I did a timber pest inspection on a lovely renovated fibro place in Figtree last winter where the buyers very nearly told me not to bother. The building inspector had already been through, given it a tidy report, and they figured that covered them. It didn't. Ten minutes into the subfloor I found active workings in a bearer, quietly munching away under a bathroom the previous owner had done up beautifully. That inspection cost them a few hundred dollars. It saved them from a repair bill they later told me a builder quoted at close to twenty grand.
People lump "building and pest" together like it's one thing, and it isn't. They're two separate inspections, often done by two different people, against two different Australian Standards. The building inspection looks at the structure, the roof, the wet areas, cracking, that sort of thing. The pest inspection is specifically hunting for termites, borers, and the damp conditions that invite them. One tells you if the house is well built. The other tells you if something's eating it.
Why the pest half gets skipped, and why that's a mistake
It usually comes down to money and hassle. You're already bleeding cash on a deposit, conveyancing and a building report, so when someone offers to save you a couple of hundred by leaving off the pest inspection, it's tempting. Don't.
Termites are quiet, and they're patient. They work inside the timber, behind the plaster, under the floor, in exactly the spots a quick walkthrough never reaches. A vendor showing a house at its best is not going to have the subfloor hatch open and a torch pointed at the bearers. That's the whole point of getting your own inspection rather than leaning on anything the seller hands you. Your inspector works for you, and reports what's actually there.
If you want the honest picture on what these inspections cost around here, we wrote a full breakdown of termite inspection pricing in the Illawarra that lays it out with no fluff.
What a proper pest inspection actually covers
A real timber pest inspection is not a bloke glancing at the skirting boards for ten minutes. Done against the standard, it works through:
- The subfloor, where I can physically get in, because that's where activity hides in older Illawarra homes.
- The roof void, which cops the heat and the moisture and grows more termite conditions than people expect.
- The full interior, using moisture meters and sounding to find what's going on inside the walls.
- The exterior and the yard, including fences, retaining walls, garden beds, and any timber sitting against the soil.
Everything I find gets written up in plain language, in a report you can carry straight to the negotiating table. Finding something isn't always a dealbreaker, but it is leverage, and it stops you buying a surprise.
"It's a new build, so it's fine"
This one comes up constantly, and it's only half right. New homes in termite-prone areas do have to be built with a termite management system under the National Construction Code. That's a good thing. But a management system is designed to reduce risk and make activity easier to spot, not to make a house termite-proof forever. Those systems need to be inspected and maintained, and plenty of them get compromised over the years by a landscaping job, a new path, or a garden bed piled up against the slab edge. New build or not, you still want eyes on it before you sign.
NSW Fair Trading is blunt about it too: their guidance on buying property recommends getting your own building and pest inspections before you commit. It's one of the few genuinely cheap safeguards in the whole exhausting process.
If you're partway through buying somewhere in the Illawarra and weighing up whether the pest inspection is worth it, take it from someone who's crawled under a lot of these houses. It is. Have a look at what a timber pest inspection involves, then call us before you sign anything and we'll get you booked in while you've still got room to negotiate.
Need a hand with this in your home? Get a free quote or call 0430 007 651.