Reblocking & Restumping in Broadmeadows, Gladstone Park, Westmeadows and Craigieburn

Broadmeadows and the Housing Commission years

Broadmeadows was planned in the 1950s as one of the Housing Commission of Victoria's biggest suburban estates, and building carried on well into the 1970s. Whole neighbourhoods went up to a few repeated designs: weatherboard family homes, semi-detached pairs and concrete-panel houses cast in a factory and craned into place. Nearly all of them had timber floors on timber stumps.

Half a century on, a lot of those homes are privately owned, renovated and lived in by second or third owners. The stumps, in many cases, are still the originals.

Gladstone Park and Westmeadows

Gladstone Park was laid out as a private estate from the late 1960s, and Westmeadows grew around the old village on the Moonee Ponds Creek during the same era. The typical house here is a 1970s brick veneer: face-brick skin outside, timber frame and timber floor inside. The skin sits on a concrete strip around the perimeter; the floor inside is carried on rows of stumps.

That split matters. When the stumps go, the floor sinks within the brick shell and gaps open at the skirting. When the strip footing moves, the brickwork cracks and windows start to bind. Plenty of houses show a little of both.

Craigieburn: older pockets and newer estates

Craigieburn's original township area and its 1970s and 1980s streets have a fair number of veneers and some weatherboards on stumps. The large estates built since the late 1990s are almost all slab-on-ground, which cannot be restumped. If you are in a newer Craigieburn home with cracking, the conversation is about the slab, drainage and possibly underpinning rather than stumps.

The clay under southern Hume

This is open basalt-plains country. The soil is a heavy, dark clay sitting on volcanic rock, and it is strongly reactive. Hot, dry summers and northerly winds pull a lot of moisture out of the ground here, so seasonal shrinkage tends to be more pronounced than closer to the city. A house that felt fine in spring can have noticeably sticking doors by March.

Creek corridors add local variation. The Moonee Ponds Creek winds through Westmeadows and Broadmeadows, and Malcolm Creek and the upper reaches of the Merri pass close to parts of Craigieburn. Ground near these lines, or beside drainage reserves, often stays wetter and moves differently from the higher streets.

What tends to go wrong

• Centre-of-house dips in Commission weatherboards, where the internal stump rows took the most load.
• Panel joints opening on concrete-panel houses as the perimeter footing shifts.
• Veneer cracks above windows and at external corners in Gladstone Park and Westmeadows.
• Floors pulling away from skirting inside veneers whose brick shell has stayed put.
• Carports, rumpus rooms and rear additions built later on shallow footings, now sitting lower than the house.

Concrete-panel houses need a gentler hand

Concrete-panel walls are heavy and stiff. They do not flex the way weatherboard does, so movement shows up as cracks at the joints rather than a gentle sag. These houses can be restumped and, where needed, underpinned, but the lift has to be staged carefully and the panels checked as the floor comes up. We look closely at the panel condition and the perimeter footing before quoting.

Veneers: inside and outside together

On a brick veneer, it is rarely enough to treat only one part. If we restump the floor without dealing with a dropped outer footing, the floor and walls finish at different heights. If we underpin the walls and ignore failed internal stumps, the floor stays low. We assess both and give you one combined scope, with engineering arranged for any underpinning.

Fibro sheeting

Some Broadmeadows homes have fibro cement sheeting on extensions, eaves or the lower walls. Product from that era may contain asbestos. We keep clear of it where possible and, if any sheeting has to be moved, recommend it is tested first.

Paperwork in Hume

Both restumping and underpinning are permit work. A private building surveyor issues the permit and inspects the footings. Heritage overlays rarely touch typical houses in these suburbs, so planning permits are uncommon. Hume does have rules about skips and materials on nature strips, and we look after that application.

How a job here usually runs

Inspection first, with level readings and a look at stumps, bearers, joists, perimeter footings and drainage. Then a written scope that explains the cause and the fix. On this clay, adjustable galvanised steel stumps are often worth the extra, because the floor can be fine-tuned later without new packers.

Start with an inspection

Whether you are in a Commission weatherboard in Broadmeadows, a veneer in Gladstone Park or Westmeadows, or an older Craigieburn home, the first step is free. Ring or send a request and we will book a time to get underneath.