Housing Commission-era roofs — built fast, built cheap, still worth saving
The concrete tiles used across the Commission estates and the speculative postwar building of Glenroy, Fawkner and Broadmeadows were an economical product chosen for volume and speed. They were thinner and more absorbent than premium tiles of the same period, and the ridge bedding was rigid cement laid quickly. Sixty-odd years on, the pattern is remarkably uniform street to street: a badly faded and porous tile surface, ridge mortar that is cracked along most of its length with caps beginning to rock, and valleys that have rusted where the original galvanised iron has finally given out. It looks dire from the ground and it very often isn't. Because these roofs are simple in profile — straightforward hips and gables without complex geometry — they are quick and economical to restore properly. Pascoe Vale South is the exception worth noting: closer to Coburg it carries older interwar bungalows with genuine terracotta, which need the gentler terracotta approach rather than the heavy-duty concrete tile treatment used further north.
