Add a whole floor without buying a single square metre of land.
Raising a Queenslander is still the cheapest way to double a Brisbane house. We lift it, build under it, get it above the flood line, and keep it structurally sound the whole time.
We get under the house, assess the stumps and frame, and tell you what’s possible and roughly what it costs.
What we do
Four jobs, one specialty: houses that need to move or stop moving
House raising
Lift the house, put in new steel or concrete columns, and build a legal-height floor underneath. Doubles your living area for roughly half the cost per square metre of a second storey.
Restumping & reblocking
Rotten, termite-eaten or sunken stumps replaced with galvanised steel or concrete. Fixes sloping floors, sticking doors and cracked cornices in one go.
Underpinning
For slab and brick homes with subsidence. Screw piles driven to stable ground, then the footing is re-supported and the cracking stops progressing.
Flood-height raising
Lifting a house above the defined flood level, without necessarily building under. Insurance premiums and resilience both improve markedly.
Floors sloping and not sure why?
Get under the house with a torch and look at the stumps. Or let us do it — the inspection is free and you’ll get a written finding either way.
Why Cornerstone
There's no undo button on a house lift.
Twenty-two tonnes of timber goes up on jacks and every millimetre of movement has to be even, or you crack plaster, split VJ boards and twist door frames. It’s the least forgiving work in residential building, and the reason we only do this.
Engineer-designed on every job Footings sized for your soil class and the real loads, with certified drawings. Not a rule of thumb from someone’s ute.
We’re the builder, not a subcontractor One contract covers the lift, the columns, the slab and the build-in. No gap where the lifting crew leaves and nobody owns the next step.
Character and heritage experience Most of Brisbane’s pre-1947 stock sits in a character overlay, and raising it is assessable development. We’ve taken hundreds through that process.
Straight answer before you spend Some houses shouldn’t be raised — badly rotted frames, unsympathetic past renovations, or a block that won’t take the height. We’ll tell you at the inspection, not after the plans.
We’re the builder, not a subcontractor One contract covers the lift, the columns, the slab and the build-in. No gap where the lifting crew leaves and nobody owns the next step.
Character and heritage experience Most of Brisbane’s pre-1947 stock sits in a character overlay, and raising it is assessable development. We’ve taken hundreds through that process.
Straight answer before you spend Some houses shouldn’t be raised — badly rotted frames, unsympathetic past renovations, or a block that won’t take the height. We’ll tell you at the inspection, not after the plans.
Warning signs
Five signs your stumps are failing
Any one of these on a timber-stumped Brisbane house is worth a look underneath.
Floors that slope or bounce
A fall across a room, or a spring in the boards, usually starts under the house.
Doors and windows that stick
Frames racking out of square are often the first thing a moving house shows.
Cracks in walls and cornices
Fine cracks that keep growing, especially above doors and windows, are worth a look.
Stumps that are rotted or leaning
Split, soft, sunk or out-of-plumb stumps can no longer carry their share of the house.
Termite damage in the timber
Damaged stumps and bearers cannot be trusted, even if the floor above still feels firm.
The short version
Built around houses that need to move.
One contract and a free look before you commit.
Free
Site inspection
One
Contract covers the lift
Pre-1947
Character homes, taken through council
4
Jobs, one specialty
What clients say
“They raised our 1920s house 3.1 metres and built two bedrooms, a bathroom and a rumpus underneath. We stayed in it for most of the build. Not one crack in the VJs upstairs.”
Dave M.
CAMP HILL
“Forty-one stumps replaced in four days. Our kitchen floor had a 40mm fall and now it’s dead level — the dishwasher door finally stays shut.”
Priya N.
ASHGROVE
“Cracking through the back wall had two other companies quoting full underpinning. Cornerstone found a leaking stormwater line causing it, fixed that, and only piled the affected corner. Saved us about $30,000.”
Ken R.
THE GAP
Where we work
The pre-war suburbs, mostly
Anywhere in Greater Brisbane, though the inner northside and southside is where the Queenslanders are — and where we’re usually already working.
Find out what your house can take
Free site inspection, written findings, and an honest opinion on whether it’s worth doing.