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Home improvement guides
Practical, reviewed advice for planning repairs and projects, choosing the right pro and knowing what to ask before you hire.
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491 guides
- Guide
Hot Tub Maintenance guide
A domestic spa is a small volume of warm water carrying a heavy bather load, and that combination is what makes its upkeep different from a pool's.
8 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Saunas guide
A home sauna arrives looking like furniture and behaves like an appliance. Whatever the timber, the thing that makes it a sauna is a high-powered heat source in a small enclosed box that people sit in undressed, and…
10 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Outdoor Structures guide
Outdoor structures are the things Australians build to make a backyard usable in this climate: pergolas, shade sails and their posts, cabanas and pool houses, gazebos, outdoor kitchens, screened enclosures and platform…
8 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Basement Waterproofing guide
Start with an honest point: most Australian houses do not have a basement. Outside a handful of older inner-city and hillside pockets, homes here sit on a slab on ground or on a suspended timber floor over a ventilated…
10 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Foundation Waterproofing guide
Foundation waterproofing in Australia means keeping ground moisture and surface water out of the structure at and below ground level, which is a different job from the tanked basement most overseas guides describe.
11 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Foundation Repair guide
Foundation repair in Australia is mostly a soil problem wearing a concrete disguise. The National Construction Code requires a house to withstand the actions it will reasonably be subjected to, and the list of actions…
12 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Foundation Cracks guide
Cracks are the most common reason Australians call a foundation contractor, and most of them are not an emergency.
10 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Structural Repair guide
Structural repair is work on the parts of a house that carry load rather than the parts you look at: the members that hold the floor up, the beams over openings, the posts under a verandah, the framing that keeps a wall…
10 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Underpinning guide
Underpinning adds new permanent support beneath a footing that already exists, taking the load down to ground that can carry it.
10 min read22 September 2026 - Guide
Drainage Systems guide
Drainage is the cheapest insurance an Australian house has, and the most commonly neglected. The ABCB Housing Provisions devote a whole part of the site preparation section to it: surface water around a slab must be…
10 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Weeping Tile guide
Weeping tile is a Canadian name. In Australia the same thing is a subsoil drain, an agricultural drain or, on most building sites, simply aggie pipe: a slotted or perforated pipe laid in a gravel-filled trench, usually…
12 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Mould Removal guide
Mould is a symptom. That sentence is the whole guide, and almost every wasted dollar in this category comes from ignoring it.
10 min read22 September 2026
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