Pad Footings vs Strip Footings in Victoria

A pad footing is an isolated concrete square or rectangle under a post or point load. A strip (trench) footing is a continuous concrete beam under a load-bearing wall. In Victoria both are designed to AS 2870 from a soil test. Easy Footings (Easy Footings Pty Ltd, ABN 44 689 644 175) installs engineer-certified concrete-free alternatives — RapidStump, StumpRite and SurePile — across Melbourne and regional Victoria when pads or strips would mean excavation, curing delays or weather risk. Phone 0419 994 555.

What a Pad Footing Is vs a Strip Footing

Both are poured reinforced concrete. The difference is the load they carry and the shape they take in the ground. For the national types list (pads, strips, rafts, bored piers, mass concrete and stumps), see our concrete footings in Australia guide. This page is the Victorian comparison.

Pad footing

A pad footing is a discrete block of concrete under one support: a deck post, carport column, shed portal, verandah post or an internal pier. Load arrives as a point. The pad spreads that load over enough soil area that the ground can carry it without punching or excessive settlement.

Typical Australian sizes already published on our national guide, labelled here as 2026 indicative Victorian practice, not a substitute for engineer drawings:

• Pad plan size commonly 450 × 450 mm to 900 × 900 mm, with depth often in the 600–900 mm band for decks and posts on Class A, S and M sites.
• On Class H sites, deck pad depth is often 900–1200 mm or deeper.
• A finished pad for a deck or pergola 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, not a copied AS 2870 table. The soil test and engineer set the actual pad.

Strip (trench) footing

A strip footing is a continuous trench of reinforced concrete that runs under an external or load-bearing internal wall. Load arrives as a line. The strip acts as a beam: it spreads the wall load along its length and ties the wall together so one section of clay cannot drop away from the next as easily as isolated pads would.

Typical residential strip geometry, again 2026 indicative and consistent with our national guide:

• Width: commonly 300–600 mm.
• Depth: commonly 400–1000 mm overall; house strips are often 400–600 mm on Class A and S, and 600–1000 mm on Class M.
• Steel: typically N12 or N16 bars top and bottom, with trench mesh as the engineer specifies.

Search phrases such as “strip footing depth”, “strip footing size” and “strip footing width” have no single millimetre answer. Depth and stiffness rise with soil class, wall load and whether the strip is tied into a slab (strip-and-slab). Do not pour from a blog table.

When Each Is Used

Choose by how the structure loads the ground, not by which name sounds cheaper.

Pads, posts, piers, sheds and carports. A kit shed or carport lands on columns. Each column is a point load, so the default concrete answer is a pad or a bored pier. Wind uplift often governs more than dead load on those open structures — see shed footings and carport footings in Melbourne.

Strips, load-bearing walls, brick veneer and strip-and-slab. A brick-veneer or masonry wall is a line load. A continuous strip (sometimes poured with a slab edge as strip-and-slab) keeps the wall on one beam. Isolated pads under a masonry wall are how you get stepped cracks: each pad can settle on its own.

A house can use both. External brick walls on a strip, and deck or porch posts on pads, is a normal Victorian mix. Bored concrete piers sit in the middle: they are still point supports, but they found deeper than a shallow pad when clay is reactive.

AS 2870 Soil Classes and Melbourne Clay

In Victoria, residential pads and strips 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. For the full standard, see AS 2870 explained.

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

Reactive clay changes two things. First, depth: the active zone (the layer that wets and dries with the seasons) is thicker, so a 600 mm pad that works on sand can sit entirely inside moving clay. Second, stiffness: a strip on H clay needs more depth and steel so the wall does not crack when one bay heaves and the next shrinks. That is why builders on Class H and E sites often leave shallow pads and strips behind and move to a stiffened raft, bored piers founded below the active zone, or engineered pile footings.

Expected surface-movement bands in the table match the ranges already used on our AS 2870 page. They are characteristic values for classification, not a promise of how far your house will move.

Typical 2026 Indicative Installed Costs in Victoria

There is no honest single price for a pad or a metre of strip. Access, soil class, steel, rock, water in the trench and council inspections all move the number. The ranges below are 2026 indicative, supply-and-install, and they sit in the same bands we already publish on the national concrete footings guide. Victorian reactive-clay and restricted-access jobs often sit at the upper end.

Ranges exclude soil test, engineering, building-permit fees, rock excavation and contaminated ground. They are not a quote. Always get an itemised figure for the site.

Concrete also carries a cure: typically 5–7 days before brickwork on a strip, and 28 days to full design strength. Rain, heat and a wet trench add days. On a tight Melbourne program that delay is often the real cost, not the cubic metre of concrete.

Soil Report, Engineer and Building Permit in Victoria

This is a practical overview, not legal advice. A registered building surveyor decides what your job needs.

Most new house, extension and structural footing work in Victoria needs a building permit before excavation. The permit is issued by a registered building surveyor — municipal (your local council) or private. The Victorian Building Authority (VBA) regulates practitioners and owner-builder processes; it does not typically issue the building permit itself. For the wider picture, see Victorian building footing regulations.

Surveyors commonly ask for:

• Soil report / site classification under AS 2870 (A, S, M, H1, H2, E or P). A current residential soil test is often in the $400–$800 band and takes one to two weeks, matching the range on our AS 2870 guide. If a current report already exists, the engineer may use it.
• Engineer drawings for pad or strip size, depth, steel, concrete grade and founding. Class E and P sites, and any alternative to the deemed-to-comply tables, need a site-specific design.
• Inspection hold points — typically trench or hole inspection before the pour, then later-stage inspections as the permit requires.

Some minor Class 10 accessory structures (a small shed or a low deck) can sit under permit exemptions. Thresholds change and they are applied to the facts of the site. Do not assume a house wall strip or a new carport on clay is exempt because a neighbour poured pads on a Saturday.

Easy Footings is the installer once the footing system is chosen. We are not the building surveyor and we do not issue permits.

How Pads and Strips Fail

Concrete does not usually “wear out”. The usual Victorian failures are design and moisture:

• Undersized pads. A post pad that is too small for the load or the bearing capacity punches into the soil or tilts. Shed and carport columns in wind are a common version of this.
• Differential settlement on H and E sites. One pad or one bay of strip sits in wetter clay than the next. The wall steps, plaster cracks on the diagonal, and doors bind. Shallow footings founded in the active zone are the usual setup.
• Poor drainage. Downpipes discharging at a strip, a blocked ag drain, or a garden bed piled against brickwork keep one side of the footing wet. Reactive clay then heaves on that side only.
• Trees. Roots dry the clay in summer and the ground shrinks away from the footing. A tree close enough to matter can also push the site to Class P. See how close to a tree you can install footings in Melbourne.

Warning signs are the same as other footing movement: stepped brick cracks, sloping floors, jamming windows, and a gap opening under a verandah post. Fixing the moisture path matters as much as replacing the concrete.

When a Concrete-Free System Is the Better Choice

Pads and strips remain the right answer for many slabs and masonry walls on stable or only moderately reactive ground. They are a weaker answer when the job is a point-load structure on clay, a slope, a wet winter pour, or a house that has to be back on stumps this week.

Easy Footings Pty Ltd (ABN 44 689 644 175) supplies and installs engineer-certified BMSA systems across Melbourne and regional Victoria — Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, the Mornington Peninsula and Gippsland — when you want to skip the trench and the cure:

• RapidStump — driven steel, concrete-free. Footing and stump in one unit. Common for restumping and new stumps where compact gear has to work under a house or on a tight block.
• StumpRite — adjustable galvanised steel stumps with screw height adjustment. The usual choice when future re-levelling on clay matters. Licensed install is covered on adjustable stumps in Victoria.
• SurePile — helical screw piles for higher loads, more reactive clay, sloping sites, modular buildings and containers. Each pile is wound to a verified torque.

Concrete-free is usually the better conversation when:

• Sloping blocks — cut-and-fill and stepped strips get expensive; piles follow the slope. See footings on sloping blocks.
• Weather and immediate build — no wet trench, no 7–28 day cure. You can build once the heads are in. Compare concrete-free vs traditional concrete.
• Restumping — replacing failed timber or concrete stumps under a raised house is a point-load job. We do not retell restump pricing here; use the existing Melbourne restumping guide.
• Modular, pods and containers — corner castings and steel frames are point loads, not wall lines. Pads can work on sand; piles are usually cleaner on clay and slope.
• Class H, E or P clay — founding below the active zone beats thickening a shallow pad that will still sit in moving soil. See the Melbourne screw pile guide and the concrete piers guide for the deep-concrete version of the same idea.

Screw piles and driven steel do not replace every house slab. They replace many pads, many pier lines, and the point-load jobs that would otherwise wait on a concrete truck. Call 0419 994 555 or use the contact form.

Pad vs Strip Footing FAQs