Gyprocker and plasterer in Kiama
We repair old walls and finish new rooms right across Kiama and Kiama Downs. Kiama has conservation areas running through the middle of its working streets, which no other town we cover does. It was a blue metal quarry town, and the terraces built for those workers are still standing. It is also the wettest place we work, and its wettest month is March rather than February. A great many homes here are not lived in all year, which changes how we get into them.
Common gyprock problems in Kiama
Kiama is an old quarry and harbour town with a modern family suburb attached to the north of it. The two halves want different things and the town's history sits under both. Below is what a heritage town on wet ground actually asks for.
Conservation areas through the middle of a working town
Manning Street and Terralong Street carry a town centre conservation area, and there are further ones at Pheasant Point and Smith Farm. Blowhole Point including the lighthouse is a listed item in its own right. David Smith built the first permanent house in the town in 1832, on the corner of Bong Bong and Manning Streets. What the controls actually govern is the outside of a building far more than the inside. On a listed item that is different, so we check with the council before quoting.
The blue metal quarries built half of this town
Kiama quarried basalt through the second half of the 1800s and it went out as road metal, railway ballast and concrete. Sources disagree on when it started and when it stopped, so we will not put a year on either. What is not in doubt is that it made the town and paid for a good deal of what is standing in it. That industry has finished at Bombo now, and what it left behind is a headland and a street of workers' terraces.
Bombo Headland is on the State Heritage Register
The old quarry at Bombo Headland was listed on the State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. Cutting into the headland exposed columns of basalt standing five or six metres tall, which is why it gets compared to the Giant's Causeway. The rock here also helped define a reversed magnetic interval named the Kiaman, after this place, used to correlate rock sequences worldwide. It is the only suburb we work in with a piece of global geology in it.
Terraces built for quarry workers, still standing
Rows of timber terraces went up in Collins Street through the 1870s and 1880s to house quarry workers. One end of the row started life as an inn and another as a post office, and most of the rest were workers' housing. They fell into disrepair once the quarries wound down and were brought back as shops in the seventies. Buildings of that age and that construction take a different approach from anything else in the postcode.
Getting in is half the job here
A large share of homes in Kiama are not occupied all year round, which is unusual anywhere we work. That means keys, agents, caretakers and booking windows rather than an owner opening the door. Work has to fit between one occupancy and the next rather than around a household's routine.
The wettest month here is March, not February
Kiama has its own long weather record and it is wetter than the coast further north. What makes it unusual is when the rain arrives, because the wettest month here is March rather than February. So the slow drying part of the year runs later here than it does anywhere else we cover. A frame left open through an autumn wet spell holds more moisture than the same frame up the coast. We plan autumn work around drying time instead of pretending the calendar does not matter.
Why Kiama properties choose us
We sheet, coat and sand plasterboard across Kiama and the rest of the Kiama Municipal Council area. The owner is on the job rather than running it from an office.
How a gyprock job runs in Kiama
You call or send the form, and the more you can tell us the better. For a repair, a photo of the ceiling or the wall usually settles the question before anyone drives out. For a new build or a renovation we quote from the plans. Suspended ceilings are always quoted from plans rather than from a description.
The owner is on site, and the ceilings go up first, then the walls, then the cornice. The sander runs with a bag on it and the rest is done by hand, so there is dust in the air. We clean up and take the offcuts and the empty bags away with us. The walls are left sanded and ready for the painter's primer coat, because we do not paint.
We come down the highway into Kiama, past Bombo, with Kiama Downs on the northern side of the town. The old town sits tight on its headlands and the newer suburb spreads out behind it. What we ask at the quote is whether the building is in a conservation area and who holds the key. Those two answers between them decide most of what has to happen before we start.
Gyprock and plasterboard in Kiama homes
Kiama has a wider spread of building ages than any other town we cover. The townsite was reserved in 1826, the streets surveyed in 1839 and the first allotments sold in 1840. The site was still rainforest when those first blocks changed hands. The lighthouse began working on 1 January 1887 and the town's own railway station opened on 2 June 1893. Around that nineteenth century core sits a large coastal and holiday layer from last century, and then Kiama Downs.
That range means a lining here could be almost anything, and the heritage adds a second reason to look. In a building of that age we may find lath, early fibrous plaster or solid masonry rather than the post war pattern. In a conservation area what sits behind a surface can itself be protected fabric, which is a different problem from a safety one. Either way we open a small section and establish what we have before pricing the room. Framing that has been standing a century has moved, so it gets string lined and packed rather than sheeted over.
Kiama Downs is the other half of this page and it is a different job entirely. It is almost all detached family houses, most of them owner occupied, and a good share of them have four bedrooms or more. So the work up there is extensions, conversions and second living areas rather than repair on old fabric. Access is a driveway and a front door, and full length sheets go straight in. We quote the two halves of this town separately because they are genuinely not the same work.
Get a free quote in Kiama
Tell us what you need done in Kiama and we will get back to you with a price as soon as we can. There is no obligation to go ahead.
Services we provide in Kiama
New home builds
Renovations and extensions
Patio and alfresco ceilings
Suspended ceilings
Bulkhead ceilings
Soundproofing and acoustic walls
Fire rated walls and ceilings
Sagging ceilings
Wall repairs
Cornice
Water damage and wet areas
Commercial
Asbestos in older homes
Suburbs we service in Kiama and surrounds
Our service vehicles cover every suburb within the Kiama Municipal Council area and the surrounding localities. If your suburb is not listed below, contact us to confirm coverage.
Frequently asked questions about Kiama
Do you service all suburbs in the Kiama area?
Yes. Our service vehicles cover every suburb within the Kiama Municipal Council area and the surrounding localities, including the ones listed below. The service area runs from Helensburgh in the north to Nowra in the south, and west up the escarpment to the Southern Highlands. If your suburb is not shown on that list, contact us and we will confirm whether we cover it.
What are your service hours in Kiama?
Our service hours are Monday to Saturday, 7am to 5:30pm. Work in Kiama is booked in during those hours, and the phone is answered then too. Outside those hours you can leave a message or send the form on this page. If a ceiling is sagging and you are not sure it is safe, say so when you get in touch. A photo sent with it usually tells us more than a description.
Do we need council consent to reline a room in an old building here?
No, usually not, and the reason is worth understanding rather than guessing at. In a conservation area it is the street frontage that is protected rather than the rooms behind it. So internal work is often not caught by them at all. On a building listed as a heritage item in its own right the position can be different, because interior fabric may be protected too. So we check with the council before quoting rather than after starting. That is a step and not a barrier, and it takes days rather than weeks.
Nobody is at the house for most of the year. How does that work?
Through the agent or the caretaker, which is how a good deal of our Kiama work runs. Plenty of the homes here are not occupied for the whole year. So we are used to keys, agents and caretakers rather than an owner at the door. What we need is the access arrangement settled before a date is agreed, not on the morning. Send us the agent or caretaker details with the enquiry and we will deal with them directly. Photographs help more than usual when nobody is there to walk us through it.
March is the wettest month here. What does that mean for a start date?
That the drying half of the program runs longer in autumn here than anywhere else we work. March is the wettest month in Kiama, where almost everywhere else on this coast peaks in February. That pushes the slow drying part of the year later here than it does anywhere else we work. A coat that would be ready to sand overnight in October can want another day in March. A coat pushed onto one that has not gone off is a wall somebody has to redo. We build the extra time into the program rather than hoping the weather behaves.
The house is one of the old timber terraces. Can they be worked on normally?
Yes, though the first part of the job is establishing what the walls actually are. Terraces of that age can carry lath, early fibrous plaster or solid masonry behind the surface, and each takes a different approach. We open a small section and look at it rather than pricing the room blind. Anything we cannot identify, or that looks like protected fabric, stops the work there. An hour spent looking at the start is worth more than a day spent putting it right.
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