After renting for years and finally deciding to buy, the last thing I wanted was to make an expensive mistake on my first property. The house in Fennell Bay had that unmistakable musty smell — the kind that hits you the moment you open the front door — and given how low-lying it sits near the lake, I had genuine concerns about what might be hiding behind the walls. A friend had used Stuart for a building and pest inspection Lake Macquarie recently and couldn’t speak highly enough of him, so I got in touch.
Stuart organised access with the agent directly, which took all the back-and-forth off my plate. On the day, he worked methodically through the entire property using moisture meters and thermal imaging — which I hadn’t realised was included as standard — and he tracked the moisture problem to a section of the subfloor where drainage was pooling after rain, causing significant mould growth along the lower wall framing. It wasn’t obvious from a walk-through, but his equipment picked it up clearly. Because this was an independent building inspection, I knew his findings were completely unbiased — he doesn’t do repairs, so there’s no upselling involved. The same-day report arrived that evening, written in plain English with photos so I could actually understand what I was looking at without needing a construction background.
What I appreciated most was the phone call Stuart made the next morning to walk me through everything personally. As a licensed building inspector with over 30 years of hands-on experience, he explained exactly what remediation would realistically involve. That conversation alone was worth the cost.
