Fulham Sa

Western Adelaide · South Australia

What's Fulham made of?

Mostly 1960s cream brick veneer on 650-850m² blocks, sitting on limestone and calcrete, with high pressure to knock down and rebuild. City of West Torrens.

Who built Fulham
1960s cream brick veneer 35%Infill townhouses and rebuilds 30%1970s brown brick 25%Post-war Trust and Commission homes 10%

The eras, street by street

1960s cream brick veneer

35%
1960s

Triple-fronted cream brick veneer, low hip tiled roof, aluminium or steel windows, concrete slab, carport on the side. The Adelaide suburb standard.

Infill townhouses and rebuilds

30%
2000s-2020s

Two or three homes where one 1960s house stood: Torrens-title courtyard homes, hammerhead battle-axe blocks, occasional two-storey townhouse rows.

1970s brown brick

25%
1970s

Brown brick veneer, mission-brown aluminium windows, ducted evaporative on the roof, a family room off the kitchen and a pergola out the back. Project homes from the big volume builders.

Post-war Trust and Commission homes

10%
1945-1965

SA Housing Trust double-brick and cream-brick semis and singles, concrete or timber floors, small windows, hip roofs in tile or iron. Solid and simple.

Typical block
650-850m²
Typical frontage
18m
Rebuild pressure
High

Under the floor

Soil

Limestone and calcrete

Shallow limestone under a thin sandy or loamy topsoil, common across Adelaide's west and north-west. Stable to build on but expensive to trench; expect rock-breaking for services and pools. Salt damp is common in older stone and brick.

In the walls

  • Asbestos in eaves, bathroom, laundry and fence
  • Galvanised pipes and low water pressure
  • Empty wall cavities (no insulation)
  • Original switchboard with ceramic fuses
  • Stumps due (VIC) or slab-edge dampness (SA)
  • Party walls and shared driveways on community or strata titles
  • Small setbacks mean little garden and less solar access
  • Quality varies enormously between developer-builders
What each of these costs to fix

How the streets are changing

Wide 1960s blocks near the river are going two-for-one; Fulham Gardens is further behind.

The thing locals know

Airport flight path overlays affect building height and acoustic requirements on some streets.

Time machine

What's changed in Fulham since Nan bought

House prices in years of wages, decade by decade, what was standing when, and what her block does now.

Open the timeline

Questions about Fulham

Do houses in Fulham have asbestos?+

Likely in the older stock. About 70% of Fulham was built between the 1920s and 1980s, the peak asbestos period. Eaves, wet-area sheeting, fences and sheds are the usual places. Test before you drill, sand or demolish.

What soil is under Fulham?+

Limestone and calcrete. Shallow limestone under a thin sandy or loamy topsoil, common across Adelaide's west and north-west. Stable to build on but expensive to trench; expect rock-breaking for services and pools. Salt damp is common in older stone and brick.

Can I subdivide a block in Fulham?+

High subdivision pressure: Two or three homes replacing one on many streets. Original houses are becoming the minority and land value drives everything. Typical blocks are 650-850m². Check the zone and minimum site area in the Planning and Design Code for the exact street.

Street-level generalisations from council heritage studies, ABS dwelling-age data, soil classification maps and BuildPilot partner site reports. Every street has exceptions. A soil test, a building inspection and the council's overlay map beat any suburb profile, including this one.

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