House washing on St Huberts Island, the canal estate

What should an early-1970s St Huberts Island home watch for on wash day?

Nearly all the housing dates from the residential development of the early 1970s or later: the 2021 Census put separate houses at 96.9% of occupied dwellings, with 55.8% offering four bedrooms or more. Homes from the first wave were built before the late 1980s, the end of the era in which SafeWork NSW records asbestos cement sheeting as widely used, and it bars high-pressure water on asbestos outright, so original sheeting is given a gentle house wash instead. In a canal estate, wash water also has to stay out of the stormwater system, which the NSW EPA notes drains untreated to creeks, lakes and the sea.

Key figures

1970s

Hooker-Rex builds the residential estate

96.9%

of occupied dwellings were separate houses

55.8%

had four or more bedrooms, 2021

Sources

• Wikipedia, St Huberts Island, New South Wales
• ABS 2021 Census QuickStats, St Huberts Island
• SafeWork NSW, Asbestos
• NSW EPA, The drain is just for rain
• NSW Spatial Services, Administrative Boundaries (postcode, council, distance, neighbours)