Birchgrove sits at the end of the Balmain peninsula with harbour water close on either side, and shutters on the streets nearest the water age visibly faster than the same units a few blocks back. It is not a slow difference either. We regularly find corrosion on a ten year old waterfront install that we would expect to see at twenty years inland.
We cover Birchgrove in the 2041 postcode, from the Balmain boundary out through the streets around Birchgrove Park and down to the point. Balmain, Balmain East and Rozelle are on the same run, and the waterfront streets are the ones worth having inspected more often than the rest.
The housing is largely Victorian and Federation cottages and terraces with later additions, and a number of substantial waterfront homes. Old masonry plus salt air is the combination behind most of the faults.
You cannot stop salt reaching the hardware, but you can stop it sitting there. Rinsing the guide rails with fresh water every few months makes a real difference to how long a shutter lasts on a Birchgrove waterfront elevation, and it costs nothing. When we service a unit here we also check the drainage at the base of the rails, because a rail that holds water after rain will corrode from the inside no matter how clean the outside looks.
