Home Extensions · Hunters Hill NSW 2110
Home extensions in Hunters Hill, done properly.
Rear and side house extensions for Hunters Hill 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 Hunters Hill 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 Hunters Hill.
- 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
Extending a Hunters Hill home without getting it wrong.
Strava Group builds home extensions in Hunters Hill: rear additions, side extensions and whole-of-back transformations that open the house to the garden and the water. Hunters Hill is the oldest municipality in Australia and most of it is a heritage conservation area, with sandstone houses, Federation homes and interwar residences on large blocks running down to the Lane Cove and Parramatta rivers. An extension here is judged by the street, by council and by the house itself, so it has to be designed and built with more care than almost anywhere else we work. Many Hunters Hill projects are substantial custom builds that sit above our published range, and we tell you that early.
In Hunters Hill 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 Hunters Hill.
Local knowledge
What we know about extending in Hunters Hill.
Every suburb builds a little differently. This is what matters when you are extending a Hunters Hill home.
Council
Hunters Hill is its own local government area under the Hunters Hill Local Environmental Plan 2012 and the Hunters Hill Consolidated Development Control Plan, and most of the suburb sits inside the Hunters Hill Heritage Conservation Area with many individually listed items. That removes the Complying Development pathway for almost every extension, so projects go through a Development Application with a heritage assessment, and foreshore controls apply near the water. Rear extensions that sit behind the original house and keep the street presentation are the ones that get approved. We confirm the pathway for your property before quoting. Current planning controls are published by Hunters Hill Council and on the NSW Planning Portal.
Housing stock
Victorian sandstone houses and villas, Federation homes, interwar residences and a smaller stock of mid-century houses, most of them on generous blocks. Many have been extended before, sometimes well and sometimes badly, and the earlier work often has to come off. Sandstone and heritage listed houses are always custom projects, and their scope usually sits above the range published on this page.
Structure
The older Hunters Hill houses are solid sandstone or double brick on timber floors with hardwood framing and slate roofs. Cutting a new opening into a sandstone or double brick rear wall is a serious piece of engineering: propping, lintels and the tie between old masonry and a new frame all have to be detailed properly, and matching the new floor to an old suspended floor is a detail that has to be right. Weatherboard and brick veneer homes from later decades extend more simply.
Yard and block
Blocks in Hunters Hill are typically 700 to 1,200 square metres and often larger toward the water, with sandstone outcrops, mature trees and slopes toward the rivers. The trees and the rock usually decide where the extension can go, and on the foreshore blocks the extension often steps down the site. Side access on the older streets can be narrow between stone walls.
Services and ground
Hunters Hill sits on Hawkesbury sandstone, frequently at or near the surface. New footings generally found on rock, which is predictable once exposed but can mean excavation, and they have to be detailed against original footings that were laid by hand a century or more ago. Old services, stone drains and absorption trenches on the larger blocks are located before we design.
Value
Hunters Hill is one of the most valuable detached housing markets in Sydney, and the conservation area protects that value. Buyers pay for original houses that have been extended properly and sensitively at the rear, and the worst thing you can do here is a cheap addition that fights the original. A considered extension that keeps the house intact and adds the living space the family needs is the safest improvement in the suburb.
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 Hunters Hill 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 on Hunters Hill sandstone the challenge is usually matching new rock-founded footings to original ones that were laid by hand.
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 Hunters Hill.
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 Hunters Hill the heritage process, sandstone structure and foreshore sites push most projects to the upper end of the band, and many sit above it as custom builds. How much of the existing structure has to change is the largest single factor by a distance, followed by the heritage design work, rock excavation and access between stone walls. We give you a realistic figure early rather than a low one that grows.
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 Hunters Hill, the Ryde district and the lower North Shore. Select a suburb for local council information and what extensions there typically cost. Looking for a different service in Hunters Hill? We also build second storey additions in Hunters Hill and home renovations in Hunters Hill.
Home extensions near Hunters Hill.
Hunters Hill and surrounds
Good to know
Hunters Hill extension questions.
How much does a home extension cost in Hunters Hill?
Do I need council approval for an extension in Hunters Hill?
How long does a home extension take to build in Hunters Hill?
Can I live at home during the extension?
Should I extend out or add a second storey in Hunters Hill?
Will the extension have to match my sandstone house?
How will I know what is happening during my extension?
Are you licensed and insured?
Extend your Hunters Hill 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.
