The job
Saw cutting and block wall demolition on the ground floor of a university building on a campus in Nathan, Brisbane. Intrec Management was refurbishing the building and needed the old blockwork rooms and wet areas taken out, and sections of slab cut and removed for new services, before the fitout could start.
Intrec brought in Perfect Concrete Care for the cutting and demolition. Our Queensland crew worked night shifts in December 2025, with a mini excavator, tracked dumper, road saw and tipper, and came back in February 2026 to core drill for new plant.
What the job involved
- Setting up extraction fans, negative air units and air scrubbers before any cutting started
- Saw cutting the internal block walls and demolishing them with a mini excavator inside a taped exclusion zone
- Road sawing trenches and slab sections on the ground floor and breaking them out with a hydraulic hammer
- Hammering out old plinths in the plant rooms
- Loading rubble with the excavator into a tracked dumper and out to a tipper, two loads a night
- Core drilling penetrations beside a new plant unit in a return visit
What made it hard
The building is on a working campus, so the heavy cutting and demolition was done on night shifts. Every night the crew set up, worked and left the area safe and clean for the day.
Everything was inside. The excavator, dumper and road saw all worked under a low ceiling full of services, so the operators had to work tight and the exclusion zones were taped off and kept clear.
Cutting and breaking concrete inside makes dust. Negative air units and scrubbers ran the whole time, and the saws cut wet.
How it was done
Each shift started with the extraction set up and the exclusion zone taped. The block walls were cut and pulled down with the excavator, and the rubble loaded straight into the dumper and out to the truck.
The slab was marked out, road sawn and broken out with the hammer, and the plinths in the plant rooms hammered off. In February the crew came back for a morning to core the penetrations beside the new plant.
Outcome
The block walls, slab sections and plinths in the areas handed to us came out on night shifts in December 2025, with the building left clean for the day each morning. The cores for the new plant were drilled in February 2026.
Lessons learned on this job
Every job teaches the crew something. These are the ones we took from Nathan.
What worked
- Setting up negative air and scrubbers before the first cut, every night
- Using a mini excavator and tracked dumper indoors, so the rubble never had to be barrowed out by hand
- Taping a clear exclusion zone around the machine every shift
What was difficult
- Night shifts on a working campus, with the area left clean every morning
- Machines working under a low ceiling full of services
- Keeping dust down while cutting and breaking concrete inside
If you have something similar
Builders refurbishing a school, university or office building in Brisbane often need walls and slabs cut out at night while the building keeps running. Have a look at our concrete cutting Brisbane, road sawing Brisbane and core drilling Brisbane pages, see a wall breakout job at Ducale, Teneriffe, or get in touch.
Need this done on your building?
Perfect Concrete Care acknowledges the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as Traditional Custodians of the country on which we live and work. We pay our respects to the Traditional Custodians and Elders past, present and future, and honour their connection to the land and ongoing contribution to society.