Kincumber's homes
A lot of shared walls
65.5% of occupied homes were separate houses, 30.0% semis, terraces or townhouses and 4.3% flats. Across the Central Coast council area, only 12.0% were semis or townhouses.
Owners, renters and other arrangements
31.9% were owned outright, 32.2% with a mortgage and 17.8% rented. Another 16.1% fell under the ABS's other tenure group, which includes life tenure schemes, a common arrangement in retirement villages.
Between the bush and the water
Kincumber sits 12 km south-east of Gosford, between the Kincumba Mountain Reserve and the Kincumber Broadwater. It was one of the Coast's earliest settlements, known for timber and then boat building.
An older suburb
The median age was 48 in 2021, and the suburb had 7,398 people.
Where does the outdoor unit go in a townhouse?
The ACT Government guide says to think about easy access for maintenance, noise reaching neighbours and fresh air getting to the unit, and to avoid enclosed spaces. In a small courtyard that rules out a lot of corners. Wall brackets, a side passage or a spot under the eaves are the usual answers.
If you want more than one room done, a multi-split runs several indoor units off one outdoor unit. That's often the only way to fit several rooms into one courtyard. NSW's Noise Control Regulation 2026 restricts when a unit can run if it's heard in a neighbour's rooms, so a quiet model matters more here than in a separate house.
Ask your strata or community association
- Do the by-laws say where outdoor units can go, and how they must look?
- Does this need a strata meeting vote? (In NSW, a reverse cycle installation is a minor renovation.)
- Can pipes and cables run on a common wall, or only on my own lot?
- Who's responsible for the unit and bracket once it's installed?
- In a village: does the operator have rules on contractors coming on site?
What we'd do
Our advice for Kincumber
We'd get the by-laws and approvals sorted first, then ask the installer to show us exactly where the outdoor unit and pipes will run before we sign. For two or three rooms in a townhouse, we'd look hard at a multi-split rather than squeezing several outdoor units into one courtyard.
