Modbury Sa

North-East Adelaide · South Australia

What's Modbury made of?

Mostly 1960s cream brick veneer on 600-800m² blocks, sitting on reactive clay, with medium pressure to knock down and rebuild. City of Tea Tree Gully.

Who built Modbury
1960s cream brick veneer 35%1970s brown brick 35%Infill townhouses and rebuilds 20%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.

1970s brown brick

35%
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.

Infill townhouses and rebuilds

20%
2000s-2020s

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

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
600-800m²
Typical frontage
18m
Rebuild pressure
Medium

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 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)
  • Asbestos still present in wet areas and eaves to the mid-80s
  • Single-glazed dark aluminium windows
  • Original ducted systems at end of life
What each of these costs to fix

How the streets are changing

Infill is picking up around the interchange and Tea Tree Plaza. The rest is quietly renovating.

The thing locals know

A lot of 1960s homes here were built by the Housing Trust for sale, so floor plans repeat street to street.

Time machine

What's changed in Modbury 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 Modbury

Do houses in Modbury have asbestos?+

Likely in the older stock. About 80% of Modbury 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 Modbury?+

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 Modbury?+

Medium subdivision pressure: A knockdown or a subdivision every few streets. Character is shifting but the original stock still dominates. Typical blocks are 600-800m². 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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