Contractors have just begun restumping my weatherboard house (in Victoria) and requested I sign off on the level of the house. This will be after one day of installing the stumps and before the concrete footing being poured.
My question is, how am I to know weather the house is level, and shouldn't this be done by a building inspector before the concrete footing is poured? At what stage is the building inspector involved in the process?
Cheers - Matt
Hi Matt,
We just had a chat with the Victorian Building Authority (VBA) on your behalf. Their advice is that the building inspector's required to inspect and sign off before the concrete's poured to ensure that the stumps will have adequate bearing strength - and that an inspector will also have to come in a second time when the job's finished too, to ensure that everything's been done by the book.
In Victoria there's a warranty of 10 years on this kind of work, so it's very much in the builder's best interests to ensure that everything's done perfectly.
It's possible that the contractor is asking you to sign off on the level of the house for contractual reasons - although we can't say that for sure without knowing all of the details.
Whether or not the house is level is usually determined using a dumpy level, a laser level or a water level. It doesn't really make sense for you to have to check that the house is level - you can't really be expected to have the necessary technical skills or tools to ensure that's the case...
We're assuming you've got a written contract for this work - might be worth asking the contractor for a bit more info, or a quick call to the VBA to clarify if that doesn't help.
All the best,
The BUILD team