Melbourne Concrete Services
Melbourne Concrete Stumps
Replace failing timber stumps with concrete, bringing the floor back to level and giving an older home a footing that cannot rot.
Project Overview
Concrete Stumps Melbourne
Replace failing timber stumps with concrete, bringing the floor back to level and giving an older home a footing that cannot rot.
Timber stumps do not last forever, and in Melbourne a great many houses are still standing on the ones they were built with. Our concrete stumps Melbourne team replaces failing timber with concrete, re-levels the floor in the process and gives the house a footing that cannot rot or be eaten.
We inspect the subfloor before quoting, because the number of stumps that actually need replacing, how far the floor has dropped and what the bearers and joists are doing all change the scope. Sloping floors, sticking doors, cracked cornices and gaps opening above skirtings are usually what brings people to us, and they are symptoms rather than the problem.
Whether the house needs a handful of stumps replaced or a full restump, our team handles excavation, footings, stumps, packing and levelling, and works to the permit and inspection requirements that apply.
Plan The Work
Planning Concrete Stumps in Melbourne
Restumping starts under the house rather than in it. Stump condition, floor levels, bearer and joist sizes, subfloor access and how far the house has moved all need establishing before a scope or a price means anything.
- Condition of the existing stumps and the subfloor timbers
- How far out of level the floor currently sits
- Subfloor clearance and access for crews and materials
- Building permit, engineering and inspection requirements
A Practical Result
Restumping in Melbourne: What To Expect
Expect a staged, methodical job rather than a quick one. The subfloor is propped, old stumps are removed section by section, footings are excavated and poured, concrete stumps are set and the bearers are packed back to a level that has been agreed with you beforehand. Bringing an old house fully back to level is not always the goal, because moving a century-old structure too far too fast opens up plaster and cornices, so the target level is a decision made with you.
Some plaster cracking and door adjustment is normal afterwards, and any honest restumper will tell you that before starting rather than after. Once complete, the house sits on footings sized for the ground beneath it, and the sinking that caused the problem stops.
Restumping generally needs a building permit and inspections in Victoria, and we will tell you what applies to your property before work is booked.
Local Conditions
Why Restumping Is So Common in Melbourne
Melbourne has an unusually large stock of Victorian, Edwardian, Federation and interwar homes, and most of them were built on timber stumps sitting directly in the ground. Given enough decades of moisture, rot and termite pressure, those stumps soften at the base and the floor above them follows. It is one of the most common structural jobs in the city precisely because of what and when we built.
The city's reactive clay makes it worse. Ground that swells through winter and shrinks back over summer lifts and drops footings unevenly, so the floor does not settle uniformly — it goes out of level, which is why sticking doors and sloping floors usually appear in one part of the house rather than everywhere. Concrete stumps on properly sized footings deal with both problems at once, since there is nothing to rot and the footing is designed for the ground it sits in. A subfloor inspection is the only reliable way to confirm how many stumps need doing and what the job involves.
Discuss concrete stumps in Melbourne
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