TL;DR — Haven Compliance provides window safety inspections in Crows Nest — where Federation-era semis share the streetscape with the six-storey apartment blocks of the 1970s and 80s strata boom, along Willoughby Road, Hume Street and the blocks between the Pacific Highway and Clarke Street. The recurring local problem is documentary: compliance dates arrive and the building has no proof its devices were ever checked. We fix both halves — every qualifying window physically tested to 125mm and 250 newtons, and the digital certificate plus photographic register delivered the same day, filed before the deadline instead of after it. Call +61 2 8000 0287.
Haven Compliance — a NSW window safety specialist for whom this work is the entire business, not a sideline added to a longer trade checklist. Crows Nest sits squarely in our lower North Shore coverage: a suburb where Federation semis share streets with the six-storey apartment buildings thrown up during the 1970s and 80s strata boom, and where a steady turnover of residential lots keeps the compliance obligation permanently live.
We work with the strata managers and owners corporations responsible for the blocks along Willoughby Road, Hume Street and the streets between the Pacific Highway and Clarke Street — and we solve the problem those managers describe most often: the compliance date arrives, and the building has no documented proof that its window safety devices were checked in the past twelve months. Testing is half our job; the same-day paper trail is the other half.
The strata-boom blocks that define this suburb have carried the duty since 2018 — the question is whether their files can show it. The rule lives in section 118 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 and has applied statewide since 13 March 2018: owners corporations must see complying safety devices fitted to every qualifying window — one that opens, above an internal floor sitting two metres or more over the outside ground, with its opening starting below 1.7 metres from that floor.
The compliance test has two numbers: 125mm and 250 newtons. The device must cap the opening at 125mm or less — or be a robust screen — and must hold against 250 newtons of outward force, verified under the AS 5203:2016 method. Adult release for cleaning or ventilation is permitted where the device re-engages; a common flyscreen is not a device and never was. The section covers windows inside lots just as it covers the stairwell landings.
For the record, against two errors that have circulated about Crows Nest: no legislation requires yearly inspection — the annual habit is prudence, not compulsion — and the statutory penalty for a non-compliant scheme peaks at $550. What ought to move committees is the preventable fall and everything that follows it through the courts and the insurer. Records stay filed for 7 years, per section 180.
The 1970s and 80s strata boom, largely unrenovated at the window line. The six-storey walk-ups and lift blocks that define residential Crows Nest were built in the decades immediately before window safety practice existed, which gives them a consistent profile: original aluminium sliders and awnings now fifty years worn, retrofit hardware added in waves of varying quality, and — in the buildings that missed the waves — qualifying windows that have never carried a device at all.
The documentation situation is usually worse than the hardware. These buildings have averaged several changes of managing agent since construction, and window safety records rarely survive even one handover intact. The standard first conversation with a Crows Nest committee involves a building that may well be substantially compliant — and can prove none of it. That is a fixable condition, and cheaply: one measured baseline rebuilds the register from the building itself, and the annual cycle keeps it current thereafter.
The hardware findings are usually modest; the record-keeping reset is the real product.
The empty file — the suburb’s defining failure: buildings without documented proof of any inspection, ever, regardless of what is on the windows. Worn original sliders whose track wear defeats compliant-looking limiters. Mixed retrofit waves — three generations of hardware in one stairwell, only some rated for 250 newtons. Renovation losses in a steadily updating suburb. And flyscreens standing in for real devices, which fail the force test every time.
The two failures compound: a building with no records and untested hardware is exposed twice over — once at the windows, once in the file.
Built for the twelve-month record. One technician attends, works through common property and lots in sequence — the boom-era blocks complete in a morning — and physically tests every qualifying window against the 125mm and 250 newton requirements, photographing each result. Access runs through the manager’s standard entry-notice process with our resident notice template. The documentation is the deliverable: the same-day digital certificate is emailed directly and can be uploaded to your building management system or filed with the strata roll that day — no printed document in the post, no follow-up call required, no gap between the inspection happening and the file proving it.
The photographic register sits behind the certificate, ready for any committee, insurer or Fair Trading inquiry. Failed or missing devices are replaced on the spot with REMSAFE hardware where pre-authorised, or quoted fixed per window for committee approval. The full on-the-day walkthrough is in our inspection process guide.
Boom-era blocks are efficient to inspect — no complex access systems, standard window types — and the pricing reflects it. We price per unit, fix it pre-booking, and let three things shape it — units, access, windows. Hourly drift does not exist here; the number agreed is the number paid. Haven’s standard rates apply in Crows Nest as everywhere: a single property is $250 + GST, buildings of 2 to 10 units are $490 + GST, and buildings of 11 or more units are quoted on request — always fixed before booking, with the digital compliance certificate delivered the same day.
Where devices fail, remediation is quoted per window using REMSAFE hardware, itemised so the committee approves exactly what it sees, and worn or damaged devices are replaced on the spot where authorised. Committees watching the budget should know the two levers that actually move it: single combined projects over split engagements, and grouped neighbourhood runs over one-off visits. Everything else is rounding. Every deliverable sits inside the fee — report, register, photographs, certificate, hardware attendance — so the quote is the cost.
When Crows Nest schemes compare providers, compare completions: the inspection that arrives cheap and documents extra almost always finishes dear.
In one motion, practically speaking. The sequence: the committee resolves to commission a baseline inspection; every qualifying window is measured, tested and photographed into a fresh unit-by-unit register; failures are quoted fixed per window and remediated; and the scheme’s section 180 file restarts from that date with a complete, defensible record. The building’s history before the baseline stays unknown — what matters is that its future is documented, and that the committee’s minutes show the moment it took control.
Two encouragements for committees dreading the exercise. First, the findings are usually better than feared: most boom-era blocks are partially compliant already, and the remediation list is shorter and cheaper than imagination suggests. Second, the fix is genuinely once: after the baseline, the annual cycle maintains the register for a fraction of the effort, and the building never faces the empty-file problem again. The worst version of this project is the one that keeps being postponed.
Strata managers whose lower North Shore rolls run through Crows Nest, St Leonards, Naremburn and Wollstonecraft — grouped scheduling, each building holding its own register and its own reminder. Owners corporations and committees of the boom-era blocks, including self-managed schemes in the smaller buildings. Property managers and landlords across the suburb’s steady rental turnover, using unit inspections and end-of-lease audits.
Committees facing questions — from insurers, from prospective buyers’ solicitors, from their own AGMs — who need the file to answer. St Leonards and North Sydney have their own location pages; portfolio scheduling covers the corridor.
Because the suburb’s problem is proof, and generalist paperwork does not constitute it. A trade service that adds window compliance to a longer checklist produces the verbal-assurance tier of documentation — precisely what Crows Nest buildings already have too much of. Our reports are built as evidence: every window, its measured result, its photograph, its date, delivered same-day and filed before anyone has to remember to chase it.
Window safety inspection under the NSW regulations is our primary work, not a sideline. One provider carries testing, REMSAFE remediation, re-verification and records at fixed pricing. And the honesty notes as always: NSW has no official inspector certification scheme, and no statute mandates annual inspection — the Act demands compliance as a permanent state, provably so, which is the part this suburb has historically skipped.
By never letting the file go quiet again. Buildings on our annual reinspection and maintenance program get every device retested each cycle, wear items maintained in-visit, worn sliders flagged before they defeat their limiters, and the register rolled forward with a one-page change summary. The automated reminder finds the manager before the anniversary — the compliance date stops being something anyone has to remember, which in this suburb is precisely the failure mode being designed out.
Annual is best practice rather than statute, stated plainly as ever. But for buildings whose defining risk is the undocumented year, the standing cycle is the cure in structural form: a register that never ages past twelve months, a certificate always current, and a committee that answers every future question by attachment.
It is the most common starting position in Crows Nest, and it is fixable in one project: a baseline inspection rebuilds the register from the building itself, failures are fixed at fixed prices, and the scheme’s records restart complete from that date.
Often, but not automatically. Worn slider tracks can defeat compliant-looking limiters, and original hardware predates the force requirement — but each window is a test result, not a presumption. Many boom-era windows pass; the point is knowing which.
Same day, by email — ready to upload to your management system or file with the strata roll before the day ends. The gap between inspection and paperwork is the failure this service was built to eliminate.
The statutory maximum for the owners corporation is $550 — modest. The real exposure is civil: a preventable child fall from an unprotected window, faced with an empty file. The fine is not the reason to act; the file is.
No — Parliament set the standard, not a schedule. A yearly testing cycle is sound discipline, and for buildings with patchy documentary history it is the rhythm that keeps the record permanently current.
Not sure which service tier fits your building? Our compliance specialists can help you understand your requirements and choose the right option.
