House has concrete slab instead of being re-stumped

[johno]

I have bought a house recently which the previous owners, a l while ago, took out the timber floor boards and poured a concrete slab instead of re-stumping the house (I assume). There's no access from outside the house to get underneath as it is very close to the ground (old weatherboard place in Northcote VIC).

Have had a builder, recommended by a friend, come and quote of the cost of removing the concrete slab, re-stumping and installing a new timber floor. A second builder (also recommended by friends) has suggested simply installing a floating floor on the existing slab given that the house does not appear to have any structural problems.

I have no problems in getting the first guy to do the work, as long as I can source a decent stumper to do that part of the job, but am wondering if its actually necessary?

Has anyone come across this before and what would you recommend?

[echnidna]

That's one of the crummy things that is done to avoid doing the job properly.

I'm currently renovating a house where this has been done to some rooms and not others.

If its real oldtime construction where the walls sat on stumps and the floor sat on its own separate stumps, just filling the floor "cavity" with concrete so it envelops the walls is a big problem as the floor concrete doesn't support the walls. And makes it very difficult to reblock the walls.

My old house was only built with a few inches ground clearance so ripping up the concrete and fitting floor framing etc migh be a bit difficult. I don't want to rip out my chimneys which more or less govern the floor height, otherwise I'd just jack the wholelot up and restump.

When I get around to renoing that section of the house I'll workout what to do then.

All that said, geez I hate restumping houses