Find a restumper in Tasmania

Restumping in Tasmania

Hobart and Launceston's weatherboard stock sits largely on timber stumps in damp ground - check soft and bouncy floors first, because in wet climates the stumps often rot before the house visibly moves.

Tasmanians use several words for the same job: restumping, house stumping, reblocking and re-levelling all describe replacing or re-setting the stumps under a timber-floored house and bringing the floor back to level. If a quote says reblocking and another says restumping, you are comparing like with like. Restumping vs reblocking vs underpinning settles the terminology.

Launceston, Devonport and the North-West

Launceston's older weatherboard and brick-veneer streets and the North-West coast towns of Devonport, Burnie and Ulverstone have the same timber-stump housing as Hobart and the same wet-ground rot problem, with fewer specialist firms based locally. Restumpers in the north commonly travel between towns, so expect quotes to include travel or a minimum job size, and ask whether the crew will stay on site until the house is lowered and fixed down rather than returning in stages. The same form on this page reaches firms servicing Launceston, Devonport and the North-West as well as Hobart: tell us the town and what the floors are doing.

Subsidence or failed stumps?

Not every moving house in Tasmania is a stump problem. A timber-floored house with a crawl space, sloping or bouncy floors and doors that stick needs its stumps checked. A brick-veneer or slab home with stepped cracks in the brickwork, cracks that widen over the seasons, or one corner dropping is showing signs of subsidence, which is an underpinning job priced per metre or per pile, not per stump. Sloping blocks, poor drainage and clay soils are the usual causes, and an engineer's report before the quotes is the only way to get comparable prices for underpinning.

House stumps in Tasmania: timber, concrete or steel

Most older Tasmanian houses stand on timber stumps, and in damp ground those are what fail. Replacement is usually concrete or galvanised steel, which do not rot, though heritage-listed streetscapes in Hobart and Launceston can constrain what is visible at the perimeter. The stump materials guide covers the like-for-like question, and when a partial restump is enough explains why a single wet corner does not always mean the whole house.

Checking a Tasmanian contractor

Structural work on stumps or footings generally needs a licensed builder in Tasmania, and licences can be checked through CBOS (Consumer, Building and Occupational Services). Ask whether the job needs a building permit through your council's permit authority, who obtains it, and whether an engineer has specified the stump or footing design. Get all three in writing before you sign. Choosing a contractor lists the rest of the questions.