House Recladding Services VIC 2026 - Get Quotes

When a Reclad Is the Right Call

Most Victorian owners arrive at recladding after years of patching, and very few of them chose it deliberately. A board replaced one winter, a section of render rebuilt the next, a repaint that lasted six years instead of ten, and eventually the repair bills start to look like instalments on a job that was always coming. The honest test is whether the problems are isolated or spread across the house. Two soft boards in a wet corner are a repair, while softness, cracking or drumming scattered over several elevations says the wall as a whole has reached the end of its useful life. The broader cladding services guide for Victoria explains how to read those symptoms, and a written condition report settles the question for a particular house.

The material on the wall now shapes the answer more than its age does. Timber weatherboard can be repaired almost indefinitely, so a timber house rarely needs recladding just because it is old, and the usual trigger is widespread rot after a paint system has been allowed to fail. Cement sheet from before 1990 is a different case, because the combination of cracking, brittleness and the asbestos question tends to push owners toward replacement once any significant work is planned. Rendered foam panel from the townhouse years is the third common trigger, where repeated impact damage and delaminating coatings make a fresh start look more sensible than another patch. Plenty of reclads have nothing to do with failure. A second storey addition or rear extension often leaves the original house looking tired against the new work, and recladding the old section is the only way to make the two read as one building.

Owners of 1950s and 1960s weatherboard houses in suburbs like Preston, Coburg, Box Hill and Frankston frequently reclad to get insulation into walls that were built with none, which in a Melbourne winter is a comfort decision as much as a maintenance one. Sale preparation drives some jobs, particularly on houses where a building inspection report would otherwise flag the walls. Bushfire rebuilding and upgrades drive others through the ranges. Whatever the reason, the same sequence of decisions applies.

What a reclad will not do is fix a house that is moving. Stepped cracking, doors that catch, floors that fall away and gaps appearing at the cornices are all reporting on the footings or the stumps, not on the cladding, and the reactive clay soils through Melbourne's west and north make that movement common. Where the frame has shifted, restumping or reblocking belongs before the reclad, because relevelling a house pushes the frame around enough to crack new sheet and open joints in new boards. An owner who reclads first and restumps second pays for part of the cladding twice. Get the restumping quoted and scheduled before the cladding contract is signed.

Full and partial recladding are both legitimate paths, and the right one depends on how evenly the damage is spread. A single badly exposed elevation can be recladded on its own and matched to the rest, which is a common approach where budget is tight or only one face takes the weather. Scattered local damage is better handled as a repair, and the cladding repairs page covers the methods for each wall type. The decision is worth making on evidence, not on the first quote that arrives, since a reclad quoted for a house that needed a repair is money spent on the wrong problem.

Choosing the New Wall

Fibre cement has become the default material for Victorian reclads, and the market is led by James Hardie with ranges such as Linea weatherboard and the Scyon Axon and Stria profiles. The material stays dimensionally stable through the seasonal swing, it is non combustible, termites have no interest in it, and it holds a paint film well because the board does not move underneath. Weatherboard profiles now imitate period timber closely enough to satisfy many streetscapes, while the sheet and grooved panel options suit contemporary additions. Cutting it releases respirable crystalline silica, which Victoria regulates under its occupational health and safety framework, so installers should be cutting with dust extraction or wet methods instead of dry grinding.

The fibre cement cladding page covers profiles, fixing and those dust controls in more detail. Timber remains the right answer on a lot of Victorian houses, particularly where an overlay or the street itself expects it. Profiles such as bullnose, chamferboard, rusticated and plain bevelback are all still available, and species commonly used include western red cedar, treated radiata pine and Victorian or Tasmanian hardwoods, often supplied pre-primed. Timber costs more to maintain than the alternatives, since the paint system carries the whole job of protecting it, but a properly primed and painted board lasts for generations. Matching and fixing are covered on the timber cladding fitting page. If only part of the house needs attention, replacing individual boards may deliver the same result for far less.

Hardboard weatherboard is an option owners often overlook. Weathertex is pressed timber fibre manufactured in New South Wales, lighter on the arms than fibre cement and free of silica dust when cut, which appeals to installers and owners alike. Like timber, it relies on sealed cut ends and a maintained paint film, and a board left bare at the bottom edge will swell. It suits many period and mid century profiles and is worth asking about where a timber look is wanted at a lower weight. Colorbond steel has moved well beyond sheds and is now common on Victorian reclads, particularly on contemporary additions and on houses through bushfire prone districts.

Profiles from Lysaght and Stramit give options from corrugated to standing seam looks, the factory applied finish skips the repaint cycle, and the material carries no fire load worth discussing. Within reach of the bay and the ocean the coating grade matters, and Colorbond Ultra or a similarly rated product is the usual specification close to the water. Dents are the main weakness, because a mark in a flat steel panel reads from the street and cannot be filled. Aluminium systems sit at the upper end of the market, with timber look ranges such as Knotwood and flat panel systems used on architect designed work around the inner north and the bayside suburbs. They are light, crisp and long lasting, but they cost more and they rely on fixings that suit aluminium, since the wrong screw in a coastal wall will stain within a couple of winters. The aluminium cladding page covers product choice, fixings and flashings.

Vinyl is the budget end of the no repaint options and suits some straightforward houses, with the caveats around cold weather impacts and fire ratings set out on the vinyl cladding installation page. Lightweight panel systems are a smaller part of the reclad market but come up regularly. Autoclaved aerated concrete panels such as CSR Hebel PowerPanel, finished with a render system, give a solid masonry feel on a framed house, and expanded polystyrene panel systems are still used on some additions. The insulated wall panels page explains how the panel options compare and how they behave over time.

Rendered systems of any kind need the manufacturer's full system of mesh, basecoat and finish, since mixing products from different suppliers is the fastest way to void a warranty. Owners who want a render look should ask exactly which system is being quoted and who warrants it. Mixing materials is normal on a reclad and often looks better than a single finish across the whole house. Weatherboard to the street with sheet or steel on a rear addition, or a feature panel beside the entry, gives a building some depth, and brick slip systems can tie a reclad into existing masonry, which the brick cladding systems page covers. Every change of material creates a junction, and each one has to be flashed and detailed on a drawing before anybody cuts anything.

Anyone quoting a mixed elevation should be able to describe what happens at each join, and the flashings should be named in the quote. Bushfire attack level can narrow the list before personal taste gets a say. Properties through the Dandenongs, the Yarra Valley, the Macedon Ranges, the Otways, the Mornington Peninsula hinterland and much of the peri urban fringe sit in designated bushfire prone areas, and new work in them is assessed against AS 3959, which sets construction requirements across a scale from BAL-LOW to BAL-FZ. Guidance on how those ratings are determined is published by the Country Fire Authority.

Timber is not automatically ruled out at the lower ratings, but its use becomes more restricted as the rating rises, while fibre cement and steel meet the higher levels more easily. The standard also controls gaps, sealing at the base of the wall and the detailing around windows and vents, so a BAL-rated reclad is a different specification, not the same wall in a different board. A building surveyor confirms what a given rating permits on a given house. Getting that confirmation before boards are ordered avoids an expensive change of direction.

Wrap, Insulation and Condensation

A reclad is the one point in a house's life when the wall build up can be corrected without touching the rooms inside, and in Victoria the build up matters more than in the warmer states. Months of heating push warm moist air outward through the wall, and when that air meets a cold surface inside the cavity it condenses where nothing can dry it. The Australian Building Codes Board introduced condensation management provisions into the National Construction Code in 2019 and strengthened them in NCC 2022, which Victoria adopted from 1 May 2023. The provisions tie the vapour permeability of the wall membrane to the climate zone, and Victoria sits in zones 6, 7 and 8, the colder end of the national map. The building surveyor decides how those requirements apply to a particular reclad. In practice this means replacing old style building paper or foil sarking with a vapour permeable pliable membrane that meets AS/NZS 4200.1, installed to AS/NZS 4200.2.

Products from Bradford, Tyvek, pro clima and Kingspan are all common on Victorian sites, and the membrane only works if the laps run the right way and the openings are taped and flashed properly. The upgrade typically adds $9 to $22 a square metre on a reclad, which is modest against the cost of stripping the wall again later. It is the single best value item in the whole job. Insulation belongs in the same conversation because the frame will never be this accessible again.

A standard 90 millimetre pine stud cavity takes batts in roughly the R2.0 to R2.7 range, while older rough sawn hardwood studs and slimmer 70 millimetre framing change what fits. Glasswool and polyester batts from Earthwool, Bradford and similar suppliers are the usual choice, cut neatly around services instead of compressed into the cavity. In a heating climate the comfort gain is noticeable, and it reduces the load on the heating system every winter afterwards. The wall and ceiling insulation page covers products, R-values and installation practice. A reclad quote that says nothing about insulation has left out a decision you should be making. Insulating and managing vapour have to be done together, which is the part that surprises people.

Filling a stud cavity with bulk insulation keeps more heat inside the house, which leaves the inner face of the cladding colder in winter and moves the condensation risk outward toward the back of the board. A vapour permeable membrane gives that moisture a route out instead of trapping it against the frame. Insulating a wall without upgrading the membrane is how well intentioned retrofits end up with mould behind brand new batts. Drained and ventilated cavity systems take the principle a step further. The cladding is held off the frame on battens, creating a deliberate air gap with an opening at the bottom and a path out at the top, so water that gets past the board runs down and out while air movement dries what is left.

Battens usually add around 20 millimetres to the wall thickness, which affects window reveals, trims and eave junctions and has to be drawn before anything is ordered. The exterior wall cladding page covers batten systems and where they earn their cost. On exposed southwestern elevations the case is strong, while on sheltered walls the benefit is smaller and some owners specify it selectively. Air leakage is the less discussed half of the same problem.

Old weatherboard houses in Victoria are often extremely draughty, with gaps around windows, at the skirting line and through the floor, and a reclad closes many of those paths whether or not anyone planned it. That improves comfort and reduces heating costs, but it also means more of the moisture generated inside the house stays inside unless bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans vent to outside. Checking that the exhausts are ducted properly is a small item that belongs alongside a reclad, and it costs almost nothing while the wall is open. Regional conditions change the details more than owners expect.

Ballarat, Daylesford, Trentham and the higher parts of the Macedon Ranges run hard frosts through winter and hot February afternoons, so expansion joints and sheet layouts need to allow for a wider seasonal range than a bayside job. The alpine districts sit in climate zone 8 and carry the strictest condensation expectations in the state. Up in the Mallee and along the Murray, where winters are drier, the emphasis shifts toward heat and ultraviolet exposure on the northern and western walls. Installers who work regularly in a district will size joints and choose coatings accordingly, and it is reasonable to ask how.

Asbestos, Lead and the Strip Out

Any Victorian house built or clad before 1990 should be treated as containing asbestos until testing says otherwise, and on a reclad that presumption covers more than the main walls. Flat and patterned cement sheet, eaves linings, gable infills and some older window surrounds are all possible locations. Nobody can confirm asbestos cement by eye, and a sample sent to an accredited laboratory through an asbestos testing and inspection service costs a few hundred dollars and removes the guesswork. The result shapes the whole sequence of the job, so it belongs before any contractor gives you a firm price. The removal rules sit under the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2017, administered by WorkSafe Victoria. Removal of non friable asbestos without a licence is limited to 10 square metres, and the walls of a house exceed that comfortably, so a reclad on a positive wall needs a licensed removalist holding at least a Class B licence.

The removalist notifies WorkSafe before the work begins, sets up the controls and removes the sheet whole instead of breaking it. A clearance inspection by an independent competent person follows before other trades return to the area. The asbestos removal page covers the process and what the clearance paperwork should contain. Disposal has its own rules.

Asbestos waste in Victoria is regulated by the Environment Protection Authority Victoria as a priority waste, which means it has to be wrapped, transported by an appropriately authorised carrier and taken to a site licensed to accept it. A licensed removalist handles that trail as part of the job and should give you evidence of disposal. Regional jobs often pay more for this step than metropolitan ones simply because of the distance to an accepting facility. Asbestos sheet in a general skip is not a saving, and it creates a problem that lands back on the owner. Lead paint is the other hazard that a strip out can release.

Coatings laid down before the 1970s can carry a good deal of lead, and the inner and middle suburbs are full of weatherboard houses wearing eight or nine coats. Removing and cutting old painted boards generates dust and flakes that settle in the soil around the house, which matters most where children play or vegetables grow, and the Department of Health publishes guidance on managing lead in the home. Containment, drop sheets and a proper clean up of the ground afterwards are routine controls that belong in the base price. The lead paint removal page covers testing and safe preparation methods.

The order of work follows from all of this. Testing comes first, licensed removal next where it is needed, then the clearance, and only then do the carpenters start inspecting and repairing the frame. Contractors who suggest overlapping those stages to save time are saving their time at the expense of everyone else on site. On a house with a clean test result the strip out is ordinary demolition and moves quickly.

What Turns Up Behind the Old Wall

Every reclad carries an unknown until the first boards come off, and experienced contractors price for it instead of pretending it is not there. The frame of a Victorian house that has been clad for fifty or eighty years has usually had some water get into it somewhere. How much, and where, only becomes clear once the wall is open. A good quote handles that with a clear contingency rate, since a promise that nothing will be found is not a contingency. Bottom plates and the lower ends of studs are the most common casualties. Water that has run down the back of the cladding for years collects at the base of the wall, and where garden beds, paving or paths have been built up against the house the timber has often been sitting damp for decades.

Replacing a length of bottom plate is routine carpentry, but the length is unknowable in advance, which is why a rate per lineal metre belongs in the contract. Where the subfloor itself has been affected, subfloor repairs and ventilation may need to be scoped alongside. Poor subfloor airflow is a frequent contributor on older weatherboard houses and is cheap to improve while the trades are already on site. Photographs of the damage before it is covered up protect both parties if the contingency comes into question later.

Termite damage is the other discovery that changes a reclad. Timber framed houses across Melbourne's east, the Dandenong foothills, Geelong and many regional centres are in active termite country, and a wall cavity can hide significant damage behind sound looking cladding. A termite inspection before or during the strip out is sensible on any timber frame, and AS 3660.1 sets out the approaches to termite management in new building work. The new cladding also needs to preserve a visible inspection zone at the base of the wall instead of running into soil or paving. Windows are where many older Victorian walls leak, and a reclad is the right time to fix them. Timber windows from before the 1980s were often installed with little or no head flashing, relying on the cladding lapping over the frame to shed water.

With the cladding off, each opening can be flashed and taped into the new membrane properly. It is also the natural moment to consider replacing old single glazed windows with double glazed units, since installing them later means disturbing the new cladding and reveals. If the frames are sound but tired, window repairs can bring them back before the new wall goes on. The top of the wall needs attention too. Fascias, bargeboards and eaves linings on older houses are often rotten or, on pre-1990 houses, possibly asbestos, and they meet the new cladding at a junction that has to be detailed properly.

Timber fascia and bargeboard replacement is commonly added to a reclad scope, and the access is already paid for. Gutters that have been overflowing down the wall are often the original cause of the damage, and replacing them at the same time is usually worth doing, which the gutter replacement page covers. Services running on or through the wall have to be dealt with by the right trades. Electrical wiring, meter boxes, external power points and lights need a licensed electrician to disconnect and reinstate them, and old rubber or cloth insulated wiring found in the wall should be replaced, not reused.

Gas meters, hot water units and heating flues need a licensed gasfitter, while air conditioner condensers need to be moved and recommissioned by a refrigeration technician. Energy Safe Victoria regulates electrical and gas work in the state, and a reclad contractor should be coordinating those trades instead of asking the carpenter to unplug things. Allowing for these costs up front avoids a series of small invoices arriving after the main one. Structural bracing is a quieter issue that deserves a question.

On many framed houses the original sheet cladding or diagonal bracing inside the frame contributes to the wall's resistance to racking, and removing sheet can remove some of that bracing. AS 1684 sets the bracing requirements for timber framed houses, and a reclad may need bracing ply or strap bracing added before the new cladding goes on. Where there is any doubt about the frame's condition, a structural inspection gives a clear answer. It is a small cost against redoing a wall that was never braced properly.

How a Reclad Runs

A well run reclad follows a predictable sequence, and knowing it helps you judge whether a quote has left anything out. It starts with a condition report and any testing, moves to the building surveyor for a view on permits, then to a signed contract with a scope, contingency rates and a program. On site the order is access, strip out, frame inspection and repairs, bracing, membrane and flashings, battens where they are specified, the new cladding, trims and finally paint. Services are disconnected before the strip out and reinstated after the cladding is fixed. Each stage should be visible in the quote, even if some are priced as allowances. Access usually means scaffold on anything above single storey height and often on single storey houses with high gables or sloping sites.

Working at height is regulated by WorkSafe Victoria, and a contractor quoting a two storey reclad off ladders is either leaving the scaffold out or planning something you should question. Scaffold hire commonly runs $900 to $4,500 depending on the elevation and duration, and it is worth coordinating so the fascia, gutters, windows and painting all happen within the same hire. On narrow Melbourne blocks, boundary access may need a conversation with the neighbours before the scaffold goes up. Waste is a bigger item than people expect.

A single storey strip out fills one or more large skips, and where a skip has to sit on the road instead of the driveway, many Victorian councils require a permit for it. The skip bin hire page covers sizes and council requirements. Asbestos waste is handled separately by the licensed removalist and never goes in a general skip. Weather is the constant constraint in a Victorian winter. The golden rule is that no more wall is opened in a day than can be wrapped and made watertight by the evening, because an open frame in a southwesterly change will soak the insulation and the linings behind.

Good contractors work elevation by elevation for exactly this reason, and many owners prefer to schedule reclads between spring and early autumn where the program allows. A job running through winter is perfectly possible, but the program should show how each section is closed off at the end of each day. Most owners stay in the house during a reclad, and it is usually workable. The interior is largely untouched, although there will be noise, dust around openings, periods without power to some circuits and days when windows cannot be opened. Some internal linings may crack slightly as the frame is worked on, particularly on older plaster, and a quote should say whether minor patching of internal cracks is included. Pets and young children need thinking about on strip out days, when there are nails, debris and open ground around the house.

Staged recladding spreads the cost and the disruption. The southwestern face usually takes the worst of the weather and is the logical starting point, followed by the other exposed walls as budget allows. The trade off is paying for access and setup more than once, and the difficulty of making paint applied years apart read as a single colour. Where every elevation will need doing within a few years, one campaign is generally cheaper overall. Cladding over the existing wall instead of stripping it is sometimes proposed as a cost saving.

Over a sound framed wall with a working membrane it can succeed, and it avoids strip out and disposal costs, but over cement sheet it buries a hazard for the next owner and over a wall with no vapour management it can trap moisture in the cavity. It also moves the face of the wall outward, which changes reveals, sills and trims around every opening. The wall panel installation page covers when an overclad works and how the waterproof line is kept continuous. Any overclad proposal should come with a drawn section through the wall showing how the water gets out. Gables, garage walls and upper additions are often recladded as part of the same campaign. A gable end reached by the same scaffold as the upper walls costs little extra, and the gable end cladding page covers the ventilation a closed gable needs.

Where a garage is attached or sits close to a boundary, the wall may need a fire rated system, which the garage wall cladding page explains. Settling those details at scoping stage keeps the whole house on one program. Paint is the finish that decides how the reclad looks for the next decade. Fibre cement, hardboard and timber all need a quality exterior acrylic system, and products such as Dulux Weathershield, Wattyl Solagard and Taubmans All Weather are widely used across Victoria. Pre-primed boards still need their cut ends sealed on site and two finish coats after fixing. Preparation and coating systems sit on the weatherboard painting page, which also covers the period schemes that suit an overlay area.

Permits, Registration, Insurance and Overlays

In Victoria, a domestic building job priced above $10,000 has to run under a major domestic building contract with a registered builder. That registration is held with the Building and Plumbing Commission, which took on the Victorian Building Authority's role in July 2025. A reclad almost always passes that threshold. One search of the public register confirms whether a builder is registered and in what class, and it takes about a minute. Carpenters and other trades may work for you directly below the threshold, but a whole house reclad is a registered builder's job. The contract should name the builder's registration number.

Domestic building insurance applies to work over $16,000, and the builder must arrange it and give you the certificate before taking any money. It protects you if the builder dies, disappears or becomes insolvent before the work is finished or defects are fixed. The Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 also limits deposits, to 5% where the contract price is under $20,000 and 10% where it is $20,000 or more. A builder asking for more than that, or asking for a deposit before providing the insurance certificate, is breaking the rules rather than driving a hard bargain. Whether a reclad needs a building permit is a question for a registered building surveyor, not for the contractor or the owner.

Some like for like replacement is exempt under the Building Act 1993 and the Building Regulations 2018, both published on the Victorian Legislation site, while a change of material, structural work, work in a bushfire prone area or work affecting fire separation will commonly need a permit. Where a permit is needed it must be issued before the work starts, and the surveyor carries out mandatory inspections. The final inspection certificate is a document you will want at resale. Building surveyor fees for a reclad permit are often in the $1,200 to $3,500 range depending on the complexity.

Planning controls are separate from building permits and are the part owners most often miss. Heritage overlays, neighbourhood character overlays and bushfire management overlays are common across Victoria, and councils in the inner suburbs, Ballarat, Bendigo, Castlemaine, Geelong and many country towns apply them widely. A heritage overlay can control the material, profile and sometimes colour of a street facing wall, and a change from timber to another material on a controlled elevation usually needs a planning permit. The free VicPlan property report on the Planning Victoria site lists the overlays affecting an address. The council planning counter can then explain what they mean for your particular house. The Australian Consumer Law gives you guarantees on materials and workmanship, and Consumer Affairs Victoria provides information on your rights as a building consumer.

The Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 also implies warranties into every domestic building contract, including that the work will be done with care and skill and with suitable materials, and building actions can generally be brought within 10 years under the Building Act. Where a dispute arises, the path starts with a written complaint to the builder, then moves to Domestic Building Dispute Resolution Victoria, and only after that to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Photographs of the frame and membrane taken before the new cladding closes the wall are the most useful evidence in any later dispute. Apartment owners should note that multi storey residential buildings follow a separate process.

Victoria established Cladding Safety Victoria to assess and fund rectification of residential apartment buildings with combustible cladding, and work on those buildings is coordinated through the owners corporation, the engineers and the building surveyor. Nothing on a detached house or a standard townhouse falls into that program. Owners of apartments should confirm their building's status with the owners corporation before any contractor prices work. The funding and approval pathway there is nothing like a detached house reclad.

Costs in Detail

A written condition report runs $250 to $620 in Victoria and is the best starting point for any reclad. It identifies the existing wall, the likely extent of damage, whether testing is needed and whether a reclad or a repair is the better answer. Contractors quoting from an agreed scope give prices that can actually be compared. Owners who skip it often end up comparing three quotes for three different jobs.

Strip out and waste on a non asbestos house commonly runs $1,800 to $6,500, driven by the wall area, the number of storeys, the material and how far the waste travels. Timber comes off quickly, while old render and foam panel take longer and fill skips faster. Skip hire and any council permit for a skip on the road sit inside or on top of that figure depending on the contractor. If the old boards are hardwood in reasonable condition, some owners find a reclaimed timber yard will take them, which offsets a little of the cost. The quote should say who removes the waste and where it goes.

Licensed asbestos removal where the existing wall is cement sheet adds $4,500 to $18,000, depending on the area, access, the number of storeys and disposal distance. Testing to find out beforehand costs a few hundred dollars. The clearance inspection is usually included in the removalist's price but is worth confirming. Regional properties generally sit toward the upper part of the range because of travel and disposal. New cladding supplied and installed runs $75 to $155 a square metre in fibre cement, $105 to $205 in timber, $160 to $340 in metal or aluminium systems and $95 to $180 in vinyl, excluding painting. Hardboard typically sits between fibre cement and timber.

Painting adds $35 to $75 a square metre for a quality two coat system on unpainted boards. The vapour permeable wrap upgrade adds $9 to $22 a square metre, wall insulation adds $18 to $45 a square metre and battens for a drained cavity add a similar amount again. Deduct the openings and most single storey Victorian houses come in between 130 and 200 square metres of external wall, which is the number that converts these rates into a total. Framing repairs are the item nobody can price precisely in advance. Bottom plate and stud repairs commonly run $65 to $180 a lineal metre depending on access and how far the damage extends, and bracing work is priced similarly.

Reflashing and taping existing windows into the new membrane typically costs $180 to $650 per opening. Replacing windows is a separate budget, and double glazing priced as part of a reclad often costs less than the same work done later because the reveals are already open. Asking for those rates in writing before work starts keeps the final invoice predictable even when the frame turns out worse than hoped. Access and compliance add costs that are easy to underestimate. Scaffold runs $900 to $4,500, building surveyor fees for a permit commonly sit between $1,200 and $3,500 where one is needed, and licensed trades to disconnect and reinstate electrical, gas and air conditioning add several hundred dollars to a few thousand. Planning permits in overlay areas carry council fees and can add weeks to the start date.

None of these depend on the choice of cladding, which is why a cheaper board does not always mean a cheaper job. Put together, a full reclad on a single storey Victorian house lands between $21,000 and $62,000 in 2026, and a double storey house commonly between $45,000 and $115,000. The lower end reflects a simple rectangular house with sound framing, a clean test and fibre cement or vinyl, while the upper end reflects timber or metal systems, complex shapes, significant framing repairs, a full insulation and cavity upgrade and difficult access. Licensed asbestos removal sits on top of those ranges where it applies.

A contingency of 10 to 15 percent for what the strip out reveals is a sensible allowance on an older house. Any quote that lands well below the range deserves a careful read to see what has been left out. Regional pricing does not always follow metropolitan rates. Contractors travelling from Melbourne to jobs in Gippsland, the Wimmera or the northeast add travel time and accommodation, and local contractors in Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong and Shepparton may price lower but have longer waiting lists. Material delivery to remote sites adds cost, particularly for long lengths of cladding and metal panels. Asking each contractor how they have allowed for travel and delivery makes regional quotes easier to compare.

What to Look Out For

Be cautious of any firm price given without a site visit. A reclad price depends on what the old wall contains, what condition the frame is in and how the upper walls are reached, and none of that can be judged from photographs. A figure produced from a description will be revised once the job starts, usually upward. Competent recladding contractors walk every elevation before committing to a number. Watch for quotes that skip the asbestos question on a house clad before 1990.

A contractor who says the sheet is probably fine, offers to take it off themselves or suggests it can go in a skip is proposing to break the law, and the consequences for health and for the owner's liability are serious. The right answer is a test, then licensed removal if needed, with clearance documentation and evidence of disposal. How a contractor responds to that question tells you a lot about the rest of their work. Check that the quote names the membrane, the flashings, the insulation and the framing contingency.

These are the items that cost little while the wall is open and a great deal later, and a quote that is silent on them has priced a cheaper job than the one you need. Look for the membrane brand and product, how windows will be flashed, the R-value of any insulation and a rate per metre for framing repairs. When two quotes differ significantly, these items usually explain most of the gap. On older houses it is also worth asking whether bracing has been allowed for, since removing sheet cladding can remove part of the wall's racking resistance. A contractor who has thought about that before the strip out is less likely to stop the job halfway through to renegotiate. Be wary of anyone asking for a deposit above the legal limits, or for any money before providing a domestic building insurance certificate on work over $16,000.

Confirm the builder's registration on the Building and Plumbing Commission register, and check that the name on the contract matches the name on the registration. A reluctance to put these basics in writing is the clearest warning sign in the quoting process. Walking away at that point costs nothing. Finally, look at the base of the wall in the finished design.

New cladding should finish above the ground with the clearances required for weather protection and termite inspection, not run down into paving, soil or garden beds. Many older Victorian houses have lost that clearance under decades of landscaping, and a reclad is the ideal time to restore it. Lowering a garden bed or cutting back a path costs very little compared with the frame damage that damp soil against a wall eventually causes. Have the finished ground clearance stated on the quote, in millimetres.

How to Get Comparable Quotes

Start by deciding what you want from the job and saying so clearly. A full reclad in a new material, a like for like replacement, a staged reclad starting with one elevation or a reclad combined with windows and insulation are four different briefs, and each contractor needs to be quoting the same one. Tell them what you already know, such as the build date, any test results, soft areas, leaks and overlays. Contractors price uncertainty higher when they have to guess.

Then ask every contractor the same set of questions in writing. Registration number and class, domestic building insurance, the existing wall type and testing position, strip out and waste disposal, the framing contingency rate, bracing, membrane product, flashing method, insulation R-value, batten or direct fix, cladding product and profile, paint system, access, services disconnection, permits and who applies for them, program and warranty. The answers turn three prices into a genuine comparison. A contractor who will not answer them in writing has given you useful information. When the quotes come back, compare the scopes before the totals.

A quote that is cheaper by roughly the cost of the membrane, the insulation and the framing allowance has quoted a lesser job at a lesser price. Add them back to the lower quote and the two figures generally converge. If they do not, ask the lower priced contractor to put the difference in writing, since it may be a genuine efficiency and it may be something quietly left out. The cheapest reclad over fifteen years is rarely the lowest figure on the day. Keep a complete record once the job is finished. That means the cladding brand and profile, membrane and insulation products, paint system and colour codes, test results, clearance certificates, disposal evidence, the building permit and final inspection certificate, and photographs of the frame and membrane before the wall was closed.

Those photographs show any future tradesperson or buyer's inspector what sits behind the cladding without anything being removed. A documented reclad is a genuine selling point on an older Victorian house. A reclad done properly should see out the next few decades with nothing more than washing and periodic repainting. The decisions that make that true are made before any cladding is ordered, in the testing, the scope, the membrane and the details at the windows and the base of the wall. Spending time on those decisions is the most reliable way to get a wall that is still dry and sound in its twentieth winter. A few extra weeks spent on testing, scoping and comparing quotes properly is a small cost against a wall expected to last that long.