Lift Shaft Concrete Repairs, Coring and Landing Door Openings, North Bondi NSW

The job

Gartner Rose was carrying out lift shaft remediation in an existing building at an operating facility in North Bondi. Before the new landing door frames could go in, the concrete shaft needed work: the old fixings had to come out of the walls, the holes and damaged areas had to be repaired, and the landing door openings had to be cut back so the new frames would fit.

Gartner Rose brought in Perfect Concrete Care for the concrete work. Our Sydney crew was on site from January to early May 2026, and came back in June for the last of the coring.

What the work involved

• Building access inside the shaft with scaffold and ladders, so every level of the walls could be reached
• Core drilling around the old fixings and anchors in the shaft walls, so each one came out whole without breaking up the concrete around it
• Patching the cored holes and repair areas with repair mortar, finished flush with the wall
• Marking out, cutting and breaking back the jambs of the lift landing door openings so the new frames would fit
• Grouting the new landing door frames and sills in place
• Coring through the floor in a plant room at marked positions

What made it hard

A lift shaft is a tight place to work. The crew worked off scaffold inside the shaft, with light brought in on leads, water and slurry from the core drill to manage, and every tool and bag of mortar carried in by hand.

The facility kept operating the whole time. Every shift started with a pre-start, the SWMS and the site permits, and the landing openings sat in working corridors and plant areas, so the work zones were barricaded and kept clean at the end of each day.

The old concrete in the shaft had stains, uneven faces and fixings from earlier lifts. Each fixing had to be found, marked and dealt with one at a time, and the patches had to finish flat so the next trade had a true wall to work to.

How it was done

The shaft was worked from the scaffold. Each old fixing was marked, then cored out with a hand held core drill so the anchor came out inside the core, instead of being hammered out. The holes were then patched with repair mortar and finished flush, level by level down the shaft.

At the landings, each opening was marked out, the jambs were cut and broken back to the new size, and the broken concrete was bagged and removed. Once the new frames were set, the crew grouted them in along the jambs and sills.

Lessons learned on this job

Every job teaches the crew something. These are the ones from North Bondi that we take onto every lift shaft and existing building job.

What worked

• Core the fixing out, do not hammer it. Coring around each old anchor took it out whole and left sound concrete to patch, where hammering would have broken out a much bigger area
• Mark everything before you start. Painting every fixing and every hole to be patched meant nothing was missed when the crew moved up and down the shaft
• Scaffold that reaches every level. Building the access inside the shaft first meant the crew could work each wall properly instead of reaching
• Patch as you go. Finishing each level before moving on kept the shaft ready for the next trade behind us

What was difficult

• Working in the shaft. Light, slurry from coring and moving materials up and down all take time, and the programme has to allow for it
• Old concrete is never even. Stained, uneven faces and fixings from earlier lifts meant every repair was a little different
• Grouting frames into old openings is fiddly. The gaps behind old jambs are rarely the same size, so have enough grout and packing material on site before the frames arrive
• Working around an operating facility. Permits, barricades and a clean site at the end of every shift are part of the job, not extra to it

Outcome

The old fixings came out, the shaft walls were patched flat, and the landing openings were cut back and the new frames grouted in, from January to early May 2026, with a final coring visit in June.

If you have something similar

Builders and lift contractors upgrading a lift in an existing building need the concrete in the shaft and at the landings ready for the new gear. Have a look at our concrete repairs Sydney, concrete core drilling Sydney and concrete cutting Sydney pages, or get in touch.