TL;DR — Haven Compliance provides window safety inspections in Surry Hills — a suburb that hides its strata density behind cafes and terraces. Look past Crown Street and you find warehouse conversions along Bourke and Cleveland Streets with big pivot windows no standard checklist anticipates, boutique terrace schemes on Moore Park Road, mid-size blocks on Devonshire Street and new infill along Albion Street. Non-standard configurations are the local norm, so we assess the actual window against the actual standard — 125mm and 250 newtons — and deliver the digital certificate the same day. Call +61 2 8000 0287.
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Haven Compliance — a NSW window safety specialist comfortable in a suburb that refuses standard categories. Surry Hills does not announce its strata challenges from the street: walk Crown or Foveaux Street and you see cafes and terraces, not towers. But the converted warehouses along Bourke Street, the residential blocks behind the Elizabeth Street shopping centre, and the new builds filling Albion Street’s infill sites hold a dense strata population with the same legal obligations as any CBD tower.
We work with the strata managers and owners corporations of that hidden density — and with its defining feature: buildings that do not fit the categories standard inspection checklists were written for. A warehouse conversion with large pivot windows requires different assessment from an aluminium slider; a six-lot terrace scheme requires different logistics from a corner-site development. Our approach adapts because the suburb demands it; our standard never does.
The law never mentions pivot windows or warehouse conversions — the criteria simply apply to whatever window is actually there. On 13 March 2018, section 118 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 came fully into force for NSW residential strata, and its demand is unambiguous: the owners corporation ensures complying safety devices wherever a window opens, the floor within stands two metres or more above the external ground, and the opening’s lowest edge falls beneath 1.7 metres of that floor.
A device complies by restricting the opening to no more than 125mm, or by being a robust screen, and by resisting an outward force of 250 newtons — both checks run to the AS 5203:2016 test method. Designs that let an adult release the device are fine, provided it re-engages; the humble flyscreen, however firmly clipped, is not compliance. Nor is a common-property-only program: the duty follows the windows into every lot.
Setting straight two claims once made about Surry Hills: first, the law fixes no inspection schedule — annual checks are wise custom and nothing more; second, the top fine is $550 for the owners corporation, a number that understates the true stake, which is a child’s preventable fall and its civil and insurance aftermath. Section 180 requires 7 years of records.
Configuration variety at every scale. The warehouse conversions are the headline case: former industrial buildings along Bourke and Cleveland Streets whose big openings became architectural features — pivot windows that rotate rather than slide, oversized sashes, steel frames retained for character — each demanding its own compliance analysis, because a pivot window’s danger zone and restraint geometry differ fundamentally from anything a suburban checklist anticipates.
The terrace conversions on Moore Park Road and the back streets run the boutique heritage profile: four- and six-lot schemes, timber sashes, rear elevations above courtyards, compliance that often never began. The Devonshire Street mid-blocks and the Albion Street infill add the conventional layers — retrofit generations in the former, never-verified construction hardware in the latter. For strata managers, this variety is precisely why window compliance ranks among the trickier annual obligations here: the buildings do not standardise.
For us, it is the job description — assess the actual window, against the actual standard, every time.
Unrestrained pivot windows — the conversion signature: big rotating sashes with no device, or devices designed for sliders doing nothing useful on a pivot. Character-steel fixing failures where retained industrial frames have corroded at anchor points. Never-fitted terrace schemes, particularly rear elevations. Conversion-era improvisations — hardware fitted during residential conversion that was never rated for 250 newtons.
Turnover losses across a young, mobile rental population. And mesh screens assumed to be safety hardware, in warehouses as everywhere. Unusual windows do not mean unusual outcomes — every one of these resolves to a tested, compliant, documented state; the path there just requires knowing the window type.
From first principles, which is the only method that generalises. First, does the window qualify — openable, floor two metres or more above external ground, opening starting below 1.7 metres? The criteria apply to a pivot exactly as to a slider. Second, what opening does the window actually create through its range of motion — a rotating sash generates gaps at both edges, and the 125mm limit applies to whatever gap a child could encounter.
Third, what restraint suits this geometry — pivot-compatible limiters, robust screens where limiting defeats the window’s function, or in some conversions a combination across a single elevation. Then the universal step: force-test the chosen solution in place to 250 newtons, photograph it, and register it. The documentation matters doubly for unusual windows, because the next inspector — or the committee, or an insurer — should inherit the reasoning, not just the result.
This is what ” understanding the variations rather than applying a one-size approach” means in practice: not exotic methods, but the standard method applied to the window that actually exists.
Non-standard windows change the assessment, not the pricing model — still per unit, still fixed before booking. Per-unit, fixed-up-front pricing: driven by how many units, how the access works and how many windows — never by elapsed time. Approval and invoice always match. The rate card is short and published: $250 + GST for a single property, $490 + GST for buildings of 2 to 10 units, and a fixed quote on request for 11 units or more — with the digital compliance certificate included and delivered the same day.
Failed devices are priced per window using REMSAFE hardware, so the committee approves an itemised list rather than an estimate, and replacements happen on the spot wherever authorisation is in place. The total responds to structure more than negotiation: combine inspection with remediation in one project, and share a scheduling run with neighbouring schemes. Both strip out the coordination overhead that pads compliance costs.
The fixed fee is genuinely inclusive: the inspection itself, the photographic report, the unit-by-unit register and the same-day digital certificate are one price — no separate line items for report preparation, certificate issue or hardware call-out. For Surry Hills committees comparing quotes, the honest comparison is the total cost to certified compliance — window safety report, register and certificate included — not the headline inspection fee: a cheaper inspection that excludes documentation, or needs a second visit before hardware can be fitted, usually costs more by the time the building is actually done.
Strata managers whose inner-city portfolios thread Surry Hills together with Darlinghurst, Redfern and the CBD fringe — grouped scheduling, per-building registers, one report format across the patch. Owners corporations and committees from warehouse schemes to terrace conversions, including the many small self-managed committees this suburb produces. Landlords and property managers across a deep, young rental market, using unit inspections and end-of-lease window safety audits.
Developers and building managers of the newer infill, converting construction assumptions into tested registers. Darlinghurst, Redfern and the Sydney CBD have their own location pages; portfolio scheduling crosses the whole inner city. One Surry Hills layer deserves its own mention: the mixed commercial-residential schemes that define the Crown Street corridor — retail or studio space below, strata apartments above. The commercial podium raises the effective height of every residential floor over it, so upstairs windows qualify readily, and the buildings’ compliance often falls between two stools: the commercial tenancy’s obligations end at its ceiling, and the residential lots above assume somebody else checked.
They rarely did. If your scheme sits above a shopfront anywhere from Crown to Cleveland Street, treat the windows upstairs as unverified until tested — the assessment takes minutes and the finding is frequently news.
Because a checklist meets its limits at the first pivot window. Standard inspection templates encode standard windows — and Surry Hills’ most consequential windows are precisely the non-standard ones, where a generalist either skips the analysis or forces the wrong category onto it. Our technicians do window safety exclusively, assess configuration before compliance, and document the reasoning photographically so the register holds up to any reading.
A single provider across the whole chain — assessment, REMSAFE installation matched to the actual window, re-verification, records — fixed pricing, same-day certificates. And the standing honesty notes: NSW neither certifies window safety inspectors officially nor legislates an annual check. The statute wants a building that is compliant today, tomorrow and next year, however unconventional its windows.
By carrying the reasoning forward. The first inspection does the hard configuration work — every unusual window analysed, its solution chosen and documented; every annual reinspection after that verifies rather than re-derives: devices retested under load, steel and timber fixings checked, turnover-heavy lots watched for interference, the register rolled forward with its reasoning intact. Automated reminders track each building’s anniversary.
That inherited reasoning is worth real money in this suburb: a warehouse scheme whose register explains its own pivot-window solutions never pays for the analysis twice, never re-litigates it with a new committee, and never watches a new provider start from zero. Annual is best practice rather than statute, as everywhere — here it is also how a complicated building stays permanently simple.
The same criteria apply — the analysis adapts. A pivot’s rotation creates gaps at both edges, so the 125mm limit is assessed across its range of motion, and restraint hardware must suit the geometry. Pivot-compatible limiters and robust screens both comply when force-tested in place.
Only where corrosion has reached the anchor points. Sound industrial steel takes compliant hardware well; corroded sections need alternative anchoring or repair first. Frame assessment precedes device selection — that order is the whole craft.
Yes — strata subdivision brings the full duty regardless of size, and terrace rear elevations above courtyards qualify readily. A four-lot scheme is assessed, fixed and certificated in a single morning.
No — pricing stays per unit, fixed before booking. Non-standard configurations change the assessment time slightly, not the pricing model, and the documented reasoning means you never pay for the analysis twice.
No — Parliament set the standard, not a schedule. Annual re-checks are prudent practice; for converted buildings it also preserves the configuration reasoning that makes every future cycle cheap.
Not sure which service tier fits your building? Our compliance specialists can help you understand your requirements and choose the right option.
