township. More than one home in four wasn’t lived in full-time at the 2021 census, and we can look after those while owners are away.
Looking after the school, the hall, the store or a cellar door around Deans Marsh? That side of our work is on our commercial carpentry page.
What Deans Marsh’s township and farm homes need most.
Boards replaced to keep the township’s weatherboard look.
Verandahs under a pitched roof line.
For the township’s heritage-listed buildings.
Decks for farmhouses and township homes.
Extensions designed to the character rules.
Timber windows and doors in older houses.
Open front fences under a metre in the township.
Township precinct or farm? It changes which rules apply.
Roof pitch, cladding, height and the bushfire overlay.
Including the travel out from Geelong.
New timber matched to the old, and the site cleaned up.
Prompt, great communication and a terrific job. Have used JF Maintenance for lots of work over the years and would recommend.
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.
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.
Deans Marsh is thought to be named after Charles Dean, who held a grazing licence here from about 1846. A school opened in 1865, the hotel was a coach stop on the way to Lorne, and the railway from Birregurra arrived in 1889. The soprano Marjorie Lawrence was born here.
The 2021 census counted 368 residents with a median age of 47, every home a separate house. Weatherboard character, farms and fire rules are why the work here is careful and well planned.
Winchelsea • Lorne • Surf Coast
Deans Marsh borders Pennyroyal, Boonah, Bambra, Whoorel, Birregurra and Murroon.
Tell us about the house and whether it’s in the township, and we will come back with a free estimate.