Inner North · Thornbury 3071
Restumping in Thornbury
Thornbury is the same age as Northcote and prices differently, and the reason is the driveway. Thornbury's interwar bungalows sit on wider, flatter blocks with a genuine side drive, which means a mini excavator can reach the stump holes. That single fact is usually worth several thousand dollars against an equivalent house half a kilometre south.
Thornbury housing — what we are usually dealing with
The suburb is dominated by 1920s and 1930s Californian bungalows — double-fronted, timber-floored, on original stumps — with a band of older Edwardian and late Victorian stock closer to the Northcote boundary. The Thornbury quirk is mixed-age stump systems within one house. A great many of these homes were extended at the rear in the 1950s and 60s, once concrete stumps had become standard, so the front two thirds sits on 1920s timber and the back third sits on 1960s concrete. The two age groups fail at different rates and by different mechanisms, and the join between them is where the floor breaks.
The ground under Thornbury
Thornbury sits on the northern clay plains between the Merri and Darebin corridors — moderately reactive clay, with enough seasonal movement to work on shallow footings but without the rock-near-surface complication of the Northcote ridge. Properties backing onto the Darebin Parklands, or with mature street trees on the nature strip, see the strongest seasonal effect, because those trees draw moisture out of the clay on one side of the house through summer.
What this means for your job
Because access is generally good, Thornbury is a suburb where doing the whole house at once makes clear economic sense. Mobilising a machine and crew twice for two halves costs more than doing it once, and staging a job across a mixed timber-and-concrete subfloor tends to leave a permanent step at the join. The other local point is trees: Darebin protects a lot of significant trees under local law, so where a large one is driving seasonal movement the answer is footings taken deeper than the zone of moisture change, not removal.
What we see in Thornbury homes
- A distinct step or ridge in the floor where the original house meets a rear extension
- Doors in the original front rooms catching while the rear addition sits dead level
- Springy floorboards through the middle of a double-fronted front room
- Cracking that opens each summer and partly closes again over winter
Restumping costs in Thornbury
$12,000 – $19,000 for a full restumpThornbury prices well because side access usually allows machine excavation. The variable is the mixed subfloor — where a house has both original timber stumps and later concrete ones, a good quote states clearly which are being replaced and which are being left, because replacing half a subfloor without levelling the whole floor is what creates a step.
Indicative range only, based on typical jobs in this area. Access, soil conditions and the extent of movement change the number — a fixed price follows an on-site inspection.
The right service for Thornbury
Thornbury homes of this era have suspended timber floors on individual stumps, so restumping and reblocking is the service that applies — replacing failed stumps and re-levelling the floors above them. Read what the full job involves, including permits and the lifting process, on our restumping page.
Restumping in Thornbury — your questions
Half my house is already on concrete stumps — do those need doing too?
Not automatically, but it needs a decision rather than an assumption. Post-1950s concrete stumps in Thornbury are often still sound, in which case replacing only the original timber ones is legitimate and saves real money. The catch is levels. If the old section has dropped 40mm and the newer section has not moved, the old half has to be re-levelled up to meet the new one. Get the quote to state the finished floor level it is working to across the whole house, not just the section being restumped.
Why is Thornbury cheaper than Northcote?
Access, almost entirely. Thornbury's interwar bungalows generally have a side driveway wide enough for a mini excavator, so stump holes are machine-dug and spoil is machine-carted out. Northcote's single-fronted Victorian cottages often have no side access at all, so every hole is hand-dug and every barrow of soil comes out through the hallway. On the same number of stumps that is several extra days of labour, and it shows up as a price gap of several thousand dollars on otherwise comparable houses.
Is it worth restumping if I am planning to extend later?
Usually yes, and ideally in that order — but tell whoever is quoting. If an extension is coming, the new stump layout under the existing house can be set to suit the future structure, and footings at the junction can be taken to the same depth as the new work so the two halves move together through the seasons. Restumping first and designing the extension second is far cheaper than discovering afterwards that the old footings and the new ones sit at different depths.
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