The job
Insitu Group is a retail and commercial builder working across Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland. On a new restaurant build in Burleigh Heads they needed a concrete crew for the finishing details: slab edges to grind, kerbs to patch, and a run of concrete core drilling for bollards and post footings around the new car park.
Perfect Concrete Care did the work over four short visits in April and May 2026, each one booked around the other trades finishing the site.
What the concrete core drilling and grinding involved
- Slab edges at the store room doors ground flush so the openings sit level
- Kerb and footpath edges along the site fence ground back and patched
- Core drilling with a 127 mm barrel through the car park and footpath slabs for new steel bollards
- Holes drilled between tactile indicators and through planter kerbs without damaging the finished work around them
- Hand held coring beside fence and post footings in the garden beds
What made it hard
The site was close to handover. New tactile indicators, kerbs, planters and paving were already in, so every hole had to land on its mark and the surrounding finishes had to be left clean.
Other trades were working the car park at the same time. The crew bunted off each work area, kept the slurry contained and cleaned up as they went.
Some holes sat hard against post footings and planter edges, where a rig would not fit. Those were drilled with a hand held core drill.
How it was done
For the grinding, the crew used hand grinders with vacuum extraction to take down the slab edges and kerb lines, then patched the edges with a repair mortar.
For the bollards, a rig mounted core drill was set up on each marked position and the cores taken out cleanly. Each core was measured to confirm the slab depth before the bollard went in, and the bollard installers followed behind.
At the post footings, positions were marked and the holes drilled with a hand held rig and checked for depth.
Outcome
Each visit was closed off with the builder's sign off and the site left clean. The bollard holes were ready for the installers and the edges were finished ahead of handover.
Lessons learned on this job
Every job teaches the crew something. These are the ones we took from Burleigh Heads.
What worked
- Short, booked visits that fit around the other trades finishing the site
- Measuring every core, so slab depth was confirmed before any bollard went in
- Having a hand held core drill on the truck for the tight spots next to footings
What was difficult
- Drilling through finished areas with new tactiles, kerbs and planters right next to the holes
- Sharing a busy car park with other trades close to handover
- Holes hard up against footings where a rig would not sit
If you have something similar
Car parks, retail pads and new commercial builds on the Gold Coast all need coring and grinding done neatly at the end of the job. Have a look at our core drilling Gold Coast and concrete grinding Gold Coast pages, see another Gold Coast job at Yatala, or get in touch.
Need this done at your site?
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.