Important News: Update on the Flooring in the St Paul's Vestry

The wardens of St Paul's have coordinated safety inspections and repairs of the vestry floors at St Paul's Church. These works took place on Tuesday, September 23, 2025, from approximately 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM.

Background

The vestry floor needed to be uncovered and inspected to determine the necessary repairs.

The crockery cabinet and the dual cupboard were moved into the shed. This cupboard needed to be moved outside to make more space for safer furniture movement. Usually, it is quite heavy when joined, but when the components are separated, the cupboard is much lighter and easier to move.

The Outcome

The St Paul's wardens enlisted the assistance of Ray and Leigh to help with moving furniture. The heavy crockery cabinet was moved further away from the corner to allow the carpet to be rolled back for its entire width. This was to ascertain how far the rot in the floorboards extended. Then, the old floorboards were removed as far as necessary and replaced with four sheets of yellow-tongue floorboarding,  which cost $148 from Bunnings. The carpet was then put back as firmly as possible.

The floor is now solid and safe to walk on. The double cupboard is still located in the vestry annex/hall, where it was moved, and is likely to remain there.

The replacement floor has been screwed down, which means it will be easy to remove if Heritage Victoria requests it. Above all, the reinforcement was necessary for safety reasons. There is also good clearance under the bearers and cross timbers – one of the photos shows this.

Inspections around the sub-floor revealed that no water was getting in from above. It’s actually reasonably dry on all the possible ‘culprit’ entry points. As Leigh explained, bluestone (which the walls are made of) tends to act like a wick as it is full of microscopic pores. Covering it with render or plaster (which many people do) only makes it worse, as water can creep upward and cause problems. Once the cupboards were out of the way, it became apparent where the render/plaster is crumbling on the wall – mainly from the bottom up and virtually nothing above 1.5 metres – although that doesn’t seem to explain the rotten boards on the other side. Perhaps it is water creeping along the bearers.

We would like to thank everyone involved in repairing the vestry floors and maintaining safety standards for the clergy and lay staff at St. Paul's.

See photos below for additional reference