Flat Roof Patios in Melville

The riverside end is the rebuild belt. Applecross, Ardross, Mount Pleasant and Attadale hold large modern houses on lots that once carried something a third of the size, often with a pool and very little yard left over.

The middle ring is the 1970s and 80s. Booragoon, Bull Creek, Winthrop, Leeming and Murdoch are conventional brick and tile with straight fascias and yards deep enough for a proper rear patio.

Willagee and parts of Palmyra are different again. Smaller original houses on decent blocks, a good deal of it being redeveloped, and fixing heights that are low enough to make a freestanding roof the sensible route.

The practical consequence is that no two quotes in this council look alike. A courtyard behind a three-storey Applecross rebuild and a full-width patio on a Leeming block are different structures solving different problems, and pricing one off the other is guesswork.

This is Spearwood dune country and the limestone under it can sit high. Around Attadale, Bicton and the ground near Point Walter an auger can meet hard cap well before it reaches the depth the footing schedule asked for.

That is a change of method rather than a change of plan. Coring gets through it, and sometimes the footing itself is redesigned to suit rock at a shallower depth instead of sand at a deeper one.

Discovering it at the site measure is the whole point. It is a line on a quote when it is known and an awkward phone call when it is not.

Modern Melville rebuilds put a wall of glass across the rear elevation, and that changes which surface of the patio roof matters. What you see all day is the underside, not the sheet on top.

Very pale soffits can work against you. A bright underside facing a full-height glazed wall bounces glare straight back into the living room, which is the opposite of what the roof was built for.

Very dark reads heavy and holds heat. A mid tone in an insulated panel ceiling usually sits best against a large expanse of glass, and it takes downlights without the ceiling looking like an afterthought.

Reflection works in the other direction as well. A glazed rear wall throws afternoon light back under the roof, so the underside is lit far more than most patios are, and a cheap-looking ceiling has nowhere to hide on these houses.

This council touches both the Swan and the Canning, so the foreshore question comes up on more streets here than in most of Perth. Alfred Cove, Attadale, Bicton, Mount Pleasant and Applecross all have properties close to water.

Land within the development control area established under the state legislation covering the Swan and Canning rivers can require a referral in addition to the council approval. It is a timeline consideration, not a refusal.

The practical step is to establish the position before the design is finalised. Knowing on day one that a referral applies is a fortnight better than finding out after the drawings are done.

Within a couple of kilometres this council gives you two completely different stormwater situations. Up on the limestone ridge, water disappears almost as fast as you can deliver it to a soakwell.

Down on the low ground near Alfred Cove and along the Canning at Mount Pleasant the seasonal water table sits much closer to the surface. A deep soakwell there can be partly submerged in winter before a drop of roof water reaches it.

So the array changes shape rather than just size. Shallower wells spread wider, positioned above the winter level, do more useful work than fewer deep ones sitting in groundwater.

A building permit from the City of Melville is required before construction, because a patio is a Class 10a structure. The pack is a site plan, elevations, structural engineering for the assessed wind classification and an on-site stormwater design.

It can be lodged uncertified for the council to assess, or certified with a certificate of design compliance from a registered building surveyor already attached.

The R-Codes question bites differently here. On a rebuilt block the house is often already close to the site coverage and open space limits, so a large new roof is the thing that tips it over, and that is worth testing before anyone falls in love with a size.