Restumping in Warragul for houses that have started to lean.
Reblocking, relevelling and underpinning for the weatherboards, bungalows and brick veneers of Warragul, Drouin, Trafalgar, Yarragon and the hills behind them.
Registered builders, a building permit on every job, and stumps chosen for a metre of rain a year and the acid red soil it falls on.
Tell us what the house is doing
The town, what the house sits on if you know, and what you have noticed: a floor that runs downhill to one wall, a door that has to be lifted to shut, a crack that opens up in March and closes again in August. A photo of the worst room and one of the outside of the house is enough to begin with. If you can get a torch under the floor, a photo of a stump or two tells us most of the rest.
If the house is being sold, a building report has flagged the stumps, or a renovation is waiting on it, say so. It changes what gets lodged first.
Request a quote
A house on stumps is only as level as the worst stump under it.
Many of the older houses between Drouin and Trafalgar sit on timber stumps that went into the ground when the railway towns were built, or in the post-war years when Warragul, Drouin and Trafalgar grew along the line. The stumps were red gum or messmate, driven or set into holes in the clay, and they have been standing in damp ground for sixty to a hundred winters. Eventually one rots through at ground level, the bearer above it drops, and the house follows: the floor tilts, the doors bind, the plaster cracks at the corners of the frames.
Restumping, or reblocking as Victorians say, replaces those stumps with concrete or galvanised steel and brings the floor back to level while it is done. It is building work under the Building Act, it needs a building permit from a registered building surveyor, and the builder has to be registered with the Building and Plumbing Commission regardless of what the job costs. In Baw Baw Shire it usually also needs a council asset protection permit before the first barrow goes across the nature strip.
The pages here cover both halves: the trade, and the rules that sit around it in this shire.
Permits and registration for restumping in Baw Baw, in plain English
Eight ways a West Gippsland house asks for new stumps
Most of them show up inside long before anyone looks underneath.
- The floor runs downhillA marble rolls to the same wall in every room. The hallway in a Drouin weatherboard dips toward the kitchen, where the wet area and the worst drainage usually are.
- Doors that need a shoulderA door that shut in summer has to be lifted to close by August. The frame has gone out of square because the stump under that corner has dropped.
- Cracks at the corners of framesDiagonal cracks in the plaster running from the top corner of a door or window to the cornice. They open in late summer and close after the winter rain on reactive ground.
- A gap under the skirtingThe skirting board stays where the wall is and the floor drops away from it. Daylight under a skirting in Trafalgar is a stump, not a carpenter.
- A building report said soA pre-purchase inspection on a house in Warragul or Yarragon found rotten stumps, packing over 25 mm, or a bearer sitting on nothing. The sale is waiting on a price to fix it.
- The termite man found themThe whole of Baw Baw Shire is deemed termite prone. A pest inspection that finds galleries in the stumps usually finds them in the bearers too.
- A renovation is waitingThe builder will not put a new kitchen or a second storey on a floor that is not level, and the building surveyor will not sign off the extension on stumps that have failed.
- The brick house is crackingA 1970s brick veneer in Drouin or Warragul with a stepped crack through the mortar. That is footings moving, not stumps, and it is underpinning rather than restumping.
Restumping and underpinning services in Warragul
Each page explains what the work involves, which rules apply to it, and what tends to drive the price.
Reblocking & restumping
Replacing failed timber stumps under a whole house with concrete or steel, and bringing the floor back to level.
Read more →Underpinning
Stabilising a brick veneer or slab home whose footings have dropped on West Gippsland clay.
Read more →House relevelling
Jacking and packing a house that has sagged on stumps that are still sound, without a full restump.
Read more →Partial restumping & stump replacement
Replacing the handful of stumps that have failed when the rest of the subfloor is still good.
Read more →Steel vs concrete stumps
Which stump suits a wet, acidic West Gippsland subfloor, and what each one costs you later.
Read more →Bearer & joist repairs
Replacing rotted, sagging or termite-eaten bearers and joists while the stumps are being done.
Read more →Subfloor ventilation & drainage
Vents, agricultural drains and regrading so a restumped house stays dry under the floor.
Read more →What it costs
What moves the price of restumping in West Gippsland, and the seven things a quote should spell out.
Read more →Why restumping here is its own job
Four things about this corner of Victoria decide how long stumps last and what should replace them.
The rain. The Bureau of Meteorology's long record at Ellinbank, near Warragul, averages 1,100 mm a year over 132 rain days, with July, August and September each over 110 mm. The subfloor of an old house never properly dries between May and October. Timber stumps rot at the ground line, and a subfloor with no vents and a garden bed against the wall rots them faster.
The red soil. The rolling hills around Warragul, Neerim and Thorpdale are red ferrosols, deep volcanic soils that grow the district's potatoes and are moderately to strongly acidic. Acid soil is hard on untreated timber and, over decades, on unprotected steel. On the flats toward the Moe River the ground is different again: the old Moe Swamp, drained in the 1880s, wet through winter and, where it is clay, liable to move with the seasons.
The housing. Warragul, Drouin and Trafalgar grew with the railway from 1878 and again after the war, and much of that older housing is weatherboard on timber stumps. Since 2010 the two big towns have grown fast, Warragul by 26 per cent between the 2016 and 2021 censuses, and the new estates are mostly slab-on-ground, which brings a different problem: slab edges dropping where fill or wet ground settles, which is underpinning, not stumps.
The termites. Baw Baw Shire Council's property information certificate states that the whole of the shire is deemed termite prone. New stumps go in with ant caps, and the inspection before quoting looks at the bearers as closely as the stumps.
Practical consequence: the cheapest quote on paper is usually the one that has not looked at the bearers, has not priced the permit, and is putting untreated timber back into ground that has just finished eating the last lot.
Towns and districts covered:
What happens on a Warragul restump
Six steps. The first three happen before anyone crawls under the house with a jack.
Photos, the town and a look underneath
What the house is doing inside, what it sits on, and how wet it is under the floor. A subfloor inspection with a torch, a moisture meter and a long level finds which stumps have gone and whether the bearers and joists above them are still sound. A price range follows.
Quote, contract and insurance
A written quote naming the number of stumps, the stump type, the levelling, any bearer or joist work, and the permit. Over $10,000 it becomes a major domestic building contract; over $20,000 the builder takes out Home Warranty insurance before work starts.
Building permit and asset protection
The registered building surveyor issues the building permit, having checked the overlays on the property. Baw Baw Shire's asset protection permit is lodged so the nature strip and footpath are covered before materials are delivered.
Jack, dig, set
Baseboards come off. The house is lifted a few millimetres at a time on hydraulic jacks, old stumps are cut out, new holes are dug below the moisture line, and concrete or galvanised steel stumps are set plumb on a string line with ant caps on top.
Level and pack
A laser level runs the bearers back to true. Steel shims or adjustable heads take up the last few millimetres. Rotted bearers and joists found on the way are replaced in hardwood while the floor is accessible.
Vents, drainage, sign-off
Subfloor vents go back in or get added, the ground under the house is graded so water runs out rather than in, baseboards go back on, and the building surveyor's final inspection closes the permit.
One permit, one register, two contract thresholds
Restumping in Victoria is building work. The Building and Plumbing Commission's practice note on when a permit is required lists repair and maintenance as exempt only where the work does not include underpinning or the replacement of footings, and new stumps are new footings. So every restump needs a building permit from a private registered building surveyor, and in Baw Baw Shire the council does not issue them, it checks that they exist.
The builder has to be registered with the Commission, and for restumping that applies at any job value, not only above the $10,000 line that applies to other domestic work. Over $10,000 the Domestic Building Contracts Act requires a written major domestic building contract; over $20,000 the builder must take out Home Warranty insurance, which replaced the old $16,000 domestic building insurance threshold on 1 July 2026.
Around that sit the council's rules: an asset protection permit under the Community Local Law before materials land on the nature strip, report and consent if the house is on flood-prone land or over an easement, and a check with council's planners if a heritage overlay covers the property, because the shire's heritage exemptions do not mention restumping.
Heritage, flood and overlays in Warragul and Drouin
What a restumper cannot fix
A restumper cannot make clay stop moving, cannot dry out a subfloor that the block's drainage keeps filling, and cannot sign off the building permit, because that is the building surveyor's job. A restumper also cannot tell you from the street whether the bearers are sound, cannot stop termites coming back to a house with no barrier, and cannot promise a 1970s brick veneer will stop cracking, because that is footings and an engineer, not stumps. Those belong to the drainer, the surveyor, the pest controller and the engineer, in that order.
Check the current rules before you rely on this
This page summarises how restumping is approved and regulated in Victoria for Baw Baw Shire property owners. It describes the rules in general terms as they stood in October 2026. Standards, forms, thresholds and fines change.
The authoritative sources are Building and Plumbing Commission practice note BP-01, when is a building permit required, Building and Plumbing Commission (as the VBA) on registration being required for restumping and reblocking at any value, Consumer Affairs Victoria, preparing a major domestic building contract, Baw Baw Shire Council on building permits and Baw Baw Shire Council on asset protection, nature strips and road reserves. Where anything here differs from those sources, they are right and we are not.
We are not building surveyors, engineers, planners or lawyers. For what applies to your house, ask a registered building surveyor or ring Baw Baw Shire Council on 03 5624 2411.
Accurate at the time of writing, October 2026. Always check the source before relying on it.
What moves the price of a restump
Restumping is priced per stump and then adjusted for everything that makes a stump harder to get to or more likely to be joined by other work. In West Gippsland the state of the bearers and the wetness of the ground move the number more than the size of the house does.
| Factor | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Stump count | A 1920s bungalow on a tight 1.2 metre grid has far more stumps than a 1960s house on bearers at 1.8 metres. The count sets the base. |
| Clearance | A house 250 mm off the ground in Yarragon is dug by hand lying down. One 700 mm up on a sloping block in Neerim South is a different day's work. |
| Stump type | Precast concrete is the common choice. Galvanised adjustable steel costs more per stump but can be relevelled later with a spanner. |
| Ground | Deep red loam digs easily. The wet ground on the flats does not, and holes may need to be deeper and footings wider. |
| Bearers and joists | Rotted or termite-eaten timber above the stumps is replaced while the floor is up. On an old house with no vents it is often the bigger line. |
| Permit and permits | The building surveyor's fee for the building permit, the council asset protection permit, and any report and consent for flood-prone land. |
| Access | Can a small excavator get down the side, or does every barrow of spoil go out through the gate by hand. |
| Drainage | Vents, an agricultural drain and regrading the ground under the house, so the new stumps do not sit in the water the old ones rotted in. |
When you compare quotes, check whether each one names the number of stumps and their type, includes the building permit, says what happens if bearers are found to be rotten, and states who is lodging the asset protection permit.
Things West Gippsland home owners ask
Do I need a building permit to restump a house in Warragul?
Yes. Restumping and reblocking are building work under Victoria's Building Act 1993, and the Building Regulations exemption for repairs does not cover underpinning or replacing footings, which is what new stumps are. The permit comes from a private registered building surveyor, not from the council: Baw Baw Shire has not issued building permits since 1997. Most building permits in the shire also need a council asset protection permit before work starts.
Does the restumper have to be registered?
Yes, whatever the job is worth. Victoria's general registration threshold for domestic builders is $10,000, but the Building and Plumbing Commission requires anyone in the business of restumping or reblocking a home to be registered regardless of the cost of the work. Ask for the registration number with the quote and check it on the Commission's practitioner register.
How do I know if my house needs restumping or just relevelling?
By what the stumps look like, not what the floor feels like. A floor that slopes, doors that stick and cracks above the door frames tell you the house has moved. Whether it needs new stumps or can be jacked back up on the ones it has depends on whether those stumps are rotten, leaning or still sound. A subfloor inspection with a torch and a moisture meter answers that in an hour, and in West Gippsland's wet subfloors the answer is more often rot than it would be further north.
Why does this area go through stumps?
Water. Warragul gets around a metre of rain a year, the winters are long and the ground under an old weatherboard stays damp from May to October. Timber stumps rot from the ground line down, and the red volcanic soils on the hills are acidic enough to shorten the life of untreated timber and even steel. Add the flats that stay wet all winter and can move with the seasons, and the whole of Baw Baw Shire being deemed termite prone, and a 1920s house on its original stumps is doing well to have lasted this long.
What does restumping cost in Warragul?
It depends on how many stumps, how high the house sits, what the new stumps are made of, how wet and how reactive the ground is, and whether bearers and joists need replacing while the floor is up. A contract over $10,000 has to be a written major domestic building contract, and work over $20,000 has to carry Home Warranty insurance taken out by the builder. The cost guide on this site goes through what moves the price and what a quote should name so two quotes can be compared.
Can we stay in the house while it is restumped?
Usually, yes. The work happens under the floor and the house is lifted a few millimetres at a time. Expect noise, some dust, doors that temporarily stick or free up, and a day or two when the floor in one part of the house is up if bearers are being replaced. If the whole house is being raised, which is a different job, moving out for a short period is more common.
Which towns do you cover?
Warragul and the whole of Baw Baw Shire: Drouin, Trafalgar, Yarragon, Darnum, Nilma, Neerim South, Rokeby, Willow Grove, Thorpdale, Buln Buln, Ellinbank, Lardner and the farms between, plus Longwarry at the shire's western edge and Bunyip and Garfield across the boundary in Cardinia. Each town has its own page because the ground, the housing and in Cardinia's case the council rules are different.
Does a restumped house need a planning permit as well?
Not normally. A building permit covers the work. A planning permit only comes into it if the property is in a heritage overlay, which applies to parts of central Warragul, Princes Way in Drouin, Contingent Street in Trafalgar and the Thorpdale township, or if the work is caught by a flood or erosion overlay. The overlays page explains how to check, and the building surveyor will ask the question before issuing the permit.
Send a few photos and a town
The worst room, the outside of the house, and if you can get under the floor, a stump or two. That is usually enough for a price range before anyone visits.