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Why Restumping Is a Queensland Problem

Elevated timber housing is close to a defining feature of Queensland, and it exists for reasons that made complete sense at the time. Raising a house off the ground kept floors above damp soil, encouraged airflow underneath in a climate where humidity is the enemy of timber, made building on sloping ground straightforward without expensive excavation, and lifted living areas above the reach of flooding on low lying blocks. Cheap, plentiful and extremely durable hardwood made stumps the obvious footing. The result is a housing stock across Brisbane, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Rockhampton, Townsville and dozens of regional towns that sits on tens of thousands of timber posts driven into the ground somewhere between the 1890s and the 1960s. Whole suburbs were built this way, and in places like Paddington, Red Hill, Annerley and East Toowoomba almost every original house on the street shares the same construction.

Those stumps were never permanent. A good hardwood stump in Queensland soil lasts somewhere between fifty and eighty years depending on the species, the soil, the drainage and how much termite pressure the site carries. Many are now well beyond that. The practical consequence is that restumping has shifted from an occasional repair to a routine part of owning an older Queensland home, in much the same way that rewiring became routine for houses built with rubber insulated cable. The difference is that nobody inspects stumps unless something has already gone wrong.

What makes restumping different from most building work is that the problem develops invisibly and then presents as something else entirely. Nobody notices a stump rotting. They notice a door that will not latch, a gap opening above a skirting board, a floor that feels springy in one corner of the lounge room, or a hairline crack running out from a cornice. By the time those symptoms are obvious the underlying movement has usually been going on for years, and the repair has grown accordingly. Owners often report that the door problem appeared suddenly, when what actually happened is that the movement finally crossed the threshold where the door frame stopped absorbing it.

The good news is that restumping is a well understood and well established trade in Queensland, with contractors who do nothing else and who have refined the process over decades. It is disruptive but rarely mysterious. The main risks for a homeowner are engaging someone unlicensed, skipping the approval process, and accepting a price that does not account for what will be found once the house comes off its stumps. This guide works through the diagnosis, the options, the process, the approvals and the pricing, so those risks can be managed.

Signs Your House Needs Restumping

The symptoms of stump failure show up inside the house long before anyone looks underneath it. Doors that used to close cleanly and now bind at the top corner, or that swing open on their own, are among the earliest and most reliable indicators. Windows that stick in their frames follow the same logic, since the frame has racked out of square. Neither symptom is proof on its own, because timber joinery moves seasonally, but a door that has progressively worsened over two or three years is telling you something structural. The pattern is worth noting too, since doors on one side of the house binding while the others are fine points to localised movement.

Floors are the next place to look. A marble or a spirit level tells you more in five minutes than a week of speculation, and the classic test of rolling a marble across a room still works. Sloping is usually gradual, so it is easy to become accustomed to and stop noticing. Springiness or bounce underfoot points at a different problem again, usually a failed bearer or joist, the horizontal timbers that carry the floor above the stumps, instead of a stump, though the two frequently occur together because the same moisture and termite conditions affect both. Check the floor near external walls as well as in the middle of rooms, because bearer ends over perimeter stumps are the first place both problems appear. A floor that dips toward one corner, as opposed to sagging in the centre is a stump signal rather than a joist one.

Cracking in linings is the third signal. In older Queenslanders with vee jointed timber boards the movement shows as gaps opening at the joints. In houses that have been sheeted with plasterboard, it shows as cracks running diagonally from door and window corners, and as separation along the cornice line where the ceiling has dropped relative to the wall. Cracks that are wider at one end than the other indicate rotational movement, which is characteristic of localised stump failure rather than general settlement. Photograph cracks with a ruler or a coin alongside for scale and date the photographs, since establishing whether a crack is growing matters more than its current width.

Underneath the house the evidence is more direct, and anyone able to get under safely should look. Sound stumps are hard and ring slightly when struck with a hammer or a screwdriver handle. Failing stumps sound dull and dead, and a screwdriver pushed into the timber at the ground line will sink in where it should not. Look for fungal growth at the base, for stumps that are visibly out of plumb, for packing timbers stacked on top of stumps by a previous owner, and for stumps that have simply lost contact with the bearer above them and are carrying nothing at all.

That last one is more common than people expect. A stump that has settled or rotted at the top leaves the bearer bridging across to the stumps either side, which overloads them and accelerates the whole process. Torch beams reveal this quickly because a daylight gap between the stump head and the bearer is unmistakable. If several stumps are doing nothing, the house is already being carried by fewer supports than it was designed for.

Why Stumps Fail in the Queensland Climate

Timber in permanent ground contact fails at a specific and predictable place, which is the zone immediately above and below the soil surface. Below that zone there is moisture but limited oxygen. Above it there is oxygen but the timber dries. At the interface both are present in quantity, and that is exactly the condition decay fungi need. This is why a stump dug out of the ground so often looks sound at the bottom, sound at the top, and is hollowed out to a waist in the middle. Tapping the top of a stump tells you very little about the part that matters.

Queensland accelerates this because warmth speeds up fungal activity and because the wet season delivers sustained soil moisture. A stump in Cairns or Townsville is under considerably more decay pressure than the same stump would be in a cooler, drier climate. Coastal sites add salt laden air, and low lying blocks add periodic inundation that keeps the ground line saturated for days at a time. Termite pressure runs higher in the warmer parts of the state as well, so decay and insect attack tend to arrive together. A stump can be structurally sound one wet season and carrying nothing the next.

Species matters enormously and explains why two houses of the same age in the same street can be in completely different condition. Class 1 durability hardwoods such as ironbark, grey gum and tallowwood perform far better in ground than the lighter species that were sometimes substituted when good timber was scarce. Original stumps were also generally milled from mature growth timber with a high proportion of dense heartwood, and the sapwood that some later stumps carried has no natural durability at all. Post war building shortages produced some genuinely poor stumps, and houses from that period sometimes need attention earlier than houses twenty years older. Where an owner knows the build date, it is worth mentioning to a contractor because it shapes expectations before anyone gets underneath.

Site conditions do the rest. Downpipes discharging beside a stump, an air conditioning condensate line dripping under the house, a garden bed built up against the perimeter, a concrete path that traps water, and blocked or absent subfloor ventilation all create localised wet spots where decay runs faster. It is very common for a house to have twenty perfectly sound stumps and five badly failed ones, all clustered on the elevation where the stormwater goes. Finding the wet spot is therefore part of the diagnosis, since replacing stumps without fixing the source simply resets the clock on the same failure.

Termites, Ant Caps and What They Actually Do

Subterranean termites are a major factor in Queensland stump failure and are frequently the reason a restump becomes urgent. They live in colonies in the soil and travel to timber through underground galleries or through mud tubes they construct over hard surfaces. A timber stump in ground contact is the most direct route into a house that a termite colony could ask for, because it is a continuous timber pathway from the soil to the bearers and joists. The species responsible for most economically significant damage in Queensland builds large underground colonies and can forage many metres from the nest, which means the source is frequently not on the affected property at all.

Ant caps, the galvanised metal shields fitted between the top of a stump and the bearer, are widely misunderstood. They are not a barrier and they do not kill or repel termites. Their purpose is to force any termite approaching from below to build a visible mud tube around the outside of the cap, so that activity becomes detectable during an inspection. An ant cap only works if somebody actually looks at it, which is the entire point of maintaining subfloor access and inspecting annually. A cap that has never been looked at has done nothing useful for its entire service life.

Damaged, missing or bridged ant caps are therefore a real finding and not a cosmetic one. Caps that have been crushed by packing, bent during earlier work, or bypassed by a garden bed, a path or a stored pile of timber against the stump have lost their function entirely. Restumping is the natural opportunity to reinstate proper capping and clearances, and the Australian Standard covering termite management in buildings, AS 3660, sets out the expected approach for both new work and remedial work.

A restump does not by itself solve a termite problem. If a colony is active it will still be active afterwards, and concrete stumps simply mean the termites travel a different route. Any restumping job on a house with evidence of termite activity should be paired with a proper termite inspection and treatment before the new stumps go in, because treating soil and installing management systems is far easier while the subfloor is open and accessible. Ongoing pest control and annual inspection is what protects the investment afterwards.

It is worth being clear that discovering termite damage during a restump is common and usually expands the job. Bearers and joists sitting directly above an infested stump are frequently affected, and the damage is invisible until the house is lifted and the timbers can be inspected from the side. This is the single biggest reason a restumping quote should include a provisional allowance instead of being presented as a fixed price with no contingency.

Reactive Soils, Ground Movement and Site Classification

Not all stump movement is decay. A great deal of it is the ground moving, and much of southeast Queensland sits on clay soils that expand when wet and shrink when dry. Areas of Ipswich, Logan, parts of Brisbane's western and southern suburbs, and the Darling Downs around Toowoomba are known for reactive clay. On these sites a perfectly sound stump on an inadequate footing will still rise and fall through the seasons, and the house moves with it. The movement is often seasonal and reversible, which is why owners sometimes report that a sticking door frees up again by the end of summer.

Australian Standard AS 2870 covers residential slabs and footings and provides the site classification system that describes this behaviour, running from Class A for stable sand and rock through S for slightly reactive, M for moderately reactive, H1 and H2 for highly reactive, E for extremely reactive, and P for problem sites. Much of the reactive clay country in southeast Queensland classifies as M or H. The classification is not a formality, because it determines how deep and how wide the footings under new stumps need to be. Standards are published by Standards Australia.

The practical implication for a homeowner is straightforward. A restumping quote that does not mention footing size or depth, and that prices every job on the same standard pad regardless of the site, is not accounting for the ground the house is standing on. On a reactive site an undersized footing will move seasonally and the house will need relevelling again within a handful of years, which is an expensive way to learn a lesson. It is also difficult to pursue afterwards, because proving the footing was inadequate requires excavating it.

Drainage is the controllable half of this problem. Reactive clay moves in response to moisture change, so the more consistent the soil moisture is, the less the house moves. Getting stormwater properly away from the building, fixing leaking pipes and stopping ponding under the house all reduce movement. Work of this kind under stormwater drainage plumbing, and subsoil systems installed as part of French drain and subsoil drainage installation, is frequently worth doing at the same time as a restump while the subfloor is accessible.

Subfloor Moisture, Ventilation and Clearances

The space under a Queenslander is a working part of the building, and its condition drives the life expectancy of everything above it. Air needs to move through it, water needs to run away from it, and there needs to be enough clearance for a person to get in and inspect. When any of those three fail, timber decay and termite activity follow within a few years. Owners who can no longer get under their own house have effectively lost the ability to detect a problem before it becomes structural.

The most common cause of poor subfloor conditions is well intentioned work by previous owners. Lattice or sheeting installed around the perimeter to tidy the appearance of the house cuts airflow dramatically if it is solid or if it is backed by a garden bed. Concrete paths and driveways poured hard against the house block cross ventilation on that elevation. Storage under the house, which almost every Queenslander accumulates, blocks airflow and provides both a termite food source and a screen that hides mud tubes from view. Cardboard boxes and stacked timber offcuts under a Queenslander are close to an invitation, and clearing them out is free. Restumping is the natural point at which to decide what genuinely needs to be stored there.

Ground levels are the other frequent culprit. Soil, mulch and fill built up over the years reduce clearance and can eventually bury the base of stumps or even reach bearer level. Where clearance has been lost, excavating back to a proper level is part of the restumping scope rather than an optional extra, because new stumps installed into a wet, poorly ventilated space will not achieve their expected life either. Improved ventilation through underfloor ventilation installation is a modest cost that materially extends the life of subfloor timbers.

Ongoing damp inside the house frequently traces back to the same source. Musty smells, mould appearing on the underside of floors, cupping floorboards and deteriorating skirtings are all consistent with a wet subfloor instead of a leak. Where masonry is involved at the base of the house, rising damp assessment and repairs may be needed alongside the structural work, since the two problems share a cause.

Inspection, Level Surveys and Getting a Diagnosis

Restumping should begin with a diagnosis, not a quote. The base document is a level survey, which measures the floor height at a grid of points across the house and produces a plan showing exactly where and by how much the building has dropped. Without it, everyone involved is guessing, and the scope tends to expand or contract based on opinion. A survey with a report typically costs $300 to $800 and is the cheapest money spent on the whole project. It also gives the owner a fixed reference to measure against in future, which turns a vague worry into a tracked number.

A survey also answers a question that matters more than most homeowners realise, which is whether the house is dropping or was never level to begin with. Older houses were often built to modest tolerances, and a fifteen millimetre variation across a room may have been there since 1925. Chasing perfect level on a hundred year old building can cause more damage than it prevents, and a good contractor will say so. Bringing a house to within about ten millimetres across a room is a realistic and sensible target, and pursuing better than that on old timber usually costs more in cracked linings than it delivers in comfort. Ask what tolerance the contractor is working to and get it written into the scope.

Where structural damage is suspected in bearers or joists, or where the movement pattern is unusual, a structural inspection gives an independent read on cause and consequence. On reactive sites, on steep blocks, on sites with retaining structures nearby, or where the house has been extended, involving a structural engineer to specify footings is often required by the certifier and is sensible regardless. Engineered details also protect the homeowner if the movement continues.

Repeat surveys are useful when the cause is uncertain. Measuring the same points six months apart, ideally across a wet season and a dry season, distinguishes seasonal reactive movement from progressive structural failure. Those two problems have different solutions, and treating one as the other wastes money. A house that returns to level in summer and drops in winter has a soil moisture problem, not necessarily a stump problem.

Restumping, Relevelling and Underpinning Compared

These three terms are used loosely and sometimes interchangeably, which causes real confusion when comparing quotes. Restumping means removing the existing stumps and installing new ones on new footings. Relevelling means jacking the house back to level and adjusting or packing the existing supports without replacing them. Underpinning means extending or strengthening existing footings, usually by excavating beneath them and pouring concrete or installing piers, and it applies to houses on strip footings or slabs rather than stumps. A quote that uses the words interchangeably is a signal the contractor is being loose with the detail.

Relevelling is only appropriate where the stumps themselves are sound and the movement has come from footing settlement or from packing that has compressed. It is much cheaper than restumping, typically $2,500 to $8,000, and much less disruptive. The trap is that relevelling a house on decayed stumps buys perhaps three to five years and then costs the full restumping price anyway, plus the money already spent. Any quote for relevelling should be supported by evidence that the stumps have been properly assessed and not just glanced at. Ask specifically how the assessment was done, because probing at the ground line is the only method that tells you anything reliable.

Underpinning belongs to a different category of problem. If a house on a slab or on brick piers with strip footings has cracked because the ground beneath the footings has moved, the answer is to take the footings down to more stable material. That work falls under underpinning services, is engineer designed and is a genuinely different trade from restumping, though some contractors do both. Some Queensland houses have both systems, with timber stumps under the original section and a slab under a later extension, and those two parts of the building move independently. Where movement has already cracked walls, damaged bearers or pulled a verandah away from the house, that remedial work sits under structural repairs and is usually scoped alongside the restump. That interface, where an old timber section meets a newer slab, is one of the most common places cracking shows up in a Queensland house.

A fourth option exists and is under used, which is doing nothing beyond monitoring. A house that is fifteen millimetres out of level, with sound stumps and no progression across two surveys, may not need any work at all. Restumping is expensive and disruptive, and there is no virtue in doing it before it is warranted. A contractor who tells a homeowner the house does not need restumping yet is worth remembering for when it does.

Timber, Concrete and Galvanised Steel Stumps

New stumps come in three main materials, and the choice affects cost, longevity and how future adjustments can be made. Hardwood remains available and is still used, particularly where matching the appearance of an existing high set house matters or where a character overlay makes visible concrete undesirable. Timber for in ground use must be a durable species and appropriately treated, and the reality is that new hardwood stumps will not last as long as the originals they replace because old growth timber of that density is no longer generally available. Owners choosing timber for appearance reasons should go in understanding that trade off rather than assuming they are matching like with like.

Concrete stumps are the default choice for most Queensland restumping work. Precast concrete stumps with reinforcing and a projecting bolt or bracket at the head are durable, dimensionally stable, immune to decay and unattractive to termites as a food source. They cost more per unit than timber but the difference is small relative to the labour, and they remove the material from the failure equation entirely. Most contractors will quote concrete unless asked otherwise. Precast stumps also arrive at a consistent quality, which removes a variable that site poured concrete introduces.

Galvanised steel stumps occupy a smaller niche and are chosen mainly where adjustability is valuable. Adjustable steel stumps allow future relevelling by turning a thread instead of re jacking the house, which has obvious appeal on a reactive site where seasonal movement is expected to continue. They need to be properly protected against corrosion at the ground line, which is the point where galvanising fails first. They also cost more per unit than concrete, so they earn their place on reactive sites rather than as a default choice.

Whichever material is used, the connection details matter as much as the stump. Ant caps between stump head and bearer, correct fixing of the bearer to the stump so the house is restrained laterally, and adequate bearing area at the head are all part of a proper job. In cyclone regions the tie down requirements, the chain of fixings holding the building down against wind uplift, are considerably more demanding, because uplift on an elevated house has to be transferred through the stumps into the footings.

Footings, Pads and Why Depth Matters

What sits under the stump determines whether the restump lasts. A stump is only as good as the footing beneath it, and footing design is where cheap quotes usually cut corners because the work is buried and nobody will see it. The footing spreads the load from the stump across enough soil area that the ground can carry it without settling, and on reactive sites it also has to reach below the zone where seasonal moisture change causes movement. Get this wrong and every other part of the job is wasted, no matter how good the stumps are. It is also the one element that cannot be inspected or corrected once the concrete is in the ground and the house is back down on it.

Typical residential stump footings are concrete pads poured in an excavated hole, sized according to the load carried by that stump and the bearing capacity of the soil. A stump under a corner carrying two bearers takes far more load than one midway along a run. Uniform footings under every stump regardless of position is a shortcut, and it produces differential settlement over time as the heavily loaded footings sink faster than the lightly loaded ones. Corner and load bearing wall positions are where this shows up first, and it is exactly the pattern that produces diagonal cracking from door openings.

Depth is the other variable. On a highly reactive clay site the moisture active zone can extend well over a metre down, and a footing that stops short of it will lift and drop with the seasons no matter how well the concrete was poured. This is why engineered footing details are worth having on reactive sites, and why the site classification under AS 2870 should be established. The National Construction Code sets the overarching framework and is administered by the Australian Building Codes Board.

Ask any contractor directly what footing size and depth they have allowed and what that allowance is based on. The answer distinguishes a considered job from a formula. It is also the item most likely to differ between two quotes with a large price gap, and comparing quotes without knowing what is under the ground is comparing nothing at all. Where an engineer has specified the footings, ask for a copy of the detail so the same document can be given to everyone quoting. Contractors who are pricing against an engineer's drawing and not their own assumptions produce quotes that mean something.

The Restumping Process Step by Step

The work begins with preparation instead of jacking. The subfloor is cleared of stored items, plumbing and electrical services that pass through the affected area are identified, and access is established for both people and, where possible, small machinery. Where the perimeter has been enclosed with lattice or sheeting, some of it comes off. Homeowners are usually able to stay in the house throughout a standard restump, though there will be days when services are interrupted. Plan around that so it does not catch you out, particularly if anyone in the household works from home.

Jacking is done progressively and in stages, never all at once. Screw jacks or hydraulic jacks are placed under the bearers, and the house is lifted a small increment at a time across the whole area being worked on, so that the structure is never twisted by lifting one part far ahead of another. Temporary props take the load while the old stumps are removed, holes are excavated, footings are poured and cured where required, and new stumps are set to the correct height. The house is then lowered onto the new stumps and the levels are checked and adjusted. Concrete footings need curing time before they take load, so a job with poured pads will have days built into the programme where nothing visible is happening.

Pace is deliberate for a reason. Lifting a hundred year old timber house quickly puts stress into linings, joinery and any masonry chimneys, and the slower the movement the less damage results. On a house that is significantly out of level, a good contractor may bring it up over several days instead of in a single session, precisely to reduce cracking. A quote that promises a full restump of a large Queenslander in three days deserves questions. Speed on this particular job is not a virtue, and the cost of it appears later on the internal walls.

Old stumps have to go somewhere, and the excavated soil and broken concrete adds up quickly. Confirm whether disposal is included in the quoted price or charged separately, because it is a common source of variation. Where the volume is substantial, arranging rubbish removal in advance is cheaper than a rushed skip booking mid job.

Once the house is down on its new stumps, the finishing work begins. Bearers are fixed to stump heads, ant caps are set, any damaged bearers or joists identified during the lift are replaced, subfloor ground levels are corrected, and enclosure and lattice are reinstated. Stairs frequently need adjustment because the house has moved relative to the ground, and external landings and handrails may need rework under external stair and handrail repairs.

Partial Restumping Versus Doing the Whole House

Partial restumping replaces only the stumps that have failed, and it is a legitimate approach in defined circumstances. Where failure is genuinely localised, for example along one elevation where a downpipe has been discharging for twenty years while the rest of the subfloor is dry and the remaining stumps are demonstrably sound, replacing fifteen stumps rather than forty is sensible economics. The key word is demonstrably, since the case rests entirely on the condition of the stumps being left in place. Those stumps should be individually recorded. A note saying most of the others looked fine is not a record.

The problem is that partial restumping is often sold on price instead of evidence. If the stumps across the house are all of the same age, the same species and in similar ground conditions, the ones that have not failed yet are on the same trajectory as the ones that have. Replacing half now and half in six years costs substantially more than doing it once, because the mobilisation, jacking, levelling and making good all happen twice. The second job also disturbs the linings a second time, which means paying for internal repairs twice as well. Owners weighing the two options should price the full job and the partial job side by side across a ten year horizon instead of comparing today's figures alone. The gap usually closes further than expected.

There is also a structural argument. A house sitting on a mixture of new concrete stumps on engineered footings and eighty year old timber stumps on whatever was there originally will move differentially, because the two systems respond differently to soil moisture. The new section stays put and the old section keeps dropping, which reintroduces the same cracking the restump was meant to fix. Owners are then left wondering why an expensive repair did not solve the problem it was sold to solve.

The honest test is the level survey and the stump by stump condition assessment. If those documents show a clear boundary between sound and failed, partial work is defensible. If they show general deterioration with some stumps further along than others, full restumping is usually the better decision even though the quote is larger. Ask any contractor recommending partial work to identify specifically which stumps they assessed as sound and on what basis.

Raising a House and Building Underneath

A large share of Queensland restumping projects are not really about failed stumps at all. They are about raising the house to gain a legal storey underneath, and the restump is the mechanism. This is one of the most cost effective ways to add floor area to a Queenslander, because the roof, the walls and the existing floor are already there and the new space only needs enclosing, lining and fitting out.

The critical number is ceiling height. For a room to be habitable under the National Construction Code it needs a minimum floor to ceiling height, generally 2.4 metres for habitable rooms and 2.1 metres for non habitable spaces such as garages and laundries. Allowing for the depth of bearers, joists and the new slab, a house typically needs to be lifted so the underside of the existing floor structure sits around three metres or more above the finished ground level. Houses already sitting at two metres of clearance often need less lift than owners expect, and low set houses need a great deal more. Measuring the existing clearance accurately before doing anything else is a worthwhile fifteen minutes.

Local planning schemes cap how high a house can go, commonly through a maximum building height expressed in metres and storeys. In many Queensland residential zones that limit sits in the range of eight and a half to nine and a half metres, and steeply sloping sites complicate the measurement because height is usually measured from natural ground level. A house that is already close to the limit may not have room to be raised a full storey, and that needs establishing before any money is spent on design. Councils publish this information in their planning scheme and most have an online property search that returns it in a couple of minutes.

Flood planning levels are the other major driver, particularly across Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan and the Lockyer and Bremer valleys. Councils publish flood overlay information for individual properties, and raising a habitable floor above the defined flood level is both a resilience measure and, in some cases, a requirement for approval of works. Owners in flood affected areas should check whether any current state or council assistance program applies, since programs of this kind have run at various times and the eligibility criteria change. General information is available through the Queensland Government.

Building in underneath is a separate project from the raise itself, and it is worth understanding the sequence. The raise and restump creates the height. A slab is then poured, external walls are framed and clad, services are run, and the interior is fitted out. Many owners stage this over several years, raising and enclosing first and completing the interior later. Work of that kind sits within home extensions, and where the new space is intended as a self contained dwelling it moves into granny flat territory with its own planning requirements.

Building Approval, Certification and Paperwork

Restumping is building work in Queensland, and building work generally requires building approval from a building certifier before it starts. Owners are sometimes told that replacing stumps like for like does not need approval. Treat that advice cautiously and confirm it with a certifier or the local council, because the consequences of unapproved structural work surface later, usually during a sale when a buyer's solicitor asks for the approvals. Unapproved structural work can also complicate an insurance claim and, in some cases, a refinance.

The certification process produces a paper trail that matters. A private building certifier assesses the proposal, issues the approval, and inspects at defined stages. Where an engineer has designed the footings, a Form 15 compliance certificate for design is typically provided, and on completion a Form 16 inspection certificate and the final certificate confirm the work was done in accordance with the approval. These documents are what a future buyer, a bank or an insurer will ask to see. Keep them with the title documents rather than in a job folder that gets thrown out, because they will be wanted decades later. Scanning them the day they arrive costs nothing.

Raising a house adds a planning layer on top of the building approval. Increasing the height of a dwelling generally triggers assessment against the local planning scheme, and in older suburbs that assessment can be involved. This is separate from and additional to the building approval, and the two run in sequence, so the timeline is longer than many owners anticipate. Allowing several months between first engaging a designer and starting work is realistic for a raise.

Clarify in writing who is obtaining the approvals. Some restumping contractors handle the certification as part of their service, others expect the owner to arrange it, and the assumption gap between those two positions causes real problems. The contract should name the certifier, state who is paying the fees, and identify who is responsible if a variation to the approval becomes necessary partway through.

Character Housing and Planning Overlays

Many of the houses that need restumping are exactly the houses that local planning schemes protect. Brisbane and several other Queensland councils apply character or traditional building overlays to pre 1947 timber and tin housing, and some areas carry demolition control provisions that restrict what can be done to the external form of the building. Restumping in itself is rarely contentious under these provisions, since replacing what is under the house does not alter its character. The certifier will still confirm whether the overlay has any bearing, so it is not a step to skip.

Raising is a different matter. Lifting a character house changes its relationship to the street, and overlays commonly regulate how the newly created ground level may be treated. Requirements often address how the underneath is enclosed, the setback of the enclosure from the front of the house, the treatment of stairs and verandahs, and the retention of the original roof form and street facing elevation. The intent is generally that a raised character house should still read as a Queenslander and not a two storey box.

Owners should check the overlays applying to their property before committing to a design, because the constraints shape what is worth pursuing. Council property search tools show the applicable overlays, and a town planner or a building designer experienced in character work will read them far faster than an owner will. Getting this wrong late in the process is expensive. Redesigning after an approval has been refused costs both the design fees and several months.

There is a practical upside to working within the overlay rather than against it. A well executed raise on a character house that retains its street presence generally performs strongly at resale, and the paint, joinery and detailing that go with it are a recognised specialisation. Owners often pair the structural work with exterior restoration under Queenslander home painting and weatherboard painting once the building is back at its final level.

Plumbing, Electrical, Drainage and Stairs

Every service that crosses the subfloor is affected by a restump, and the extent depends on how far the house moves. On a straightforward relevel of ten or twenty millimetres, most services cope without intervention. Older rigid pipework is the exception, since earthenware and galvanised steel have no flexibility and can crack at a movement a modern pipe would absorb. On a full restump, and certainly on a raise, water pipes, waste and sewer lines, gas and electrical circuits all have to be disconnected, extended or reconfigured and then reconnected.

This work is licensed and cannot be done by the restumping contractor unless they hold the relevant licences. Plumbing and drainage work in Queensland requires a licensed plumber at any value, and altering sewer or stormwater connections may require notification or approval from the local water authority. Electrical work must be carried out by a licensed electrical contractor, and prescribed work attracts a Certificate of Testing and Compliance. Budget for plumbing services and electrical services as separate line items, because they are often not inside the restumping price. Coordinating the timing matters as much as the cost, because a plumber who cannot get on site on the day the house comes down holds up everything behind them.

Drainage under the house deserves specific attention while access is good. Old earthenware sewer pipes with root intrusion, downpipes discharging to nowhere and stormwater lines that have collapsed are all far cheaper to fix while the subfloor is open. If drains are suspected of contributing to the soil moisture that caused the movement, clearing blocked drains and correcting the drainage is part of fixing the cause and not an unrelated job.

Stairs are the item most often forgotten in a quote. Any change in floor height changes the rise and going of every step, and stairs cannot simply be packed up at the bottom because the riser heights must remain uniform under the Building Code. On a raise, the entire stair is usually rebuilt. Even on a modest relevel the bottom step frequently needs adjusting, and landings, balustrades and handrails have to comply with current height and gap requirements. Work of this kind falls under staircase installation and repairs.

Cracking, Making Good and What to Expect Inside

Some cracking during a restump is close to inevitable and homeowners should go in expecting it. A house that has settled unevenly over decades has adjusted to that shape, and returning it to level puts the linings, cornices and joinery back under stresses they have not carried in years. Plasterboard cracks along joints and at openings, cornices separate, tiled areas can craze, and doors that were adjusted to fit a racked frame may need rehanging.

The scale of it depends on how far the house moves and how slowly. A twenty millimetre correction spread over several days causes far less damage than the same correction done in an afternoon. Houses lined with vee jointed timber boards handle movement much better than plasterboard, because the boards can shift slightly at their joints, which is one reason original Queenslander linings survive this work well. Owners who have already replaced vee joint with plasterboard should expect more visible damage than a neighbour who kept the original boards.

The important question is who repairs the cracking and whether it is priced. Practice varies. Some restumping contracts include a defined allowance for making good, some exclude internal repairs entirely, and some state that cracking is an expected consequence for which the contractor is not liable. None of these positions is unreasonable, but the homeowner needs to know which one applies before signing rather than after the plaster has cracked. Budget realistically for interior painting and lining repairs afterwards. A figure of one to three thousand dollars for cornice and crack repairs and repainting affected rooms is a reasonable starting allowance on a full restump.

Masonry elements are the higher risk items. Original brick chimneys, tiled bathrooms, brick or block infill walls at ground level and rendered surfaces are all brittle and will show movement more dramatically than timber. Where a chimney is involved, discuss it specifically, because chimneys frequently sit on their own footing independent of the house and can crack badly if the house moves around them. Some contractors recommend supporting or partially dismantling a chimney before a significant lift, and that decision needs making early, not on the day.

Timber floors often benefit from the process instead of suffering. Boards that have opened up unevenly across a sloping floor frequently close back up once the structure is level, and a floor that was too far gone to sand may become worth restoring. It is generally sensible to complete the restumping before booking floor sanding and polishing, since sanding a floor that is about to be moved is money spent twice.

Asbestos and Lead Paint in Older Queenslanders

Houses old enough to need restumping are old enough to contain hazardous materials, and the subfloor is where a lot of it lives. Asbestos cement sheeting was widely used for subfloor enclosure, laundry walls under the house, and infill panels between stumps. Any house built or renovated before 1990 should be assumed to contain asbestos materials until testing establishes otherwise, and disturbing that sheeting during a restump is a genuine exposure risk. It is not only the removalist at risk either, since fibres released under a house end up in the soil and the subfloor where the family later stores things.

The rules are set out in the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011. Removing more than ten square metres of non friable asbestos containing material requires a licensed removalist holding at least a Class B licence, and friable material requires a Class A licensed removalist regardless of quantity. Guidance is published by WorkSafe Queensland. Where the material is uncertain, asbestos testing and inspection costs little and settles the question before work starts, and confirmed material is handled through licensed asbestos removal.

Lead paint is the less discussed hazard and it is widespread in Queensland timber housing. Paint manufactured before 1970 commonly contained high lead levels, and exterior surfaces on pre war houses often carry many layers of it. Restumping itself rarely disturbs painted surfaces, but the associated work frequently does, including removing and reinstating lattice and enclosure boards, adjusting stairs and repainting afterwards. Stair stringers, balustrades and window sills on pre war houses are especially likely to carry heavy paint build up. Health information on lead exposure is published by Queensland Health.

Sanding, scraping or heat stripping lead paint releases dust and fume that is hazardous, particularly to young children, and the contaminated dust settles into soil under the house where it stays. Where old paint is going to be disturbed, lead paint removal handled properly with containment and appropriate waste disposal is the correct approach rather than a weekend with an orbital sander. Dry sanding old exterior paint without containment is one of the more genuinely dangerous things a homeowner can do on their own property.

QBCC Licensing and the Home Warranty Scheme

Restumping is residential building work, and work valued above $3,300 including labour and materials must be carried out by a contractor holding an appropriate licence from the Queensland Building and Construction Commission. Almost every restumping job exceeds that threshold. Licences can be checked free of charge on the public register maintained by the QBCC, which also shows the licence class, whether it is current and whether there is a history of disciplinary action. Checking takes about a minute and is the single most useful thing an owner can do before signing anything. The register is public and no account is needed.

The Queensland Home Warranty Scheme applies to residential building work above the same threshold, and the contractor must pay the premium to the QBCC before starting. The homeowner should receive a notice of cover, the QBCC's written confirmation that the job is registered and the premium paid. The scheme can assist where the contractor fails to complete the work or where the work is defective, and it also covers defined subsidence and settlement situations, which is directly relevant to footing work. That subsidence cover is one of the reasons using a licensed contractor matters more on restumping than on cosmetic work, since an unlicensed job carries no scheme protection at all.

Statutory warranty periods make the notice of cover worth keeping carefully. Cover for structural defects runs considerably longer than for non structural work, and restumping is structural by definition. A homeowner who cannot produce the notice of cover years later, when a footing has settled, is in a much weaker position than one who filed it with the certification paperwork at the time. Store it electronically as well, because paper kept in a shed under a Queenslander does not survive a decade.

Written contracts are required for domestic building work above the relevant thresholds and must contain specified information, including the contract price, the scope, the statutory warranties and the arrangements for variations. Deposit limits apply. Restumping is precisely the kind of work where variations arise, because damage found under the house cannot be seen until the house is lifted, so the variation process in the contract matters more here than on most jobs. Look for a clause requiring variations to be documented and approved in writing before the work proceeds, instead of simply invoiced at the end. Photographs of whatever was found under the house should accompany any variation, since that is the evidence the extra cost rests on. A contractor who is confident in the finding will offer them without being asked.

Insurance, Subsidence and Selling the House

Homeowners frequently assume insurance will contribute to restumping and are disappointed. Standard home building policies generally exclude damage caused by gradual deterioration, rot, termites and normal settlement, which covers the overwhelming majority of restumping situations. Some policies respond to sudden subsidence or landslip from a defined event, and a burst water main washing out soil beneath a footing may be covered where general seasonal clay movement is not. The distinction usually turns on whether the damage was sudden and identifiable or gradual and cumulative.

Read the policy carefully, and lodge a claim if there is any prospect of cover, since a declined claim costs nothing but time. Where the movement followed a specific event, such as a storm, a flood or a burst pipe, document the sequence carefully because the distinction between event driven damage and gradual deterioration is the whole argument. Dates, photographs and any plumbing repair invoices from around that time are the evidence that argument runs on. Insurers assess what they are shown, and a description is not evidence.

Selling a house with known stump problems is its own consideration. Any competent building inspection will identify sloping floors and stump condition, and a buyer who receives that report will either negotiate the price down or walk away. Sellers are generally better off obtaining a level survey and a restumping quote before listing, because a known and quantified problem is far less alarming to a buyer than an unquantified one. Some sellers complete the work, others disclose it with the quote attached and adjust the price accordingly. Both approaches are defensible and both are better than letting a buyer's inspector raise it first.

Buyers looking at older Queenslanders should treat the subfloor as a priority inspection item and not an afterthought. A pre purchase building inspection that includes proper subfloor access, combined with a termite inspection, gives a realistic view of what the house will need in the following few years. Restumping is not a reason to avoid a house, provided the cost is understood and reflected in the price.

What Actually Drives the Price

Stump count is the headline number but it is not the largest variable. Access matters more. A high set Queenslander where a person can walk underneath, and where a small excavator can be manoeuvred in to dig holes, is dramatically cheaper to restump than a low set house with six hundred millimetres of crawl space where every hole is dug by hand with a post hole shovel and every barrow load of spoil is dragged out. The difference between those two scenarios on an otherwise identical house can be forty per cent or more.

Height is the next factor. Taller stumps cost more in material, need larger footings because the load path is longer and lateral stability becomes more demanding, and require more substantial jacking and propping arrangements. A house on two and a half metre stumps is a different job from the same house on six hundred millimetre stumps even with an identical stump count. Tall stumps also carry more wind load, which is why bracing and lateral restraint details become more important as height increases.

Soil conditions and site classification drive footing size and depth, which drives excavation and concrete volume. Rock is expensive because it has to be broken out. Highly reactive clay is expensive because footings go deeper. Sites with high water tables complicate excavation and may require dewatering. A contractor who has not established the soil conditions has not established the price. Neighbouring properties are a useful informal guide here, since anyone in the street who has restumped recently will know what was found.

Hidden damage is the wildcard. Bearers and joists cannot be properly assessed until the house is lifted, and termite or rot damage found at that point adds both material and labour. This is why quotes should be structured with a provisional allowance, meaning a stated sum set aside for timber replacement rather than as a flat figure, and why a quote that is substantially cheaper than the others is sometimes just a quote that has excluded the contingency everyone else included.

Slope, tree roots, existing enclosure that has to be removed and reinstated, proximity to boundaries and neighbouring structures, and the need for temporary support of verandahs and stairs all add cost in ways that are invisible from a photograph. This is one of the reasons restumping is difficult to price without a site visit, and any figure given over the phone should be treated as a rough indication only.

What to Look Out For

The largest single warning sign is a quote given without anyone getting under the house. Stump condition cannot be assessed from the front yard, and a contractor who quotes on the basis of a walk around and a look at the doors is guessing. If access genuinely is not possible, that limitation should be stated in writing along with the assumptions the price is based on. A quote built on assumptions that are never written down becomes a variation later.

Be cautious about quotes that do not specify footing dimensions or depth. This is the most commonly cut corner in restumping because it is buried and unverifiable after the fact. A price that is thousands of dollars below the others often reflects smaller and shallower footings, and the difference shows up as renewed movement within a few years.

Watch for vagueness about approvals. A contractor who says approval is not needed, or who is evasive about who is arranging certification, is creating a problem that lands on the homeowner at sale time. Ask for the certifier's name. Ask whether Form 15 and Form 16 documentation will be provided. A contractor who works with certifiers routinely will answer without hesitation. Hesitation on that question is more informative than anything else in the conversation.

Deposit demands beyond the statutory limits, pressure to start immediately, cash only pricing, and an absence of a notice of cover from the home warranty scheme all point the same direction. Consumer protections for building contracts and unfair contract terms are administered federally by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and consumer complaints about traders in Queensland are handled by the Office of Fair Trading. Both avenues exist, and neither is a substitute for checking the licence before the work starts.

Finally, be sceptical of anyone who recommends replacing every stump without having assessed them, and equally sceptical of anyone who recommends a partial job without identifying which stumps they found sound. Both extremes can be a sales position instead of a diagnosis. The document that resolves it is the level survey together with a stump by stump condition record, and any contractor unwilling to produce that is asking to be trusted rather than checked.

How to Get Useful Quotes

Restumping quotes are only comparable when the contractors are pricing the same scope, and the level survey is what creates that common basis. Commission the survey first, share it with everyone quoting, and ask each to price against it. The cost of the survey is recovered several times over in the clarity it brings to the comparison. It also removes the awkward situation where three contractors each propose a different number of stumps and the owner has no way to judge between them.

When posting a job, describe the house properly. Say whether it is low set or high set, roughly how much clearance there is underneath, what the existing stumps appear to be made of, how many rooms the house has, and whether there is side access wide enough for machinery. Mention any extensions, since a house with a slab on ground addition behaves differently from an original Queenslander throughout. Photographs of the subfloor, taken with a torch, are worth a great deal to a contractor trying to give a realistic figure.

Ask every quote to itemise a specific set of things. The number of stumps to be replaced and their material, the footing size and depth allowed and what that is based on, whether a level survey and engineering are included or excluded, who is arranging building approval and certification and who pays those fees, what allowance exists for bearer and joist replacement, what is included for spoil and old stump disposal, and what position the contract takes on making good internal cracking. A quote that answers all of those is a document. One that gives a single figure is a number. Ask for the answers in writing, because a verbal answer on site is not something you can hold anyone to, because the written version is what governs if there is a disagreement later.

Ask about the warranty specifically, since structural warranty periods are longer than general workmanship warranties and restumping is structural. Confirm the notice of cover from the home warranty scheme will be provided. Ask for the licence number and check it on the QBCC register yourself instead of accepting a number quoted verbally. Confirm the licence class actually covers the work, since a licence current for one category does not authorise another.

Three written quotes remains the sensible target, and restumping is a trade where specialists genuinely outperform generalists. Contractors who restump full time have the jacking equipment, the working relationships with certifiers and engineers, and the experience of what a Queenslander does when it is lifted. A general builder taking on a restump occasionally is not necessarily worse, but the specialist is usually faster, cheaper and less surprised by what they find.

Rentals, Occupancy and Living Through the Work

Most homeowners stay in the house during a standard restump, which surprises people who imagine the building being lifted into the air. In practice the house moves a few centimetres at a time and remains fully supported throughout. There will be noise, vibration, dust and periods without water or power while services are altered, and access to the yard will be restricted by equipment and spoil, but the house remains habitable. Pets are worth thinking about, since open subfloors, machinery and gates left open are a genuine risk over a multi week job.

Raising a house is a different proposition. A full raise generally means vacating, because the house is lifted well clear of its original level, services are disconnected for an extended period, and stairs are removed. Owners planning a raise should budget for temporary accommodation for several weeks and should confirm the expected duration in the contract, since the timeline drives that cost more than anything else. Contents storage may also be needed, and it is cheaper arranged in advance than in the week before work starts.

For rental properties the lessor is responsible for maintaining the premises in good repair, and structural work of this scale usually requires negotiation with tenants about access, disruption and, where appropriate, rent reduction. Queensland residential tenancy law provides mechanisms for both parties, and giving proper notice of entry for the work is a legal requirement, not a courtesy. Landlords should note that licensing, approval and warranty scheme obligations apply to rental properties exactly as they do to owner occupied homes. Keeping the tenant informed of the programme as it changes avoids most disputes, since delays are common on this kind of work.

Neighbours are worth speaking to before the work starts. Restumping brings trucks, machinery, spoil and noise, and boundary access is sometimes needed to reach stumps along a side elevation. A conversation in advance prevents most problems, and where scaffolding, propping or excavation comes close to a boundary, agreement in writing about access and making good is sensible protection for everyone involved.