What Ferntree Gully roofs are up against
Hail people still talk about
The 6 March 2010 storm brought cricket-ball hail to the Ferntree Gully to Lysterfield area, with an aggregate hailstone of 11 cm recorded in Ferntree Gully, and Knox City Council opened a relief centre for residents with damaged homes. Across Melbourne about 2,000 homes were damaged, mainly because overloaded gutters led to leaks and collapses.
Fibro and wood stoves
Victorian Places says cheap land and 'fibro houses with wood stoves' let low-income families get by here, before 1954 planning controls reined in subdivision. Mountain Gate opened in 1959 as the 'town of a thousand homes', and Johnson Park, Fairhills and Kent Park filled in through the 1960s.
Bush on the doorstep
Ferntree Gully sits at the foot of the Dandenong Ranges, at about 150 m. Part of it is a high fire risk area near the national park, though most of the suburb is considered low risk, and there are plenty of eucalypts dropping leaves and bark into gutters.
Mostly family houses
At the 2021 Census, 88.0% of occupied homes were separate houses and 32.2% had four or more bedrooms.
Jobs worth thinking about here
Storm and hail checks. Hail can crack tiles and dent metal without an obvious leak. After a storm, a roof inspection with photos shows what was damaged and gives you a dated record. Our guide to hail damage claims covers making a claim.
Asbestos first on older homes. If yours is one of the older fibro houses, assume asbestos is possible. EPA Victoria says houses built before 1990 are likely to contain some, and it's illegal to use high-pressure water on asbestos materials, so no pressure cleaning until it's tested.
Embers and gutters near the bush. Clear leaves from gutters and valleys before summer. If your property has a Bushfire Attack Level (BAL) rating or sits in a Bushfire Management Overlay, ask about non-combustible gutter guards and sealing gaps where embers could get under the roof.
After a hailstorm, stay on the ground
Don't go up on the roof to look. Wet, cracked tiles break underfoot and dented metal is slippery. Check from the ground and from inside, and for emergency storm damage call the SES on 132 500.
Our advice for Ferntree Gully
Treat a big storm as the trigger for a roof check, not the first drip. Get photos while the damage is fresh. On an older home, find out whether there's asbestos before any work is quoted. Then send us the job: we'll pass it to one licence-checked roofer covering Ferntree Gully if we have one, and if we don't, you'll know up front.
Want a roofer to take a look?
Tell us the job and your postcode. We match it with a Find My Roofer certified roofer who specialises in that kind of work, and they call you to quote. Your number goes to them alone.
