Restumping advice
Restumping permits and the process, week by week
Published
Restumping looks, from the street, like a house sitting on jacks for a few days. What actually happens spans several weeks and involves a building permit, a registered building surveyor, and staged inspections — because in Victoria, restumping is building work under the Building Act 1993, not a trade job you can just book in.
Homeowners who haven’t been through it before are usually surprised by two things: how much happens before anyone touches a stump, and how normal it is to stay living in the house the whole time.
Week 0: subfloor inspection and quote
Before anything is priced properly, someone needs to get under the house. A proper inspection maps every stump — timber or concrete, rotted, cracked, or sound — and takes floor levels across the whole house so the extent and direction of movement is measured, not guessed. This is also when you find out whether you’re actually looking at restumping or underpinning — the two aren’t interchangeable, and a quote issued without a subfloor inspection is a quote issued blind.
For a standard three-bedroom weatherboard this stage takes an hour or two on site. The output should be a stump count, a set of floor level readings, and a written quote — not a verbal number.
Weeks 1–3: engineering and the building permit
This is the stage that surprises people most, because nothing visible happens at the house. Stump layout and footing sizes are confirmed, and a building permit is lodged with a registered building surveyor. The surveyor — not the council, and not the builder — is the one who issues the permit and sets the inspection stages that follow.
If the home sits in a heritage overlay — true for much of the inner west and inner north, including large parts of Yarraville, Footscray and Seddon — a planning permit may also be required if external floor levels or the front elevation change as a result of the lift. That adds time, so it’s worth asking early rather than finding out mid-job.
Permit lead time is the single biggest variable in how long the whole project takes. Budget two to four weeks here, longer if a planning permit is also needed. Any contractor who tells you a full restump doesn’t need a permit at all is telling you something that should end the conversation — see the FAQ on the restumping service page for why that matters.
Week 4 (or whenever the permit clears): support and lift
With the permit in hand, work starts on site. Hydraulic jacks take the load off the bearers, and the house is raised in small, controlled increments — typically a few millimetres at a time, over several days — rather than in one go. Lifting slowly like this is what limits plaster cracking upstairs; a house rushed back to level in an afternoon will crack in places it didn’t need to.
You can generally stay in the house through this stage. Expect some noise, restricted access to parts of the yard where machinery or spoil sits, and doors that stick or swing differently for a few days as the frame settles into its new position — that resolves once the house is fully re-levelled.
Days 2–5 of the lift: new footings and stumps
Once the house is supported and raised, the old stumps come out and new footings are dug and poured. Where there’s side access, this is done by machine. Where there isn’t — common on the narrow, single-fronted blocks through Yarraville and Brunswick — every hole is hand-dug and the spoil barrowed out through the house, which is the main reason those jobs sit at the top of the cost range.
New stumps are set — concrete in almost every case; see the timber vs concrete comparison for why timber is rarely the right call today.
Final days: re-level and sign-off
The house is lowered onto the new stumps at the corrected level, bearers are fixed off, and the building surveyor carries out the final inspection against the permit. You should come away with permit documentation and a final certificate — keep both. That paperwork is what proves the work was done to code if you ever sell the house or need to make an insurance claim related to the subfloor.
What can push the timeline out
- Permit delays. Surveyor workload varies; a two-week estimate can stretch to four in busy periods.
- Heritage overlay planning approval, where required — add two to six weeks.
- Access. Hand-dig jobs simply take longer per stump than machine-dug ones.
- Discovering more than expected. A stump count based on a partial inspection sometimes grows once every stump is exposed. This is exactly why an accurate upfront count matters — see the cost guide for how to compare quotes properly.
Want a realistic timeline for your specific house before you commit to anything? Book a free on-site assessment — we’ll give you a stump count, a permit estimate, and a straight answer on how long it will actually take.
Common questions
Can I live in the house while it is being restumped?
In most cases yes, and most people do. The work happens underneath and outside the house, and the lift is gradual rather than dramatic. What you should expect is noise, dust, tradespeople under the floor, and doors and windows that behave oddly for a few days as the house comes back to level. Where you may need to move out is if the lift is large, if the house is being raised significantly, or if the subfloor work requires floorboards to be lifted in living areas. Your contractor should tell you which situation applies before work starts, not during.
What happens if the building surveyor fails an inspection?
Work on the affected stage stops until it is corrected and re-inspected. That is the system working as intended — the inspections exist at set stages precisely so a problem is found while it is still visible and cheap to fix, rather than after the house has been lowered onto it. A failed inspection is not a disaster and it is not unusual; what matters is that it is documented and rectified, and that the final certificate is issued at the end. A contractor who is reluctant to involve the surveyor is a much bigger warning sign than a contractor who has had a stage re-inspected.
What documents should I have at the end of a restump?
Three, and you should not make the final payment without them: the building permit itself, the certificate of final inspection from the registered building surveyor, and any engineering documentation for the stump layout and footing design. Keep them permanently. They are what proves the work was authorised and inspected when you come to sell, and their absence is exactly the problem buyers encounter with houses advertised as 'recently restumped' where nobody can produce the paperwork.
Think this is happening at your place?
We assess before we quote — floor levels measured, cracks mapped, and a straight answer on whether you need work at all. Read more aboutrestumping & reblocking, or get in touch.