Home Extensions · Croydon NSW 2132
Home extensions in Croydon, done properly.
Rear and side house extensions for Croydon homes by a licensed extension builder. Most extensions run $70,000 to $300,000 depending on size and how much of the existing house has to change, itemised quote, honest programme, one builder from concept to handover.
Start here
Tell us about your Croydon home.
No sales pitch, no obligation. Here is exactly what happens when you enquire:
- 1Answer a few quick questions. One at a time, takes about two minutes, so the first conversation is about your project rather than the basics.
- 2We call you within 24 to 48 business hours. A builder, not a salesperson. Then we walk your home and yard with you on site in Croydon.
- 3You receive a written, itemised estimate. Real numbers for your home. If the project does not stack up, we tell you that too.
From our clients
Rated 5.0 on Google.
“We had Strava Group complete major renovation works on our property and were blown away with the quality. The attention to detail and overall finish were amazing.”
“Great communication, honest work, easy to work with, highly recommend to work with for any new build/renovations. If you are looking to get work done without worrying about shortcuts Strava Group is builder to use.”
“I highly recommend Strava Group to everyone great workmanship, reliable service, and I couldn’t be happier with the result.”
Extending out, not up
More room at the back of a Croydon home.
Strava Group builds home extensions in Croydon: rear extensions, side returns and whole-of-back transformations that open the house to the yard. Croydon is one of the quieter achievements of the inner west: Federation homes and interwar bungalows on tree-lined streets, the Malvern Hill estate with its consistent rooflines and gardens, and a suburb small enough that the character has held. The front halves of these houses are worth keeping. The back halves, where the kitchens were squeezed in, are where the extension earns its money.
In Croydon we regularly deliver:
- Rear extensions and additions
- Side extensions on wider blocks
- Open plan kitchen, dining and living
- Alfresco and indoor-outdoor connections
- New master suites and family rooms
- Laundries, mudrooms and storage done properly
- Structural openings between old and new
- Exterior upgrades to tie old and new together
Thinking about going up instead? That is a different build with different engineering, and we do that too: see second storey additions.
Local knowledge
What we know about extending in Croydon.
Every suburb builds a little differently. This is what matters when you are extending a Croydon home.
Council
Croydon is split between two councils along the railway line: most of the suburb sits in the Burwood Council area under the Burwood Local Environmental Plan 2012, with the southern part in the Inner West Council area under the Inner West Local Environmental Plan 2022. The Malvern Hill estate and several surrounding streets sit inside heritage conservation areas where extensions go through a Development Application. Outside those areas many detached homes can use Complying Development through a private certifier. We confirm which council and which pathway applies to your property before quoting. Current planning controls are published by Burwood Council and on the NSW Planning Portal.
Housing stock
Federation homes across much of the suburb, the Malvern Hill estate with its intact early 1900s streetscapes, interwar bungalows, some semis toward the station and a stock of post-war brick. Many of the older houses carry a lean-to or fibro sunroom added decades ago that was never built to last. Those earlier additions usually come off and are replaced with something engineered.
Structure
Older Croydon homes are double brick on timber floors with hardwood framing and terracotta or slate roofs. Cutting a new opening into an old double brick rear wall needs a proper engineered lintel and careful propping, and the new floor has to meet the existing floor level exactly. Semis share a party wall, which changes both the engineering and the neighbour approach, so those are always custom projects.
Yard and block
Blocks are mostly 400 to 650 square metres, with the Malvern Hill streets often on the larger end. Side access is the first thing we check on site, and where there is none materials come through the house and the programme changes. A full width rear extension with a usable yard kept beyond it is the usual move.
Services and ground
Croydon sits on shale derived clay soils that move with moisture, and the footings under a Federation house were never designed to modern standards. New footings are engineered for the site and detailed against the old ones so the extension does not settle away from the house. Old sewer and stormwater lines often run along the rear boundary and are located before design starts.
Value
Croydon is one of the most tightly held pockets of the inner west, with the station, the schools and the intact streetscapes keeping demand strong. Buyers pay for a Federation home with a properly built modern rear, and an extension that keeps the front intact and opens the back to the yard is one of the safest improvements you can make here.
The Strava standard
How we build differently.
An extension lives or dies at the junction between old and new. We build for longevity, and on every Croydon extension we run:
Every new-to-existing junction properly detailed
This is where most extensions crack, leak and part company with the house. It is almost always a detailing shortcut, not settlement. Ours get a proper structural tie, flashing and movement detail.
The existing structure gets rectified, not covered
Where the extension meets the house, we screw off and re-brace the adjoining structure, tying new and old together so the whole building moves as one and future cracking is designed out, not painted over.
Footings matched to the ground, not the minimum
New footings are engineered for your soil and detailed against the existing ones, because differential movement between old and new slabs is the classic extension failure, and it matters more on a century-old house whose original footings were never engineered.
Furring channels for a dead flat finish
Where new ceilings and walls run through to existing rooms, furring channels give one level plane across both, so you cannot see where the house ends and the extension begins.
Waterproofing is a documented hold point
New wet areas are inspected and photographed before a single tile goes on, to AS 3740, and new roof-to-old-roof junctions get the same treatment.
Everything photographed before it is covered
You receive the record at handover, so in ten years you know exactly what is behind your walls and under your floor.
Before starting Strava Group, I spent seven years on the tools as a carpenter and five years running sites. The failures I kept seeing in extensions were always at the join: cracked cornices along the old wall line, roofs that leaked where new met old, floors that stepped as slabs settled differently. None of it was illegal. All of it was avoidable. None of this shows up in a finished-room photo. All of it shows up in year seven.
Honest numbers
What a house extension actually costs in Croydon.
Most builders will not put numbers on a website. We will, because the alternative is wasting your time and ours across three meetings before anyone mentions a figure.
Preliminaries are the costs that exist before a single wall moves: site fencing, temporary services, waste removal, insurances, engineering and supervision. They are real, they are unavoidable, and a quote that does not show them separately has either buried them or forgotten them.
In Croydon the modest blocks and heritage controls tend to keep projects in the lower and middle part of the band, but side access and the work involved in taking off an earlier lean-to can add to it. How much of the existing structure has to change is usually the largest single factor, followed by wet areas and access.
Every project is quoted properly after a site inspection. These ranges are here so you can decide whether it is worth a conversation.
Nearby We build extensions across Inner West and the surrounding suburbs. Select a suburb for local council information and what extensions there typically cost. Looking for a different service in Croydon? We also build second storey additions and home renovations.
Home extensions near Croydon.
Inner West
Good to know
Croydon extension questions.
How much does a home extension cost in Croydon?
Do I need council approval for an extension in Croydon?
How long does a home extension take to build in Croydon?
Can I live at home during the extension?
Should I extend out or add a second storey in Croydon?
Will the extension match my Federation house?
How will I know what is happening during my extension?
Are you licensed and insured?
Extend your Croydon home properly.
Ready for more room?
Tell us about your property and what you want to add. We respond within 24 to 48 business hours with honest advice and real numbers, no cost, no obligation.
