Concreters in Warners Bay, 2282
Warners Bay sits on the north eastern shore of Lake Macquarie, fifteen kilometres from the Newcastle CBD and five west of Charlestown. The Esplanade follows the water, its cafe strip facing the foreshore reserve. John Street, running parallel behind it, holds the supermarket, the post office and the banks, and Feighan Park is where the Bulldogs and the Panthers play. Jonathan Warner’s 1840 township plan needed three attempts before it sold, and council’s history says the place only became a popular residential area once petrol rationing ended and the private car took over. This is a suburb the car built, and much of its concrete was laid for smaller cars.
Low ground inside an arc of ridge
Council describes the centre as lying on low ground ringed by a vegetated ridgeline from Munibung Hill to Bayview Hill, so blocks range from dead flat near the water to properly sloping behind it. North Creek drains most of the suburb and has put water through roads and residential areas, notably in 1949, 1990, 2007 and 2015, and council records the low-lying town centre as sitting on acid sulfate soils. Parts of Warners Bay on the Hillsborough and Mount Hutton side also fall inside the Lake Macquarie Mine Subsidence District, and the NSW Planning Portal Spatial Viewer is the place to see where one lot stands.
What the housing asks for
A little over two thirds of dwellings are detached houses and close to a quarter are villas, townhouses and semis. On the house blocks the typical job is a post-war driveway taken up and poured again with room for two vehicles, so breaking out the old slab is the first day’s work. Villa and townhouse sites bring common accessways, visitor bays and small courtyards remade as a patio. On the flat, a side path is also the route rainwater takes to the street, so its fall matters as much as its surface. Higher up, the pad for a shed or garage slab has to be dug into the hill before any formwork goes down.
Finishes by the lake
Exposed aggregate lifts a street frontage, and its washed stone holds a tyre well on the sloping blocks. Coloured concrete suits a villa courtyard, while common accessways and side paths are economically done in plain broom finish. The crossing is a separate element in any case: Lake Macquarie’s standard makes it 125 mm thick and dowels it to the kerb, so the boundary is a natural place for both a joint and a change of finish.
Warners Bay rates
A lake outlook does not alter the rate card. Per square metre, supplied and laid, a concrete driveway costs $95 to $185 by finish, of which exposed aggregate is the $130 to $185 portion. Paths are $90 to $130, patios and alfresco slabs $100 to $180 and shed and garage slabs $110 to $150, and lifting out existing concrete adds about $35. In Warners Bay the usual mover is width, because a driveway relaid for two cars covers more ground than the strip it replaces. Try the calculator, let the cost guide explain the figure, and check any quote that reaches the kerb against the Section 138 guide and the specification.
Council and the crossing
Warners Bay sits in the Lake Macquarie City Council area. What that council asks of a driveway crossing is set out on the areas page and, step by step, in the Section 138 guide.
Nearby: Charlestown, Cardiff, Belmont