First-floor additions
Going up instead of out on a Penrith block — new upper level with bedrooms, bathroom and living, engineered onto your existing slab and footings.
Loel Homes is a licensed NSW builder working across Penrith, St Marys, Glenmore Park, Emu Plains, St Clair, Cranebrook and Jordan Springs. First-floor additions, rear extensions, granny flats, duplexes and full home renovations — quoted honestly, built properly, run by a family that answers its own phone.
Penrith housing stock is mostly detached brick veneer on generous blocks — which is exactly the sort of house that rewards a well-planned addition rather than a knock-down. These are the jobs we're asked for most in the Nepean.
Going up instead of out on a Penrith block — new upper level with bedrooms, bathroom and living, engineered onto your existing slab and footings.
Opening the back of the house up to the yard — new family room, dining and alfresco, with the low-pitch roof detail that keeps sightlines clean.
Self-contained secondary dwellings for family or rental income. Penrith blocks are generous, which makes them some of the best granny-flat sites in Sydney.
Side-by-side or attached dual occupancy on wider Penrith lots — from feasibility and design coordination through to handover.
Refreshing 1970s–1990s brick-veneer homes: new kitchens, bathrooms, laundries, flooring, wiring and full internal reconfigurations.
Covered outdoor living built for Penrith summers — insulated roofing, ceiling fans, lighting and hardwood or composite decking.
A rule change in 2026 made Penrith one of the better places in Sydney to build a secondary dwelling. If you've looked into a granny flat before and been told no, it's worth looking again.
The NSW Government lifted the ban on secondary dwellings in areas around Western Sydney International forecast to be least affected by aircraft noise. The amendment to the Western Parkland City planning policy now permits secondary dwellings of up to 85m² across parts of Penrith, Wollondilly, Fairfield, Camden and Liverpool — well above the 60m² statewide cap.
The catch: it only applies inside the lower noise-impact zones, new dwellings need noise-attenuation measures such as double glazing, and the suburbs closest to the airport are excluded. So the first job is confirming where your specific block sits before anyone draws anything.
Outside those zones, the standard rules still apply: 60m² maximum internal floor area, a lot of at least 450m² and 12m wide at the building line for the fast CDC pathway, 8.5m maximum height, 3m rear setback and 0.9m side setbacks under 4.5m wall height. One principal dwelling and one secondary dwelling per lot, and the block can't be subdivided off the back of it.
Not sure which side of the line you're on? Send us your address and we'll tell you straight, at no cost.
Most people lose months here, not on site. There are two approval paths for residential work in the Penrith LGA, and picking the right one at the start is usually the single biggest thing you can do for your program.
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| Complying Development (CDC) | Development Application (DA) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who assesses it | A private accredited certifier, or Penrith City Council | Penrith City Council only |
| Typical timeframe | Around 20 days once lodged | Commonly 40–90 days, longer with objections or referrals |
| When it works | The design meets every single state development standard — no exceptions, no negotiation | Anything that varies a standard, or sits on a constrained site |
| Common Penrith blockers | Flood-affected land along the Nepean and Castlereagh, bushfire-prone land, heritage items, and airport noise overlays all push you off the CDC path | Merit-based, so a well-argued proposal can still succeed where CDC can't |
| What you'll need either way | Survey plan, architectural drawings, BASIX certificate, stormwater and structural details, plus any specialist reports the site triggers (flood, bushfire, arborist, geotechnical) | |
Penrith Council also runs pre-lodgement advice through its Development Panel for significant proposals — useful if your project is more than a standard house or addition. We'll flag it if we think you need it.
The blocks are the opportunity. Much of Penrith, Glenmore Park, Cranebrook and St Clair was subdivided when 550–700m² lots were normal. That's why a rear extension plus a granny flat is often achievable here when the same brief would be impossible on a 300m² inner-west block.
Brick veneer from the '70s to the '90s behaves predictably — mostly. Timber-framed walls with brick skin, tiled roofs, waffle or strip footings. The recurring surprises are undersized footings where an upper level is going on, asbestos in eaves and wet-area sheeting on anything pre-1990, and stormwater that was never really designed. We look for these at quoting stage rather than finding them as variations later.
Flooding is a real planning constraint, not a formality. Parts of the Nepean and Castlereagh floodplain carry controls that affect floor levels, materials and whether you get a CDC at all. It's the first thing we check on a Penrith address.
Heat matters here. Penrith regularly runs several degrees hotter than the coast. Orientation, eave depth, glazing selection, insulation and where you put the alfresco make a genuine difference to how the finished house lives — and they cost almost nothing to get right at design stage.
We work alongside local architects and designers. If you already have someone drawing your project, we're happy to be brought in early for buildability and budget input. If you don't, we can point you to designers in the Nepean who do good work.
We build right across the Penrith local government area and the surrounding Nepean and lower Blue Mountains foothills. If your suburb isn't listed, ask anyway — we're probably nearby.
We also work throughout Parramatta & Western Sydney, The Hills District and the Inner West.
The questions we get asked most by Nepean homeowners, answered straight.
Yes — Penrith and the Nepean are part of our regular service area, alongside Parramatta, the Hills and the Inner West. We quote and build across Penrith, St Marys, Glenmore Park, Emu Plains, St Clair, Cranebrook and Jordan Springs, and we're happy to do a free on-site visit anywhere in the Penrith LGA.
It depends on the job and the site. Straightforward alterations and additions, granny flats and single dwellings that meet every state standard can often go through a Complying Development Certificate (CDC), which a private certifier can issue in about 20 days. Anything that breaches a standard — or sits on flood, bushfire or heritage-affected land, which parts of the Nepean and Castlereagh floodplain are — needs a full Development Application through Penrith City Council. We'll tell you honestly which path your site is on before you spend money on drawings.
The statewide cap for a secondary dwelling is 60m² of internal floor area on a lot of at least 450m². Penrith is one of five LGAs where that changed in 2026: after the six-year Western Sydney Airport restriction was reversed, secondary dwellings of up to 85m² are permitted in the lower aircraft-noise areas, provided noise-attenuation measures such as double glazing are included. The suburbs closest to the airport are excluded, so the first step is always checking where your specific block sits.
There is no honest single number — it depends on size, the condition of the existing house, whether you're going up or out, and how far services have to move. What we can do is a free site visit and a written, itemised fixed-price quote, so you can see exactly what you're paying for rather than a lump sum with no detail.
Regularly. We work alongside local architects, building designers and draftspeople across the Nepean, and we're happy to be brought in early for constructability and budget input before the drawings are finalised — that's usually where the biggest savings are found.
Yes. Loel Homes holds NSW Builder's Licence #479341C, carries full public liability and the required Home Building Compensation cover on applicable contracts, and works under written contracts with defined stages, variations and defect obligations.
Most first-floor additions run in the range of four to seven months on site, depending on scope and weather, on top of the design and approval period beforehand. You'll get a stage-by-stage program with your quote so you know what's happening and when.
Tell us a little about your project and we'll get back to you with honest advice and a clear, no-obligation quote — usually within one business day.
We've received your details and will get back to you with honest advice and a clear quote, usually within one business day. If it's urgent, call us on 1300 377 188.