Brick Pier Footings in Victoria: Sizes, Cost and the Steel Alternative

A brick pier footing is a masonry column — typically clay brick laid in mortar — sitting on a concrete pad (or a short strip) and carrying a point load from a bearer or verandah beam. Under raised Victorian and Federation houses they are the original house supports, not precast 100x100 concrete stumps and not a continuous strip footing under a wall. On Melbourne reactive clay they crack, lose mortar and take rising damp. Easy Footings Pty Ltd does not lay new brick piers. We replace them with engineer-certified steel — StumpRite adjustable heads or RapidStump driven units — so the floor can be re-levelled after seasonal movement. Phone 0419 994 555.

What a Brick Pier Footing Is

Searches such as “brick footing”, “brick pier footing”, “brick pier foundation” and “brick strip footing” usually mean the same thing under an older raised house: a masonry pier on a concrete pad that holds up a bearer. The brickwork is the column. The pad (sometimes a short local strip) is the footing that spreads the point load into the soil. That assembly is what this page covers.

It is a different job from two pages already on this site. Concrete stumps in Melbourne are factory-made 100x100 reinforced posts, hanging or threaded. Pad vs strip footings in Victoria is about poured concrete under posts or walls, not masonry columns. A brick strip footing under a load-bearing wall is still a strip: the wall sits on a continuous concrete beam. A brick pier is a point support, the same load type as a stump.

You still see brick piers under Victorian and Federation weatherboards, verandahs and some internal bearer lines, especially in inner Melbourne and older regional towns. Our concrete piers guide already lists them as traditional masonry piers on pads, usually replaced with steel or concrete during restumping. This page is the Victorian masonry-pier answer.

Brick Piers vs Concrete Stumps vs Steel Stumps

All three carry a raised floor as discrete point loads. The material, the failure mode and whether you can re-level later are what change. For the three-way stump-material table (steel, timber, precast concrete), see steel vs timber vs concrete stumps in Victoria. Brick masonry sits beside that table, not inside it.

If the house is sitting on brick and the floor has dropped, the next step is the same as any other restump: jack, remove the failed supports, found new steel to the soil class, and level. The process and 2026 cost bands live on the Melbourne restumping guide.

Brick Pier Sizes in Australia

“Brick pier sizes australia” has no single millimetre answer. Australian masonry piers are described by how many bricks make the column — one-brick, one-and-a-half-brick or larger — then built to the height the bearer needs. The engineer sets the actual size from the load, the pier height and the AS 2870 site class. Do not build from a blog table.

What we can publish without inventing a new size chart is the pad the pier sits on. That pad is the same isolated concrete block already covered in our Victoria pad guide, labelled here as 2026 indicative practice, not a copied standard table:

• Pad plan size commonly 450 × 450 mm to 900 × 900 mm, with depth often in the 600–900 mm band on Class A, S and M sites.
• On Class H sites, pad depth is often 900–1200 mm or deeper.
• A finished pad under a post or pier is often quoted as roughly 450 × 450 × 600 mm to 900 × 900 × 900 mm, depending on load and soil.

Those millimetre figures are typical ranges from common Australian residential practice already used on our pad vs strip page. The soil test and engineer set the actual pad. A brick strip footing under a wall is a different geometry again: a continuous strip, typically 300–600 mm wide and 400–1000 mm deep in the same indicative bands, not a stack of bricks doing the footing’s job.

We do not publish a price-per-brick-pier. Laying new masonry is not our work. When those piers are replaced with steel, the job is priced as restumping (see replacement costs below), not as a masonry rate.

AS 2870 Reactive Clay and Melbourne Movement

In Victoria, replacement house supports are designed to AS 2870-2011 Residential slabs and footings from a geotechnical soil test. The test assigns a site class. The class sets how much seasonal surface movement the engineer must design for. Full explanation: AS 2870 explained.

Much of Melbourne’s west and north — Werribee, Melton, Tarneit, Point Cook and similar basaltic clay corridors — classifies M to H2. Class M is the most common suburban Melbourne result; H1 and H2 are routine on the western plains. Large parts of regional Victoria do the same. Trees, fill or abnormal moisture can push a block to Class P.

Reactive clay hurts masonry piers in two ways. First, depth: a pad founded in the seasonal active zone moves with the clay, so the brick column above it tilts or cracks. Second, isolation: each pier is its own support. One corner heaves, the next shrinks, and the bearer rackets between them. That is differential settlement — the same reason isolated pads under a masonry wall open stepped cracks. Expected surface-movement bands in the table match the ranges already used on our AS 2870 and pad-vs-strip pages. They are characteristic values for classification, not a promise of how far your house will move.

Cracking, Mortar Failure and Rising Damp

Brick piers fail as masonry, not as a precast post. The warning signs overlap with any failed stump — bouncy floors, sticking doors, diagonal plaster cracks, visible slopes — and they are covered in the restumping guide. Under the floor the masonry-specific damage looks like this:

• Cracking through the brick. Seasonal clay movement and point-load eccentricity split the column. Once the section is broken, the pier is no longer the column it was built as.
• Mortar failure. Joints powder, wash out or open. The bricks are still there; the column is no longer bonded. Packing and re-pointing does not restore a footing that has already moved.
• Rising damp. Brick and lime or cement mortar wick ground moisture. Salt, crumbling arrises and a damp band at the base are common on older Melbourne piers with no effective damp-proof course, or with garden beds and downpipes keeping one side wet.
• Pad punch or tilt. An undersized pad in the active zone settles or heaves. The brickwork follows. Rebuilding the same pier on the same shallow pad repeats the failure.

Poor drainage and nearby trees make all of that worse. Downpipes discharging at a pier, or a garden bed piled against brickwork, keep one pad wet while the next dries. See footings near trees in Melbourne when roots and Class P moisture are in play.

Building Permit Path in Victoria

Replacing house brick piers with new supports is structural building work. It generally requires a building permit issued by a registered building surveyor (council or private), whether the new supports are steel, timber or concrete. Footing design may need to be certified by a structural engineer, especially on reactive clay.

A soil test may be required if the property does not already have one. Replacement stumps and piers must be designed to suit the site classification under AS 2870. Confirm the exact path with your surveyor before work starts. For a plain-English overview, see do you need a building permit to restump in Victoria. This page is a practical overview, not legal advice.

When Easy Footings Replaces Brick Piers with Steel

Easy Footings Pty Ltd (ABN 44 689 644 175) does not lay new brick piers. We install BMSA concrete-free systems across Melbourne and regional Victoria:

• StumpRite — Australian-made adjustable steel house stumps, typically 120 mm of screw height adjustment. The usual pick when you want to re-level later on clay. Licensed install: adjustable stumps in Victoria.
• RapidStump — a driven steel footing and stump in one, concrete-free. Common for compact restumping where gear has to work under a house.
• SurePile — helical screw piles for higher loads, more reactive clay, slope, or where a pile below the active zone is the engineered answer.

Replacement is priced as restumping, using the same 2026 Melbourne bands already published on our restumping and concrete-stump pages. We do not invent a masonry rate:

• Per stump: $500–$1,000+ (supply and install)
• Partial restump (10–20 supports): $5,000–$15,000
• Full restump (typical weatherboard, 40–60 supports): $20,000–$50,000
• Supply-only StumpRite components: from $10.35 ex GST

Those figures are indicative and site-specific after soil class, access and support count. They exclude soil test, engineering and building-permit fees. A pad poured as new concrete (if someone else is doing masonry or a new accessory structure) sits in the published $150–$400 per pad band; a residential strip in $180–$320 per linear metre. Neither of those is a brick-pier laying price.

We supply and install across Melbourne and regional Victoria, including Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, the Mornington Peninsula and Gippsland. If your search was for brick footings because that is what the house is sitting on, the next step is an under-floor assessment and a quote to replace them with steel. Call 0419 994 555 or use the contact form.

Brick Pier Footing FAQs