Behind a bathroom wall at 1 Thomas St, we found waterproofing that didn't meet Australian Standard AS 3740. Here's why we stopped the job to fix it properly — instead of tiling over it.
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Every renovation has a moment where things could go one of two ways.
At 1 Thomas St, Geelong West, that moment came during the bathroom strip-out. Underneath the old tiling, our team found something that shouldn't have been there: waterproofing that didn't meet Australian Standard AS 3740, sitting behind regular plasterboard instead of the moisture-rated sheeting the space actually needed.
It's the kind of thing a lot of renovations paper over. Tile on top, move on, hope nobody checks. We didn't do that.
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Waterproofing issue was found during the bathroom strip out.
Non-compliant waterproofing isn't a cosmetic issue. It's a structural and legal one.
Get it wrong, and water finds its way into wall cavities and subfloors over time. What starts as a hairline gap becomes rot, mould, and a repair bill that dwarfs the cost of doing it properly the first time. It also puts the property at risk during any future compliance check, valuation, or resale — exactly the kind of surprise a money partner or buyer should never have to deal with.
Regular plasterboard in a wet area is the same story. It's not built to handle moisture, and once it starts absorbing it, it starts failing — invisibly, until it isn't.
What we did
Once our trades identified the issue, we made the call to stop and fix it properly rather than work around it.
That meant removing the non-compliant waterproofing membrane and the standard plasterboard in the bathroom, replacing the plasterboard with Aquachek sheeting, rated for wet-area use and installing new waterproofing to full AS 3740 compliance before any tiling proceeded.
It added additional days to the schedule and additional costs to the budget. It also meant the bathroom at 1 Thomas St won't be a problem waiting to happen for whoever lives there next.
Why it matters
This is the difference between a renovation that looks finished and one that actually is.
We catch things like this because compliance checks are built into how we run every project - not because a problem forced our hand. It's slower in the short term. It's the only way we'd want our own money in a property.
For our money partners, it's also the point of the whole model: transparency when something isn't right, not just when the numbers are good.
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The same bathroom, rebuilt with Aquachek sheeting and AS 3740-compliant waterproofing.
1 Thomas St is a small renovation with a simple lesson: what you don't see matters as much as what you do.
That's true whether you're the one living in the home, buying it later, or backing the project as a money partner.
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A strategic high-end renovation designed to maximize value through a versatile flip-or-hold strategy.
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Become a Money PartnerCharles Corby is the founder of Charlie Property. He built his career helping everyday investors grow wealth through smart property strategies, and now shares that experience through Charlie Property's education and investor communities.
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We’ve always been the ones who see things as they could be, not as they are, the ones who step outside the crowd and back what others overlook.
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