DIY restumping vs hiring a professional.
We are not going to tell you it is impossible, because it is not. We are going to tell you what the Victorian rules actually require, what you would really save once the permit and engineering are paid for either way, and the one thing that catches nearly every owner-builder: the sale.
You can, as a registered owner-builder.
Only as a registered owner-builder, and that is a formal process rather than a decision you make on a Saturday. Domestic building work over $16,000 requires a Certificate of Consent from the Victorian Building Authority before a permit can be issued in your name, and most full restumps are well over that threshold. You have to complete the owner-builder eLearning assessment, apply, and satisfy the VBA that you understand your obligations. You also generally cannot take out consent for more than one property in a three year period. It is doable. It is not casual.
The permit does not go away.
The permit requirement attaches to the work, not to who is doing it. A restump needs a building permit from a registered building surveyor and an engineer’s footing design to AS 2870 whether the person swinging the jack is a registered builder or the owner. You will also need to book and pass the mandatory inspections. Doing it yourself removes the builder from the equation, it does not remove the Building Act, and an unpermitted restump is a problem that follows the title rather than the tradesman. Our permit guide walks through what Greater Shepparton actually requires.
What you would genuinely save.
Less than most people expect, because the parts you cannot avoid are a big share of the bill. On a $14,000 full restump, the engineer’s computations, the building permit, the stumps and concrete themselves are all still payable, and you would be hiring jacks, props and a mixer on top. Realistically an owner-builder saves the labour margin, maybe 40% to 50% of the total, and pays for it with several weekends under the house, no domestic building insurance, no warranty, and full personal liability for the outcome. On a $14,000 job that is roughly $6,000 of saving against a structural risk you carry alone.
The line items you still pay.
Run it through on a 50-stump home. The engineer’s footing computations are $500 to $1,200 and are not optional. The building permit is $600 to $1,400 and is not optional. Concrete stumps themselves, supplied, are a real material cost, and the installed rate we quote of $60 to $110 a stump includes the excavation, the pad footing, the concrete and the labour. Strip the labour out and you have still bought the stumps and the concrete, hired a mixer, hired eight to twelve adjustable props and a couple of bottle jacks, and spent your own time. So the gap is real, and on a $14,000 job it is roughly $6,000 of it, but every dollar of that saving is your own labour: the compliance, the materials and the hire all stay on your side of the ledger no matter who swings the jack.
And the parts that are hard to price.
There is no domestic building insurance on owner-builder work you do yourself, so if it goes wrong there is nobody behind it. There is no ten-year structural warranty. And if it moves again in three summers because the footings were founded in the active clay zone, the second restump is a full price restump. Cheap footings are the most expensive thing in this trade, and it is not a DIY problem specifically, it is what our page on stump lifespan is entirely about.
The rule that catches owner-builders at the sale.
The Building Act catches you at the sale. If you sell within six years and six months of the work being completed, you must obtain a defects report from an independent registered building inspector and, for work over the insurance threshold, provide domestic building insurance to the purchaser. That report goes into the Section 32 vendor statement. In practice this means the shortcut you took under the house gets read by a professional inspector, in writing, at the exact moment you least want a conversation about it. A great many owner-builders discover this rule the week they list.
It is worth pairing that with what our pre-sale page covers: buyers do not price the cost of a repair, they price their uncertainty. An owner-builder restump with a defects report attached is uncertainty with a letterhead on it.
The safety part, briefly.
We will not lecture, but we will say this once. Restumping means taking the load of a house onto jacks and props, in a crawl space, on ground that is often soft, sometimes alone. The failure mode is not a wonky floor, it is a house coming down on somebody. Professional crews work in pairs, prop conservatively, use spreader plates and know how much of the structure can be unloaded at once. Nearly every serious incident in this trade traces back to one person under a house with not quite enough props and no one to call.
The DIY work that actually pays off.
Plenty, and it is genuinely worthwhile. Clear and unblock the subfloor vents, cut back garden beds and mulch that have built up against the walls, extend downpipes so they discharge well away from the footings, redirect air conditioning condensate out from under the house, and pull up paving that has buried the ventilation. None of that touches the structure and all of it attacks the damp that rots stumps in the first place. Measuring your own floor levels with a spirit level or a laser and writing the numbers down every six months is also useful, because it tells us whether the house is still moving or has settled.
A homeowner in Kialla did exactly that: pulled the pavers away from the north wall, cut two new vents into the base brickwork, extended three downpipes and kept a level log for a year. When we finally inspected, four stumps had gone and the rest were fine. That became a $5,400 partial restump instead of the $16,000 full job the first quote he got had assumed. The drainage work cost him two weekends and about $300 in materials. That is the highest return on DIY effort available in this trade, and it is the opposite of getting under there with a jack. If the timbers themselves have gone, that is a subfloor repair and it is back to us.
Questions about doing it yourself.
Can I restump my own house in Victoria?
Only as a registered owner-builder, and that is a formal process rather than a decision you make on a Saturday. Domestic building work over $16,000 requires a Certificate of Consent from the Victorian Building Authority before a permit can be issued in your name, and most full restumps are well over that threshold. You have to complete the owner-builder eLearning assessment, apply, and satisfy the VBA that you understand your obligations. You also generally cannot take out consent for more than one property in a three year period. It is doable. It is not casual.
Do I still need a building permit if I restump my own house?
Yes. The permit requirement attaches to the work, not to who is doing it. A restump needs a building permit from a registered building surveyor and an engineer’s footing design to AS 2870 whether the person swinging the jack is a registered builder or the owner. You will also need to book and pass the mandatory inspections. Doing it yourself removes the builder from the equation, it does not remove the Building Act, and an unpermitted restump is a problem that follows the title rather than the tradesman.
How much would I actually save restumping my own house?
Less than most people expect, because the parts you cannot avoid are a big share of the bill. On a $14,000 full restump, the engineer’s computations, the building permit, the stumps and concrete themselves are all still payable, and you would be hiring jacks, props and a mixer on top. Realistically an owner-builder saves the labour margin, maybe 40% to 50% of the total, and pays for it with several weekends under the house, no domestic building insurance, no warranty, and full personal liability for the outcome. On a $14,000 job that is roughly $6,000 of saving against a structural risk you carry alone.
What happens if I sell a house I restumped as an owner-builder?
The Building Act catches you at the sale. If you sell within six years and six months of the work being completed, you must obtain a defects report from an independent registered building inspector and, for work over the insurance threshold, provide domestic building insurance to the purchaser. That report goes into the Section 32 vendor statement. In practice this means the shortcut you took under the house gets read by a professional inspector, in writing, at the exact moment you least want a conversation about it. A great many owner-builders discover this rule the week they list.
What subfloor work can I safely do myself?
Plenty, and it is genuinely worthwhile. Clear and unblock the subfloor vents, cut back garden beds and mulch that have built up against the walls, extend downpipes so they discharge well away from the footings, redirect air conditioning condensate out from under the house, and pull up paving that has buried the ventilation. None of that touches the structure and all of it attacks the damp that rots stumps in the first place. Measuring your own floor levels with a spirit level or a laser and writing the numbers down every six months is also useful, because it tells us whether the house is still moving or has settled.
Areas we cover.
Get a real number before you decide.
Free subfloor inspection and an itemised fixed-price quote, so you can compare it honestly against what doing it yourself would actually cost you.