Sloping floors, sticking doors and cracked walls all come back to the same thing: the footings have moved. We put 60+ years of family experience under your house, level it, and back the work with a 10 year guarantee.
01Timber stumps rot, split and sink. The floor follows them down.
02Hydraulic jacks go in under the bearers and take the load off the footings.
03The house lifts as one. The lean comes out and the floor comes back to level.
04New concrete stumps are set, the jacks come out, and the job carries a 10 year guarantee.
Foundation movement never announces itself. It shows up as small things you learn to live with, and every one of them is the house telling you the stumps underneath have dropped, rotted or shifted.
Put a marble on the floorboards and watch where it goes. A floor that runs away toward one wall, or dips through the middle of a room, is the clearest sign the support underneath has dropped. In an older Victorian home it is almost always failed timber stumps.
If a door that used to close now catches at the top corner, or a window needs a shove, the frame is out of square. Frames do not warp on their own. They go out of square because the structure holding them has moved.
Stepped cracks that follow the mortar joints, cracks wider at the top than the bottom, and cracks above doorways all point to footing movement. Hairline crazing in plaster is usually cosmetic. A crack you can fit a coin into is not.
A floor that flexes when you walk across it, or sounds hollow and drummy, usually means the bearers or joists have rotted rather than the stumps. It is a different repair, which is why it is worth having someone look before assuming.
A line of daylight under the skirting board, or a cornice pulling away from the ceiling, means the floor has dropped away from the wall or the wall has moved away from the roof. Either way something structural has shifted.
If you can get under the house, test a stump at ground level with a screwdriver. Sound timber resists. Rotted timber takes the blade with almost no pressure. Soft stumps at the wet side of the house are usually the first to go.
Left: step cracking in brickwork, the classic sign of differential movement. Right: timber stumps pulled out of a Melbourne subfloor, rotted through at ground level.
Everything we do sits under the floor. That focus is why our crews are quick, why the quote matches the invoice, and why we can carry a 10 year guarantee.
New stumps, floors back to level
We lift the house, pull out the failed timber stumps and set new concrete or galvanised steel stumps on properly compacted footings. Floors come back to level and stay there.
Restumping & reblocking
Footings taken down to stable ground
Where a brick or concrete footing has dropped, we excavate beneath it and pour new piers down to stable ground, transferring the load off the reactive clay that caused the movement.
Underpinning
New bearers, joists and ventilation
Rotted bearers, sagging joists and bouncy floorboards usually mean the structure between the stumps and your floor has gone. We rebuild it in treated timber or steel.
Subfloor rebuilds
A written report, not a sales pitch
Before you buy, or before you commit to work, we get under the house and write up what is actually there: stump condition, bearer and joist condition, moisture, ventilation and drainage.
Subfloor & pre-purchase inspectionsWe come to the property, get under the house where there is access, and tell you what we find. No charge and no obligation.
A fixed written quote with the scope spelled out, so you can compare it line for line against anyone else. We will beat any written quote you already hold.
Restumping and underpinning need a building permit in Victoria, and underpinning needs engineering. We organise both so you are not chasing paperwork.
One of our five crews takes the job from start to finish. Most restumps run a week to a fortnight depending on size and access.
Every photograph here is our own work on a Victorian home. Five crews means we are not quoting a job we will start in three months.
Nationwide Restumping is a family business. The trade was handed down, not picked up as a sideline, and between us there is over 60 years of working under Victorian houses.
That matters on a quote. A crew that has seen the same ground conditions a thousand times prices the job once and does not come back asking for more.
This is a family business and the trade was handed down. Between us there is over 60 years of restumping and underpinning in Victorian homes. You are not dealing with a call centre that subcontracts the work out.
Registered builders and insured, which matters because restumping and underpinning are permit works. An unlicensed operator cannot pull the permit, and work done without one becomes your problem at sale time.
Five large crews means we are not quoting work six months out. When a floor is dropping or a wall is cracking, waiting half a year for a start date makes the repair bigger and more expensive.
Bring us a written quote from another licensed builder for the same scope and we will beat it. Same stumps, same footings, same guarantee, lower number.
Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, the Peninsula, Gippsland and everywhere between. Regional jobs are not a problem and they are not priced as a favour.
Ten years on the work, in writing. Stumps set on properly compacted footings do not move, and we are prepared to stand behind that for a decade.
Send the details and one of our crews will come out, get under the house and tell you exactly what it needs. No charge for the visit, and no obligation after it.
