The job
Mettle Projects is a commercial builder with an office in Fortitude Valley. They brought Perfect Concrete Care in to strip out a ground floor shop in the Valley so a new fit out could go in. The old office and showroom fit out had to come out back to the structure, and then the slab had to be ground back ready for the new floor.
The building is an older one with heritage features on some walls, so the builder marked up exactly what was coming out and what had to stay. Everything was done with hand tools and a small tipper.
What the shop strip out involved
- Wall fixings, partition walls, glass partition offices and cabinetry removed
- Ductwork and old data and power cabling pulled down from the ceiling
- Carpet tiles lifted back to the concrete slab
- The raised timber floor and its steps at the shopfront lifted to the subframe
- Waste sorted, with steel kept separate for recycling, and loaded out by tipper
- The slab ground back to remove carpet glue and old floor paint
What made it hard
Access was through the building's basement car park, which has a low height clearance. The crew brought in a tipper that fits under it, so waste could be loaded close to the shop instead of barrowed out to the street.
Heritage items on the walls had to stay untouched. They were wrapped in protection before the strip out started and the crew worked around them.
The shop sits in a building with other tenants and a busy street out the front. Dust screens stayed up, dust was kept down, and the site was left secure and clean at the end of each day.
How it was done
On day one the crew mobilised the tipper and tools, then stripped the wall fixings, partitions, glass, cabinetry and ductwork, loading material as they went. On day two the carpet tiles, the remaining fixings and the shopfront timber floor came out, and the C&D waste and steel went out on the truck.
A few days later the crew came back with a floor grinder and dust extractor. Grinding took off the carpet glue and the old painted areas and brought the slab back to the original aggregate floor underneath, ready for the builder's next trades.
Outcome
The shop was handed back stripped to the structure with the slab ground back, and Mettle's site team checked it before we left. The heritage items on the walls were left as they were found.
Lessons learned on this job
Every job teaches the crew something. These are the ones we took from Fortitude Valley.
What worked
- Clear mark up from the builder before we started, so there was no guessing about what stayed
- A tipper sized for the car park clearance, which kept loading short and quick
- Stripping and grinding with the same crew, so the slab was ready without another contractor
What was difficult
- Low clearance access through a shared basement car park
- Working around protected heritage items on the walls
- Keeping dust and noise down in a building with other tenants
If you have something similar
Shop and office strip outs around Brisbane often need the floor sorted as well before the new fit out goes in. Have a look at our concrete grinding Brisbane and concrete cutting Brisbane pages, see another Brisbane job at Coorparoo, or get in touch.
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.