Core Drilling, Membrane Removal and Concrete Cutting, Kingfisher Grove Retirement Living, Jordan Springs NSW

The job

Richard Crookes Constructions built Kingfisher Grove, a multi storey retirement living community at Jordan Springs in western Sydney, in stages over 2023 to 2025. Perfect Concrete Care was on that job from the first bathrooms to the last kerb: 90 shifts between September 2023 and November 2025, called in as each stage of the structure needed cutting, coring, grinding or repair.

It was not one scope. It was a run of small and medium packages, each one priced and done as the builder got to it, with the same crew turning up so nothing had to be explained twice.

What the work involved

• Coring floor waste penetrations through the bathroom slabs and grinding the wet areas inside the steel framed apartments, floor by floor, ahead of the plumbers and waterproofers
• Removing the old waterproof membrane from the roof slabs by grinding, back to bare concrete, so the new membrane had a sound surface to bond to
• Cutting louvre, door and service openings through blockwork and concrete walls, including into the plant rooms and basement
• Crack injection and sealing to cracked balcony hobs before the waterproofing went over them
• Coring through the balcony hobs and fitting stainless steel spitter overflow pipes, balcony by balcony, across the towers
• Scanning and coring for services penetrations through slabs and walls
• Car park make good at the end: kerb and wheel stop removal, column bases ground and patched, the entry ramp ground flush

What made it hard

The roof membrane was the awkward one. Grinding a bonded membrane off a roof slab five storeys up, in the open, with the crane still working overhead and set out markers everywhere, means dust control, edge protection and working around every fixing point without knocking one. The slab had to come up clean enough for the new membrane to stick, not just look clean.

The balcony spitters were the repetitive one. Every balcony needed a core through the hob at the right height and fall, a sleeve, a stainless spitter and a seal, and there were a lot of balconies. Repetitive work is where quality slips, so the set out was checked on every one before the drill went in.

And the whole job was live construction. Bathrooms were framed when we cored them, the car park was line marked when we ground the column bases, and other trades were on every floor. Each package had to be fitted into the builder's programme rather than the other way round.

How it was done

The roof membrane came off with a planetary floor grinder on a HEPA vacuum, working in passes across the slab, with hand grinders on the joints, edges and around the fixing points. The concrete was left open and clean for the waterproofer.

Bathroom floor wastes were cored on the builder's set out, with the wet area ground to falls where the slab needed it. Wall openings were marked, scanned, cored at the corners and cut with a hand saw or ring saw, then knocked through and the edges dressed. Cracked hobs were routed, sealed and injected before waterproofing.

The spitters were done as a package in 2025: each hob scanned, set out, cored, sleeved and the stainless pipe fitted and sealed, working along the balconies floor by floor. The car park works were the last visits, once the building was almost finished and the line marking was down.

Outcome

Two years, one builder, one concrete care crew. Roof slabs stripped and handed back for waterproofing, bathrooms cored and ground, openings cut where the design needed them, hobs repaired, spitters fitted across the towers, and the car park made good for handover. The builder had one number to call for anything that needed cutting, coring or grinding on the site.

If you have something similar

Multi storey apartment and retirement living builds for commercial builders throw up this sort of work all the way through: cores, openings, membrane removal, hob repairs, make good. Have a look at our concrete cutting, concrete grinding, crack injection and concrete scanning pages, or get in touch and tell us what stage the job is at.