Altona 3018

Altona's housing stock is unusually mixed for a suburb its size. The original streets behind Pier Street and along Esplanade Avenue are mostly 1950s and early 1960s weatherboards on generous corner blocks, many still in original or lightly renovated form.

Closer to the bay you find a sprinkling of mid-century brick veneers and a small number of large 1990s and 2000s rebuilds with full-height bay-facing glazing. Inland through Altona Meadows the dominant stock shifts to 1980s and 1990s brick veneer family homes on slab.

Altona North picks up older Federation cottages and warehouse-conversion infill near the industrial fringe.

The variety means a measure here usually involves period sash windows in the front rooms, modern aluminium sliders in any rear addition, and large picture windows on the bay side.

Most homes still have original timber architraves to work around, which affects whether shutters, recess-mount blinds, or face-fix tracks are the practical answer in any given room.

Altona has the strongest west and southwest exposure in our service area, which is the single most important factor when choosing window furnishings here.

Through summer the afternoon sun rolls in low across the bay, hits the water, and bounces into living rooms for two to three hours longer than it does in inland suburbs at the same latitude. The reflected component is glare, not just heat.

UV load on bay-facing glass is high enough to fade timber floors, leather lounges and artwork inside two summers if there's no film and no quality blind in front.

Salt-laden onshore wind also matters: it pulls dust and fine grit through any open window, and over years it dulls untreated timber shutter blades on the seaward side. Winter brings the opposite problem.

Southerly fronts come straight off the bay and chill any room with single-glazed bay-facing glass, so honeycomb or quality lined Roman blinds earn their keep in the colder months.

On bay-facing rooms the working combination is a neutral grey solar film on the glass plus a quality blockout roller behind. The film handles the heat and UV load year-round; the roller handles glare and privacy when needed and pulls down completely at night.

We use a 5 percent openness sunscreen as the daytime layer when clients want to keep the view: it cuts glare visibly while still showing the water.

For bedrooms across the suburb, blockout rollers in a coated polyester are the default, particularly on the upper floor of the few two-storey rebuilds.

Living rooms in the older weatherboards usually take linen-look Roman blinds or a single sheer S-fold across a wide opening, which suits the lower ceiling height and the period proportions better than a tall S-fold treatment would.

Plantation shutters work in the front rooms of the older stock but need to be aluminium or high-grade PVC anywhere within two streets of the foreshore: timber blades that close to the salt air will warp inside three or four years.