Marion Sa

Southern Adelaide · South Australia

What's Marion made of?

Mostly post-war trust and commission homes on 650-850m² blocks, sitting on reactive clay, with high pressure to knock down and rebuild. City of Marion.

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

The eras, street by street

Post-war Trust and Commission homes

30%
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.

1960s cream brick veneer

30%
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

10%
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.

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

Under the floor

Soil

Reactive clay

Moderately to highly reactive clay (Class M to H). Seasonal movement causes hairline cracking in brickwork and render. Modern slabs are engineered for it; older strip footings were not. Consistent moisture around the house is the whole game.

In the walls

  • Asbestos eaves, wet-area lining and fences
  • Galvanised water pipes
  • No insulation in walls
  • Two-wire lighting circuits
  • Concrete-panel Commission homes need specialist assessment before major changes
  • Asbestos in eaves, bathroom, laundry and fence
  • Galvanised pipes and low water pressure
  • Empty wall cavities (no insulation)
What each of these costs to fix

How the streets are changing

Anything flat and over 700m² near Westfield or the train line is a candidate for two or three dwellings.

The thing locals know

The old Marion village along the Sturt River has stone cottages and a flood history the rest of the suburb does not share.

Time machine

What's changed in Marion 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 Marion

Do houses in Marion have asbestos?+

Likely in the older stock. About 70% of Marion 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 Marion?+

Reactive clay. Moderately to highly reactive clay (Class M to H). Seasonal movement causes hairline cracking in brickwork and render. Modern slabs are engineered for it; older strip footings were not. Consistent moisture around the house is the whole game.

Can I subdivide a block in Marion?+

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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