Tonight I got an e-mail from someone who is Renovating their Queenslander here in Townsville. They have enclosed underneath and are currently adding a bathroom, bedroom and rumpus room. They had a question though about what to do with the concrete stumps that are under the house holding it up.
The concrete stumps used under many Queenslanders are quite large and very difficult to conceal. The ones that we had at our old house were about 300mm x 300mm square (unfortunately the image on the right is the best I can find tonight). These stumps are quite ugly and can be difficult to work around while enclosing under. So what can we do with the concrete stumps holding up the house?
The solution that I suggested was to restump the house with new steel stumps, or even just the stumps that are in the way or too obvious. You can see them under our house in the story House Concrete Slab is Complete.
The new steel stumps are available in 75mm and 90mm width, depending on the load that they need to bear. The great thing about this size is that they can easily be concealed in walls, which are what we are planning to do under our house. It is something that you can attempt to do yourself if you are game enough, or the guys at Northern House Raising can also probably do it for you (they raised and restumped our house).
Some questions for you:
- Does anyone else out there have any suggestions about what to do with the concrete stumps?
- Is there an easier / faster / cheaper solution to make them look nice without having to go through the trouble of replacing the concrete stumps?
Your ideas would be appreciated and would help this person out with their own renovations.
Paint em!
That’s not a bad idea actually. I have seen it done on quite a few houses and it works out to be not too bad, depending on the orientation of the room.
Render them to be smooth or to a different shape (e.g round) and paint them, then wallpaper them.
Restumping is definitely worth it. It can be a lot of work, but will pay off in the long run. However, I would suggest that you hire professional help. This can be a really hard thing to do, especially without any help.
http://www.earthwormrestumping.com.au
I actually don’t think there are any ways of proper removal of that concrete stump. In any case, aren’t most Queenslanders protected. Removal of any part of it kind of changes the whole look of the house of something like that so better to check what you can and can’t do with it.