House Restumping Cost in Australia 2026

If your doors have started sticking, your floors slope towards one corner, or cracks keep reappearing in the plaster, there's a fair chance the stumps under your house are on the way out. Restumping cost is the question every owner of an older Queenslander, Californian bungalow or weatherboard cottage eventually has to ask — and the honest answer is "it depends on what's under there".

This guide breaks down what Australians are actually paying to restump a house in 2026: per-stump prices for concrete, steel and timber, full-house versus partial jobs, why reblocking in Melbourne has its own price tag, and how restumping compares with underpinning. We'll cover Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide along the way.

Because no two subfloors are the same, the fastest way to a real number is to get eyes on your job. You can send your job details to a restumping specialist through Leadkit's underpinning and restumping tools — more on that below.

Last updated: November 2026.

Key takeaways

• Full-house restumping in Australia typically costs $8,000–$26,000 in 2026, with most standard 3-bedroom homes landing between $13,000 and $20,000.
• Per stump, expect roughly $180–$640 installed — concrete stumps sit at the cheaper end, galvanised steel at the dearer end.
• Partial restumping (5–10 stumps) runs about $2,200–$5,900, which is why catching the problem early saves serious money.
• Permits, engineering and soil reports add $1,250–$4,000 on top in most states — they're rarely included in the headline quote.
• Restumping is almost always cheaper than underpinning, which starts around $1,500 per pier and climbs fast — so get the diagnosis right before you spend.

What's in this guide

• What is restumping (and is reblocking the same thing)?
• How much does restumping cost in Australia in 2026?
• Concrete stumps cost vs steel vs timber — which should you choose?
• How much does reblocking cost in Melbourne?
• What drives your restumping cost up or down?
• Restumping vs underpinning — which one do you actually need?
• How do you know your house needs restumping?
• Permits, engineering and picking the right tradie
• Frequently asked questions
• Final tips before you sign anything

What is restumping (and is reblocking the same thing)?

Restumping is the replacement of the stumps — the short posts that hold a house off the ground — when they rot, sink or get eaten out by termites. Reblocking is the same job; it's simply the Victorian word for it, which is why you'll hear "reblocking" around Melbourne and "restumping" nearly everywhere else.

The job itself is straightforward to describe and brutal to do: the crew jacks the house up section by section, pulls the failed stumps, digs new footing holes, sets new stumps (usually concrete or galvanised steel), then packs and levels the bearers so the floor sits flat again. Expect terms like sole plates (the pad a stump bears on), packers (the shims used to fine-level bearers onto the new stumps) and ant caps (the metal termite barriers fitted on top of each stump) to come up in your quotes.

Most houses that need restumping were built before the 1970s on timber stumps with a design life of 15–80 years depending on timber species and soil moisture. If you own a period weatherboard in Melbourne's inner north, a Queenslander in Brisbane or an old cottage in Fremantle, stumps are a when, not an if.

How much does restumping cost in Australia in 2026?

Restumping a house in Australia costs roughly $8,000–$26,000 for a full restump in 2026, or about $180–$640 per stump installed, depending on the stump material, access under the house and your soil. Partial jobs replacing 5–10 stumps typically cost $2,200–$5,900.

Here's how the numbers break down:

Where these numbers come from: Leadkit's restumping tool is an enquiry form, not a pricing engine — structural work genuinely can't be priced sight-unseen — so the ranges above are compiled from published Australian market cost guides current in 2026, not from Leadkit rate data. We've rounded them and cross-checked them across capital cities.

This is a price indication only. Your tradie will confirm the final price after assessing the job.

One more planning note: quotes are usually expressed per stump plus extras, so the first thing to find out is how many stumps your house has. A typical 12 m × 10 m weatherboard sits on 40–60 stumps at roughly 1.5–1.8 m centres — which is why "only" $300 a stump still adds up to a five-figure job.

Concrete stumps cost vs steel vs timber — which should you choose?

Concrete stumps cost about $180–$505 each installed in 2026 and are the default replacement material in most of Australia. They're cheap, strong, and immune to rot and termites, which is exactly what killed the stumps you're replacing.

Your three realistic options:

• Precast reinforced concrete — $180–$505 per stump. The workhorse. Handles standard low-set homes without fuss. The only real knock is that concrete can spall ("concrete cancer") after many decades if the reinforcing steel rusts.
• Galvanised or adjustable steel — $240–$670 per stump. The premium option. Adjustable heads let a tradie re-level the floor later with a spanner instead of a house jack — worth real money on reactive clay sites that move seasonally.
• Treated hardwood — $160–$400 per stump. Mostly chosen for heritage work where councils want like-for-like, or where owners want the period look. Even treated timber has a shorter life than concrete or steel in wet ground.

Lead with concrete unless your engineer recommends otherwise. If your site sits on highly reactive clay — class H or E under AS 2870, the Australian standard that classifies residential sites by how much the soil swells and shrinks — adjustable steel stumps often pay for themselves at the first re-level.

Not sure what's under your place? A pre-purchase building inspection picks up failing stumps before you buy — far cheaper than discovering them after settlement.

How much does reblocking cost in Melbourne?

Reblocking a house in Melbourne typically costs $8,400–$27,300 in 2026, with an average full reblock around $18,000–$19,000. Melbourne is the restumping capital of Australia — its enormous stock of pre-war weatherboards and Californian bungalows on timber stumps, sitting on some of the country's most reactive clay soils, keeps reblocking crews busy year-round.

Melbourne per-stump prices in 2026 run roughly $190–$505 for precast concrete, $250–$670 for galvanised or adjustable steel, and $170–$420 for treated hardwood. Published guides have Melbourne prices up around 4–5% over the past year, roughly tracking broader construction cost inflation.

Around the rest of the country:

• Geelong sits about 7% under Melbourne — roughly $7,500–$24,000 for a full job.
• Brisbane concrete stumps run about $180–$480 each; the city's high-set Queenslanders can be cheaper per stump thanks to generous under-house access, but need more stumps.
• Perth and Adelaide both price concrete at roughly $190–$505 per stump — similar to Melbourne, with Adelaide jobs carrying their own approval pathway (more below).
• Sydney has fewer stumped houses overall, but prices for comparable work sit at or above Melbourne's, as with most Sydney trades.

In Victoria, reblocking is building work that requires a building permit and a registered building practitioner — check any contractor's registration with the Victorian Building Authority before you sign.

What drives your restumping cost up or down?

Access under the house is the single biggest cost driver in restumping — a crew that can crawl and work freely moves several times faster than one digging by hand in a 400 mm gap. Across the jobs homeowners describe, the price swing between an easy site and a nightmare one can be 50% or more for the same stump count.

The big levers:

• Clearance and access. High-set Queenslanders are a dream; low-slung villas where every hole is dug by hand are not. Tight side access that stops a mini-excavator or bobcat getting in adds labour days.
• Number of stumps that have actually failed. A spot restump of one rotten corner is a $2,000–$6,000 job; leave it until the bearers sag and you're paying for the lot.
• Soil class and footing depth. Reactive clay (AS 2870 class M/H/E) means deeper, wider footings and sometimes engineered pads — more digging, more concrete.
• Re-levelling extent. Lifting a house that's sunk 60–80 mm on one side without cracking every cornice takes staged jacking over days, not hours.
• What breaks on the way up. Budget a contingency for plumbing joints, plaster cracks and re-aligning doors — a 10% buffer is sensible on any house over 80 years old.
• Permits and paperwork. Allow $1,250–$4,000 for the building permit, soil report and structural engineering depending on your state.

From our side of the fence: restumping is one of the four issue types homeowners can flag on Leadkit's underpinning and restumping enquiry form (alongside cracking walls, sinking floors and foundation repair), and the form asks for the property's approximate age, suburb and up to five photos before any tradie calls back — because in structural work, a price quoted without seeing the subfloor isn't worth the text message it arrived in. Leadkit builds the quote and enquiry tools these contractors run on their own websites, so that's our vantage point: lead forms, not crawl spaces.

Want a specialist to look at your job? Send your details through the free restumping quote form — takes two minutes, and photos of the subfloor get you a sharper price, faster.

Restumping vs underpinning — which one do you actually need?

Restumping replaces the stumps under a timber-floored house; underpinning strengthens or deepens the footings under a house on a concrete slab or strip footings. They fix different failures, and underpinning is usually the much more expensive of the two — individual piers start around $1,500–$4,500 each, and whole-of-house underpinning can run $40,000 or more.

The quick diagnostic:

This distinction matters because misdiagnosis is expensive in both directions. Underpinning a house whose real problem was ten termite-eaten stumps wastes tens of thousands; restumping onto failed footings just moves the problem a metre down. A structural engineer's report ($600–$1,500 on its own) is cheap insurance before either job.

We've covered the slab-house side of this in detail in our underpinning cost guide for Australia — if your home sits on a slab, start there.

Any figures above are a price indication only. Your tradie will confirm the final price after assessing the job.

How do you know your house needs restumping?

The classic signs of failed stumps are sloping or spongy floors, doors and windows that stick or swing open on their own, cracks that reappear after patching, and gaps opening between skirting boards and the floor. Outside, look for the house visibly leaning, or weatherboards pulling out of line along one wall.

The definitive check costs nothing: get under the house with a torch and a screwdriver.

1. Probe timber stumps at ground level. If the screwdriver sinks in easily, the stump has rotted from the base — the damage is usually worst just below the soil line where you can't see it.
2. Look for crushed or tilting stumps. A stump that's sunk pulls its bearer down with it; you'll often see a visible gap between a bearer and a neighbouring stump that's now carrying nothing.
3. Check the ant caps. Mud tunnels over the caps mean termites have found a way up — which puts the bearers and joists at risk too, not just the stumps.
4. Scan the bearers for sag. Sight along them with the torch. A dip over one stump is a spot repair; a wave along the whole line is a full restump.

If you're buying rather than owning, don't rely on your torch: subfloor condition is core scope in a professional inspection, and stumps are among the most common major defects flagged in older homes. Budget for the inspection — it's a rounding error against a $20,000 restump you didn't price into your offer.

Permits, engineering and picking the right tradie

In most states, restumping is regulated building work — it needs a permit, an engineer's input and a properly licensed contractor, and skipping any of the three can void your insurance and poison your resale.

What that means state by state:

• Victoria: reblocking requires a building permit and must be carried out (or supervised) by a building practitioner registered with the Victorian Building Authority. Protection of adjoining property and re-levelling tolerances are part of the permit scope.
• Queensland: restumping is licensed work — check the contractor holds the right licence class with the QBCC, and remember Queensland's home warranty scheme applies to residential structural work over the threshold.
• NSW: residential building work over $5,000 requires a written contract and a licensed builder; over $20,000, Home Building Compensation cover kicks in. Verify licences through NSW Fair Trading.
• South Australia: structural restumping and underpinning need Building Rules Consent through the PlanSA portal, supported by a structural engineer's footing design and a soil classification — allow $1,100–$3,500 for the engineering package.

Beyond the paperwork, three practical filters separate good restumpers from cowboys: they insist on getting under the house (or seeing photos) before pricing, they quote per stump with the stump count and material written down, and they're happy to name the engineer who'll sign off the levels. Anyone offering a firm sight-unseen price for structural work is guessing with your money.

Frequently asked questions

Q: How much does it cost to restump a house in Australia?

A: A full-house restump costs roughly $8,000–$26,000 in Australia in 2026, with most standard 3–4 bedroom homes landing between $13,000 and $20,000. Per stump, expect about $180–$505 for concrete and $240–$670 for galvanised steel, installed. Partial restumps of 5–10 stumps run around $2,200–$5,900. Add $1,250–$4,000 for permits, engineering and a soil report, which are usually quoted separately. These figures are compiled from published Australian market guides — your access, soil and stump count will move the number, so treat them as a planning range, not a promise.

Q: Is reblocking the same as restumping?

A: Yes — reblocking and restumping are the same job. "Reblocking" is the term used in Victoria (the old stumps were called blocks), while the rest of Australia says "restumping". Either way it means jacking the house, replacing the failed stumps with new concrete or steel ones, and re-levelling the floor. If you're comparing quotes across Melbourne contractors, don't be thrown by the two words: a reblocking cost in Melbourne is simply a Melbourne restumping cost, and the $8,400–$27,300 full-house range covers both labels.

Q: How do I know if my house needs restumping or just a re-level?

A: If the stumps themselves are sound but the house has settled, a re-level — adjusting packers or stump heads to bring the floor back to flat — may be all you need, and it costs a fraction of a restump. If stumps are rotten, termite-eaten, crushed or sunk, re-levelling onto them is wasted money. The screwdriver test at ground level settles it: soft timber means replacement. A building inspection or a structural engineer's report will tell you which side of the line your house is on before you commit to either job.

Q: Do I need a permit to restump my house?

A: In most Australian states, yes. Victoria requires a building permit and a VBA-registered practitioner for reblocking. South Australia requires Building Rules Consent with an engineer's design. Queensland requires a QBCC-licensed contractor, and NSW requires a licensed builder with a written contract over $5,000. A legitimate restumping contractor arranges the permit as part of the job and itemises it in the quote — if a quote is silent on permits and engineering, ask why before you sign, because retrofitting approval after unpermitted structural work is painful and expensive.

Q: Can you live in the house while it's being restumped?

A: Usually, yes — most full restumps take one to two weeks and families commonly stay put. The crew works under the house section by section, and the lift at any one time is measured in millimetres. Expect some disruption: services like plumbing and gas may be disconnected briefly during jacking, doors can stick mid-job, and hairline plaster cracks often appear as the house comes back to level. If the house needs a large lift (60 mm or more) or the subfloor requires excavation under living areas, your contractor may recommend moving out for a few days.

Q: Are concrete or steel stumps better?

A: Concrete stumps are the better default for most homes — cheaper at $180–$505 installed, rot-proof and termite-proof. Steel stumps at $240–$670 earn their premium on reactive clay sites because adjustable heads make future re-levelling a spanner job instead of a jacking job, and they suit tight subfloors where their smaller footing helps. Timber only makes sense for heritage façades where like-for-like matters. Your engineer's soil classification is the tiebreaker: on a stable site, take concrete and save; on class H or E clay, steel's adjustability usually pays for itself.

Q: Does home insurance cover restumping?

A: Generally no. Stump failure from rot, termites, soil movement or simple age is classed as gradual deterioration, which home insurance policies exclude — restumping is treated as maintenance, the owner's cost. Insurance may respond where stump damage results from a listed insured event, like flood damage where flood cover applies. Check your PDS rather than assuming either way. The practical takeaway: because no policy is coming to the rescue, catching failure early matters — a $3,000 spot restump this year beats a $20,000 full restump plus replastering in five years.

Q: How long does restumping take?

A: A partial restump of 5–10 stumps typically takes 1–3 days. A full restump of a standard 3-bedroom home usually runs 1–2 weeks on a site with decent access, and longer where holes must be hand-dug or the house needs staged lifting to come back to level gently. Add lead time before the crew arrives: the soil report, engineering and building permit can take 2–6 weeks depending on your state and council. If you're sequencing a bigger project — say restumping before a house extension — lock the restump in first, since everything above it depends on a level, sound subfloor.

Final tips before you sign anything

Restumping cost comes down to three numbers: how many stumps, what they're made of, and how hard they are to get at. Pin those down and the quotes start making sense. In 2026, that means budgeting $8,000–$26,000 for a full job on a typical Australian home, $2,200–$5,900 for spot repairs, and $1,250–$4,000 for the paperwork around it.

Before you commit:

• Get three quotes, itemised per stump — same stump count, same material, same scope, or you're comparing apples with house bricks.
• Pay for the engineer first. The soil classification and footing design protect you from both under-building and over-quoting.
• Check the licence — VBA registration in Victoria, QBCC in Queensland, Fair Trading licence in NSW.
• Photograph everything under the house before work starts. It keeps the "that crack was already there" conversations short.
• Fix the water problem too. If poor drainage or a leaking pipe sank the old stumps, the new ones inherit the same enemy.

All prices in this guide are indications only, inc. GST unless noted. Your tradie will confirm the final price after assessing the job.

Ready to find out what your job will actually cost? Send your job details through the free restumping and underpinning quote form — add photos of your subfloor and a local specialist comes back with a real price. Takes two minutes, no obligation.