Restumping help

**Grahame Collins** · 27th January 2006, 07:50 PM

I have had my house in Mackay restumped at the end of 1994. The contractor hired unskilled labour and did not supervise them nearly enough. Though the contract read to level and re stump the house and the end job was that the flooring was and still is not truly level. In fact the finished job left an inch of airgap above a post.
They had to be recalled via the building authority to fix that one. The Duragal stumps were under size in wall thickness. He also used unwashed salty sand in the concrete.This has caused a failure of the galvinising with corrosion below the concrete level.
The house is only 600mm or thereabouts off the ground.This bloke was supposed to be a proffessional builder but allowed his unskilled workers to work unsupervised 95% of the time. The straps that are meant to connect the external concrete posts to the bearers were black steel painted silver-not galvinised.
They failed to realise that the posts need to be placed far enough back to avoid the drip line off the walls. Water would sit on the ant caps and be sucked up by the bearers causing the originals to rot.This alone cost me $3500 to fix on top of the restumping cost of $6000. Before you commit to a job get this sort of stuff sorted out byadvice from a competent building inspector and then get it written into the contract.
I hope this helps you aunderstand what to avoid at least.
Cheers
Grahame

**Justin** · 28th January 2006, 01:43 PM

We had our place in E.Bentleigh done many years ago, from memory the company name was D.J Baker & Sons (or something similar). Very happy with their workmanship.

Justin.

**Ivan in Oz** · 28th January 2006, 02:04 PM

> I will keep people up to date with events and pitfalls I go through. Cheers.

ArrHHH!!!!
It's the other Forum with the "Without Pictures it's useless" Smilie

We need Pics

If you do do it yourself,
Talk to your local building Inspector; if they're anything like the one out here.
Most helpfull,
and he told me where to go!!!!:eek:
For the Gal Stumps, and who to get 'other' help from
The other thing I did was to ask him how HE would do it/like it done................

Suck

**some_one** · 3rd February 2006, 11:47 AM

The work is going to start very soon and as it goes ahead I will try to get as many pictures and will try to make a before and after type of presentaion. Cheers.

**some_one** · 10th February 2006, 12:57 PM

First stage of work has begun and sand around the outside of the property has been removed. It was necessary to remove the clading and the job was done OK....ish as there was a lot of stuff from the clading left around and I still have to ring the people to get it fixed. I asked them to be careful with the piping and other stuff around the house but the workers were not exactly careful. humm....work has just begun......let the fun begin....:eek:

**tcns** · 10th February 2006, 01:33 PM

This is sounding like a great thread. I will be very interested in all the photos you can possilby get I am looking at restumping under my house in Brisbane and using longer steel sumps, increasing the spans and then excavating around and under the house to pick her up to legal height

Any photos would be fantastic

Thanks
Tom

**some_one** · 13th February 2006, 10:24 PM

Need to know from experienced people if I can put pictures on this thread? Lot of people have asked for pictures and my computer is getting flooded with them and my curiosity is increasing day by day. It will be very informative. I want to create some thing here that a person like me was looking for to get some starting point. It should be informative so feed back and requests from people will be most welcome, and I will do my best to do as much as possible.:confused:

**some_one** · 14th February 2006, 10:28 PM

Guys work on day one was alright and some stumps have been removed. Now can anyone suggest some good use of the rotten or some what rotten stumps apart from burning them? Also there will have to be new base boards installed. Now what type of protective coat of paint or some thing can be applied to save the wooden boards from rotting when in contact with damp soil. Thanks. Still waiting on photo questions??
Cheers..

**some_one** · 19th February 2006, 03:20 PM

Jacks will be removed very soon and all the hard work will come to light then. I have one advice for people getting this work done. Make sure you check with the mob doing relevelling how many jacks they will be using as in my case the guy just kept pumping one jack which meant that one corner came up more than the other and then other corner to get it up, this caused the house to come up unevenly and caused a few CRACKS. If they had raised slowly and at many more points than they had it would have been a different outcome for sure. Any comments? But it seems to have gone alright over all but we will find out exact details when jacks come off. Wait and watch.

:eek:

**some_one** · 19th February 2006, 03:27 PM

I have decided to make some use of the not so rotten and some what rotten stumps. I am looking for ideas?? APART FROM GREAT BURNING WOOD... As the guys digging the stumps said you cannot get more mature and seasoned wood than this (The base plate). many of then were in perfect good nick. Apparently there has been some water dampness under the house which has kept the stumps under soil perfectly wet and safe. Wood seasoning?? The only damage was where the stumps went through constant cycle of wet and dry wet and dry ......that is where the rotting has occurred. Humm

**some_one** · 25th February 2006, 11:47 AM

With my first and hopefully last project involving restumping there is a lot of good advice that I can give out to anyone looking for help, so feel free to ask! Also I will try to put up these points here so that it is easier for everyone. But it will be after the plaster patch work is done and paint work is done.
Cheers

**Metal Head** · 27th February 2006, 10:18 PM

We had our 3 bedroom weatherboard done 6 months ago by a local company. They at the time claimed that they were members of HIA and had it on their quote sheet as well as their business card. However, a couple of months ago I had to reduce the height on 3 of the internal doors as they were either sticking and even worse they would not even close:mad:. So I kindly asked them to come out and have a look. After coming around and having had a look they said that they would put extra stumps under in the location of where the (problem) doors were. They said they would be around the following day. Well after numerous calls over the following 3 week period they refused to answer the phone so I contacted HIA to see what recourse I could take. They told me nothing could be done as they were not members of the organization since 2002. However, they would would prosecute them for having used their logo falsely on their quote and business card. So I contacted a couple of companies who belong to the master builders association who said that $2.500 would be the starting point on coming out to check the level of the property. Thus this is the reason I am keen to check it out myself!!.

Cheers
MH

**Metal Head** · 27th February 2006, 10:26 PM

Btw, what I forgot to mention was that the crowd who did ours did not loosen off any of the screws on outside fittings e.g. the gas water tank. As a result we have got several bends in the copper water pipes and downpipes broken away at the joints. The images I have supplied may help others understand some of the things that have been said.

Cheers
MH

**some_one** · 28th February 2006, 02:57 PM

My friend what is the wood doing on top of the stump and why have you used that piece of cement on top of the other stump? Is that for the thing you just mentioned? And also I can see from the pictures that the level of the house will be lower in side the stumps as you have used cement on the outside, how do you manage to get any excess water that may enter the ground below and doesn't it affect the stumps? I too yet have to do some thing about the new boards as the garden is heigher that the inner level of the stump, and I will have to put in sand to make it look good outside but I too will get some pictures here and will surely be able to explain to you better. By the way as I have mentioned before the guys who did work at my place could have done a better job while lifting but seemed to be runnig out of time before the concrete pump came so we have ended up with more cracks than we should have. BETTER LATE THAN SORRY.......who said that...:eek:

**Metal Head** · 28th February 2006, 05:38 PM

Hi some_one,

I will answer your questions/queries like this

My friend what is the wood doing on top of the stump and why have you used that piece of cement on top of the other stump?

I'm sorry but I don't quite see what you are getting at

. I didn't do the job a building practioner did it:eek:. The cement sheet is used as a packer - I had this confirmed by the building consultant we hired to do a report on the house and outside features.

And also I can see from the pictures that the level of the house will be lower in side the stumps as you have used cement on the outside

I apologize once again but I didn't get the jist of what you were saying but then again I am a POMMIE

.

how do you manage to get any excess water that may enter the ground below and doesn't it affect the stumps?

Are most weatherboards constructed the same with the ground underneath the house being lower than any pathway or surrounding ground?. After these pictures were taken the contractors put treated pine boards around the bottom to fill in the gap.

I too yet have to do some thing about the new boards as the garden is heigher that the inner level of the stump, and I will have to put in sand to make it look good outside but I too will get some pictures here and will surely be able to explain to you better. By the way as I have mentioned before the guys who did work at my place could have done a better job while lifting but seemed to be runnig out of time before the concrete pump came so we have ended up with more cracks than we should have. BETTER LATE THAN SORRY.......who said that...:eek:

Cheers
Metal Head

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