Home Extensions · Five Dock NSW 2046
Home extensions in Five Dock, done properly.
Rear and side house extensions for Five Dock 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 Five Dock 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 Five Dock.
- 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 Five Dock home.
Strava Group builds home extensions in Five Dock: rear extensions, side returns and whole-of-back transformations that open the house to the yard. Five Dock is a suburb of interwar brick bungalows and Federation cottages on modest blocks, with a strong stock of 1950s and 60s brick homes built by the families who settled here after the war. Most of them have a good front half and a cramped back half, which is exactly what a rear extension fixes.
In Five Dock 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 in Five Dock.
Local knowledge
What we know about extending in Five Dock.
Every suburb builds a little differently. This is what matters when you are extending a Five Dock home.
Council
Five Dock sits in the City of Canada Bay Council area under the Canada Bay Local Environmental Plan 2013 and the Canada Bay Development Control Plan. A number of Five Dock 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 the pathway for your property before quoting. Current planning controls are published by City of Canada Bay Council and on the NSW Planning Portal.
Housing stock
Interwar brick bungalows and Federation cottages on the older streets, a large stock of 1950s and 60s full brick and brick veneer homes, and some semis closer to Great North Road. Many carry a lean-to, sunroom or enclosed verandah from decades ago that was never built to last. Those earlier additions usually come off and are replaced with something engineered.
Structure
Older Five Dock homes are double brick on timber floors with hardwood framing and terracotta roofs, and the post-war stock is often full brick on a slab or brick veneer on a frame. Cutting a new opening into a double brick rear wall needs an engineered lintel and careful propping, and the new floor has to land exactly on the existing level. Semis share a party wall and are always custom projects.
Yard and block
Blocks are mostly 400 to 600 square metres, often narrow and deep, so side access is the first thing we check on site. Where there is none, materials and spoil come through the house and the programme changes. A full width rear extension with a usable yard kept beyond it is the usual move, and on the streets toward the bay the extension often steps down the block.
Services and ground
Five Dock sits on shale derived clay over Hawkesbury sandstone, with the rock closer to the surface toward the foreshore. Footing design varies across the suburb, so the engineering is done for your site, and new footings are detailed against the existing ones so the extension does not settle away from a house whose original footings were never engineered. Services along the rear boundary are located before design starts.
Value
Five Dock is a tightly held inner west suburb where the Metro, the Great North Road village and the bay parks keep demand strong. Buyers pay for a character house with a properly built modern rear that opens to the yard, and an extension that delivers that is one of the safest improvements you can make here, and far cheaper than buying the bigger house down the street.
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 Five Dock 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 an older house whose original footings were never engineered to modern standards.
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 Five Dock.
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 Five Dock the modest blocks keep the footprint sensible, but heritage controls on some streets, narrow access and older double brick structure tend to put projects in the middle of the band. 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 Canada Bay and the inner west. Select a suburb for local council information and what extensions there typically cost. Looking for a different service in Five Dock? We also build second storey additions in Five Dock and home renovations in Five Dock.
Home extensions near Five Dock.
Canada Bay and the inner west
Good to know
Five Dock extension questions.
How much does a home extension cost in Five Dock?
Do I need council approval for an extension in Five Dock?
How long does a home extension take to build in Five Dock?
Can I live at home during the extension?
Should I extend out or add a second storey in Five Dock?
Will the extension match my interwar brick house?
How will I know what is happening during my extension?
Are you licensed and insured?
Extend your Five Dock 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.
