House painting in Northcote
Northcote has two quite different housing stories. On the Point, weatherboard villas from the late 1800s to 1940 sit on a headland above the harbour. Inland, central Northcote filled with state houses and 1960s homes after the Harbour Bridge opened. Both are timber, and both need prep suited to their age. See weatherboard and villa painting for the detail.
Northcote Point villas
Northcote Point is a special character area in the Auckland Unitary Plan. Council’s character statement says most of its houses were built between 1880 and 1940, typically built with timber framing and weatherboard cladding, with timber joinery and corrugated iron roofs. It also notes some state houses built in an English Cottage style among the villas.
For a repaint, that means old timber with many layers of paint, decorative detail around verandahs and gables, and sash windows. Villas take longer to prepare than plain modern walls, and on houses this age the old layers are presumed to contain lead.
State houses and 1960s homes in central Northcote
The North Shore Heritage review records small groups of state houses built between Onewa Road and Belle Vue Avenue around the 1950s, a 1960s Parade of Houses on Tonar Street of low-cost single-level homes, and state housing developed between Lake Road and College Road. Many of these are simple timber houses.
Simple forms make for quicker painting than villas, but these houses are now 60 to 70 years old. Many will have had several repaints, and they fall well inside the 1980s-or-earlier group that WorkSafe says to treat as having lead-based paint.
A headland above the harbour
The character statement describes Northcote Point as a promontory that falls steeply to the coast on its east and west sides, with views to the city and the Gulf. On a promontory like this, the houses on the steep coastal edges are the ones nearest salt water, so their seaward walls and sills get looked at first. The sea-spray zone in the building standard is settled site by site; our paint-life guide explains it.
Houses on the cliff edge take wind and salt off the harbour, so their exposed walls and sills tend to need care sooner. Exterior house painting covers washing and the finish coats.
Sources
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Tell us about the house and the job. We reply with questions, or a day to walk around it with you.