Members of
We extend and upgrade Jan Juc’s houses, from 1960s beach houses to the 1990s homes off Ocean Boulevard. With the growth area to the west gone back to farmland, most families here are adding to what they have, and we build that work around the height limit and the trees.
Jan Juc is almost all separate family houses, 96% at the last census, and there is no big new estate coming next door. That shapes almost every job here.
Coastal Jan Juc started growing in the mid-1960s. The 2006 character study describes classic beach houses beside contemporary builds, brick veneer with tiled roofs, and the 1990s subdivisions along Ocean Boulevard. The beach houses need boards, windows and stumps looked at. The brick homes are ready for a proper deck or a new front. The 1990s houses are at the age where the first deck, pergola and kitchen all come due together.
In August 2026 the Spring Creek growth area was rezoned back to farming, and growth is now held inside the protected settlement boundary. The Jan Juc design overlay generally lets a single house go to 7.5 metres without a design-overlay permit, provided it keeps at least 80 square metres of private open space. That is why a second storey or a rear extension is the usual answer here, and why we plan the height and the yard before we plan the rooms.
Where the central Torquay and Jan Juc landscape overlay applies, it needs a permit to remove native vegetation over 3 metres, exotic trees over 5 metres, or any Bellarine Yellow Gum. The western edge of town also sits in the BAL-12.5 bushfire area. So a deck or extension often has to work around a tree that is staying, on footings that keep clear of its roots, built to the rating the lot carries.
Running the shops on Princes Terrace or a building near the surf club? The commercial side of our work is on the commercial carpentry page for Jan Juc.
Doors and locks have come up in 6 of our 10 Jan Juc jobs. The rest follows the age of the houses and the overlay.
Doors, locks and latches, the most common job we have done in Jan Juc.
Second storeys and rear extensions inside the 7.5 m limit.
Decks designed around trees that have to stay.
Shade over the back of a 1990s house that never had any.
Boards on the original 1960s beach houses.
Tired windows on older beach houses replaced.
Boundary and front fences, including on new infill lots.
Gutters, doors and the jobs that pile up on a beach house.
A call or a message, with a sketch or a few photos if you have them.
The 7.5 m line, the open space you must keep and any protected trees. Those three shape an extension in Jan Juc more than anything.
Itemised and free, with anything that needs a permit flagged up front.
The same team start to end, and a return visit once the work has been through a winter.
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.
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.
The name is thought to come from an Aboriginal word with several suggested meanings, including milk, ironbark and goose. The first place called Jan Juc was inland, and it was renamed Bellbrae in the early 1920s. There has never been a post office in the Jan Juc of today.
The coastal town grew from the mid-1960s, and the surf life saving club ran its first patrol on 1 May 1964. The 2021 census counted 4,151 residents, with 96% of homes separate houses and only about one in five a holiday home or short-stay rental rather than a full-time home. A suburb of family homes with nowhere left to spread is why the work here is extensions, decks and second storeys.
Torquay • Anglesea • Surf Coast
Torquay, Bellbrae and Bells Beach border Jan Juc, with Bass Strait to the south.
Tell us what you have in mind and we will tell you what fits on the block, with a free estimate.