How long do concrete stumps really last?
Long enough that you will never do it again, if the footings under them were designed properly. The stump material is the part everyone asks about and the part that almost never fails. What fails is the ground, and on Goulburn Valley clay that is a design decision, not luck.
What each one actually gives you.
Timber: thirty to sixty years, and it is up to you which.
Thirty to sixty years is the realistic range for the redgum and hardwood stumps under most Goulburn Valley weatherboards, and the spread is almost entirely about drainage and ventilation. A stump in a dry, well-vented subfloor with 400mm of clearance can push sixty years or more. The same stump with paved-over vents, a garden bed against the wall and a leaking gutter above it can be structurally gone in twenty-five. Timber stumps rot at the ground line, where oxygen and moisture meet, which is why a stump can look perfectly sound above the dirt and be hollow at the point that matters.
This is why we will not quote new timber stumps, and why you should be suspicious of anyone who does. Putting fresh timber back into the same wet clay that ate the last lot is selling you the same job again in thirty years.
Concrete: it outlives the house.
A properly made reinforced concrete stump on a properly designed footing will outlast the house above it, and a hundred years is a fair expectation rather than a sales claim. Concrete does not rot, termites ignore it, and the Goulburn Valley’s dry inland air is about as gentle an environment as concrete gets. When a concrete stump does fail it is almost never the concrete: it is either poor steel cover letting the reinforcement corrode and split the stump, or a footing that was founded too shallow and is riding the clay. The stump is rarely the weak link. The ground under it is.
Galvanised steel: decades, and adjustable.
Very slowly is the answer on rust, and Shepparton is close to the best-case scenario for steel. Hot-dip galvanising to AS/NZS 4680 puts a thick zinc coating on the steel, and that zinc is consumed at a rate set by how corrosive the atmosphere is. Inland Shepparton is a low-corrosivity environment with no salt spray and low humidity, unlike a coastal town, so the zinc loss per year is small and the service life is measured in many decades. The vulnerable spot is where the steel meets damp ground, so the footing detail and keeping the subfloor dry matter more than the steel itself.
The real argument for steel is not longevity, it is the adjustable head. On the more reactive parts of the district, being able to bring a corner back to true in twenty years with a spanner instead of a permit is worth the extra $30 to $50 a stump.
You are not buying stumps. You are buying footings.
Greater Shepparton sits on the riverine plain, and the soil under most of it is reactive cracking clay. Under AS 2870, the Australian Standard for residential slabs and footings, sites are classified by how much the surface moves as that clay wets and dries through the year. Class M means characteristic surface movement in the order of 20mm to 40mm. Class H1 means 40mm to 60mm. Much of this district falls in that M to H1 band, and some pockets are worse.
Sit with that for a second. The ground itself can rise and fall 40mm between a wet winter and a dry February. A stump founded inside that active zone does not care what it is made of, because it is a passenger. It goes up in July and down in February and takes your floor with it. A stump founded below the active zone, on a pad the engineer has sized for your actual soil class, stays where it was put. Same concrete, same price per stump, completely different house in ten years.
Why homes get restumped twice.
If the footings were designed to AS 2870 for your actual soil class and founded at the right depth, you should not need to do it again, and Victorian domestic building work carries a ten-year structural warranty period behind that. The homes that get restumped twice are almost always the ones where someone came in cheap, dropped concrete stumps onto shallow pads without an engineer’s design, and the reactive clay simply lifted and dropped them through the next few seasons. Same material, completely different outcome. That is the single reason our contractor checklist puts the engineer’s computations near the top.
What actually kills stumps early.
Water and shallow footings, in that order. Blocked or paved-over subfloor vents, garden beds built up against the wall, a downpipe discharging next to the footing, and air conditioning condensate dripping under the house all keep the subfloor damp, and damp is what rots timber stumps and swells the clay. Shallow footings are the other half: on Shepparton’s reactive clay a stump founded in the zone that dries and swells each season simply moves with it. Fix the drainage and get the footing depth right and the stumps look after themselves.
The National Construction Code asks for clearance and ventilation under a suspended floor for exactly this reason, in the order of 150mm from finished ground to the underside of the bearer as an absolute floor, and considerably more where anyone needs to get under there and work. We see Shepparton homes where forty years of mulch, concrete paths and a well-meant extension have buried the vents entirely, and every stump on that wall is the one that failed. Sorting the subfloor ventilation is a $250 to $900 job on most homes and it is the cheapest life extension available to you.
A worked example, over time.
A weatherboard at Numurkah restumped in 1974 in redgum, vents half-buried by a later carport slab. By 2026 the north wall stumps were hollow at the ground line and the floor was down 45mm; the south wall, open to the air, was still sound. Fifty-two years on one wall, and the other wall would have gone another decade. We replaced the failed north-wall and centre rows in concrete at $85 a stump, 44 of the home’s 62 stumps for $3,740, re-levelled at $2,700, cut two new vents and drained the carport slab away from the wall for $600, with engineering and permit at $1,850. Roughly $8,900 all up, which is a partial restump rather than a full one, and the sound south wall was left alone because there was no honest reason to touch it. The full rate card is on our pricing page and our cost guide.
Questions about stump lifespan.
How long do concrete stumps last?
A properly made reinforced concrete stump on a properly designed footing will outlast the house above it, and a hundred years is a fair expectation rather than a sales claim. Concrete does not rot, termites ignore it, and the Goulburn Valley’s dry inland air is about as gentle an environment as concrete gets. When a concrete stump does fail it is almost never the concrete: it is either poor steel cover letting the reinforcement corrode and split the stump, or a footing that was founded too shallow and is riding the clay. The stump is rarely the weak link. The ground under it is.
How long do timber stumps last in Shepparton?
Thirty to sixty years is the realistic range for the redgum and hardwood stumps under most Goulburn Valley weatherboards, and the spread is almost entirely about drainage and ventilation. A stump in a dry, well-vented subfloor with 400mm of clearance can push sixty years or more. The same stump with paved-over vents, a garden bed against the wall and a leaking gutter above it can be structurally gone in twenty-five. Timber stumps rot at the ground line, where oxygen and moisture meet, which is why a stump can look perfectly sound above the dirt and be hollow at the point that matters.
Do galvanised steel stumps rust in the Goulburn Valley?
Very slowly, and Shepparton is close to the best-case scenario for them. Hot-dip galvanising to AS/NZS 4680 puts a thick zinc coating on the steel, and that zinc is consumed at a rate set by how corrosive the atmosphere is. Inland Shepparton is a low-corrosivity environment with no salt spray and low humidity, unlike a coastal town, so the zinc loss per year is small and the service life is measured in many decades. The vulnerable spot is where the steel meets damp ground, so the footing detail and keeping the subfloor dry matter more than the steel itself.
Will I ever need to restump again after a concrete restump?
If the footings were designed to AS 2870 for your actual soil class and founded at the right depth, you should not, and Victorian domestic building work carries a ten-year structural warranty period behind that. The homes that get restumped twice are almost always the ones where someone came in cheap, dropped concrete stumps onto shallow pads without an engineer’s design, and the reactive clay simply lifted and dropped them through the next few seasons. Same material, completely different outcome. You are not buying stumps, you are buying footings.
What actually makes stumps fail early in Shepparton?
Water and shallow footings, in that order. Blocked or paved-over subfloor vents, garden beds built up against the wall, a downpipe discharging next to the footing, and air conditioning condensate dripping under the house all keep the subfloor damp, and damp is what rots timber stumps and swells the clay. Shallow footings are the other half: on Shepparton’s reactive clay a stump founded in the zone that dries and swells each season simply moves with it. Fix the drainage and get the footing depth right and the stumps look after themselves.
Where we work.
Make this the last restump.
Engineered footings designed for your actual soil class, concrete or galvanised steel, permit and computations included. Free subfloor inspection to start.