Frequently asked questions

An initial site visit to assess a reported defect is provided at no cost. A full investigation — cover meter and carbonation testing, moisture mapping, representative openings and a written condition report — is a chargeable deliverable, quoted as a fixed fee before commencement. Where works proceed with us, that cost is credited against the project.

Safety risks such as falling material, failing balustrades or active structural concerns are attended as make-safe works, ahead of programmed activity. Non-urgent assessments are booked to the next available date, which we confirm at the time of enquiry.

The majority of our work is carried out on occupied residential and commercial buildings. Staged access, dust and noise controls, resident notification and protected access paths are specified within the scope and priced accordingly.

Yes. The condition report is the client's property. A defect schedule with mapped extent is what allows competing quotations to be compared on a common scope, and we would rather compete on that basis.

Metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria. Metropolitan work forms the majority of our activity; regional projects are accepted where the scope justifies the travel, which is discussed at enquiry rather than absorbed into the rate.

Yes. Registration and insurance details are published on our accreditations page, and certificates of currency are provided at engagement as a matter of course.

Remedial work can uncover conditions that no reasonable investigation would have identified. Where that occurs, a written variation is issued with supporting evidence, priced and approved before the work proceeds. Provisional quantities are identified as provisional within the original scope rather than absorbed into a lump sum.

Concrete repair, waterproofing and facade works are carried out by our own crews. Specialist scopes such as cathodic protection design, fire engineering and structural design are undertaken by named specialist partners, identified within the scope.

In most cases, corrosion of the embedded reinforcement. Carbonation or chloride ingress destroys the passive layer protecting the steel; the steel then corrodes, and the iron oxides formed occupy substantially more volume than the steel they replace — commonly cited as between two and six times, depending on the oxide. Because the tensile strength of concrete is only around 2–4 MPa, that expansion readily cracks and then spalls the cover. Surface patching that does not treat the steel and its environment therefore fails, because the corrosion cell remains active beneath the repair.

The extent is mapped before the works are priced. Cover-meter and half-cell potential surveys, carbonation depth testing and targeted break-outs establish the true extent of active corrosion, including areas that appear sound at the surface. The defect schedule in the condition report forms the basis of both the scope and the price.

A correctly specified repair addresses the cause rather than the symptom — cleaned and primed reinforcement, matched-strength repair mortar, and a protective system that slows re-carbonation. Installed systems are supported by manufacturer warranties and a maintenance schedule, and the design life stated is the one supported by the system manufacturer's technical data.

Yes. Most of our work is on occupied residential and commercial buildings. The methodology includes staged access, noise and dust controls, resident notification templates for owners corporations, and hold points that the building manager can verify.

Rarely. Water tracks along membranes, slab folds, conduits, cracks and bond breaks, and can surface metres from where it entered. Testing is therefore carried out before any demolition is recommended. Flood testing, moisture mapping and electronic leak detection localise the breach, so that a small area is opened up rather than an entire terrace or ceiling.

Water passing through the structure itself rather than through a failed membrane — through cracks in a slab or wall, through construction and cold joints, around penetrations, or through basement and lift pit walls below ground. It is common in carparks, podiums and basements, and is repaired at the concrete, typically by injection, rather than by adding a new surface coating over it.

Often, yes. Polyurethane injection resins react with water and expand to fill the crack, so they can be injected into a crack that is actively leaking. Where the crack also affects the load-carrying capacity of the element, structural epoxy is used instead, once the crack is dry enough to accept it; the engineer determines which applies.

Sometimes, provided the existing membrane is sound, compatible and correctly detailed at upturns and penetrations. Adhesion and compatibility are tested first. Where the failure is systemic — the wrong system, no falls, or failed details — an overlay is expenditure on a repair that will fail. The testing establishes which of the two conditions applies, and the report sets out the evidence for that conclusion.

Installed systems carry the manufacturer's material warranty, for the period stated for that system, together with our workmanship warranty. Both are conditional on the substrate and the details being correct, and the documented methodology and hold-point records provide the evidence of that.

A thin, rigid strip of carbon fibres set in resin, manufactured in a factory to a controlled fibre content, and bonded with epoxy to the face of a beam or slab. It acts as additional tensile reinforcement, so it is used where a member needs more bending capacity — for heavier floor loads, new plant, removed walls or reinforcement lost to corrosion. Carbon fibre fabric, applied as a wrap and saturated on site, is used where shear capacity or column confinement is needed.

A consulting structural engineer, either the client's engineer or one engaged by us. We build to their design and documentation. We provide constructability input during design, certified installers for the specified carbon fibre system, and the QA records — substrate pull-off tests, application conditions and coverage mapping — that allow the engineer to certify the completed works.

There is no dedicated Australian Standard for carbon fibre (FRP) strengthening of buildings, which is relevant where a system is described as AS compliant. Design is carried out to international guidance, principally ACI PRC-440.2-23 and fib Bulletin 90, applied within the AS 3600 framework, with AS 5100.8 informing practice where bridge precedent is relevant. Every carbon fibre scheme on our projects is designed and certified by a chartered structural engineer.

Carbon fibre adds capacity with millimetres of thickness and negligible added dead load, requires no hot works, and installs quickly in occupied buildings. Steel remains preferable where fire ratings, impact resistance or very high forces govern the design. The selection is an engineering decision; we install either system and can price both for comparison.

Where the strengthening is relied on during a fire, generally yes. The epoxy that bonds the laminate loses strength at elevated temperatures, so the engineer determines whether the member must carry its load in a fire without the carbon fibre, or whether a fire protection system is applied over it. That decision is made in design, not on site.

Each stage is recorded before it is covered — substrate preparation and pull-off adhesion results, batch numbers, ambient conditions during cure, and laminate positions mapped against the design drawings. The handover pack provides the evidence required for engineering certification and for insurance purposes.

Usually, yes, with engineering. The structural engineer designs the opening and the treatment of every tendon it crosses. The tendons are located by scanning and marked out on the slab, the affected tendons are de-stressed or cut under a controlled procedure and anchored off either side of the opening, and the slab around the opening is strengthened where the design requires it — commonly with carbon fibre laminate. The sequence is set by the engineer, not improvised on site.

Shortening a tendon so that it stops short of a new opening, rather than running through it. The tendon is exposed, its force is released in a controlled way or it is cut under the engineer's procedure, and a new anchorage is installed so that the remaining length can carry its designed force. It is the standard method for making penetrations, stair voids and lift shafts in existing post-tensioned slabs.

As-built drawings are a starting point but are not relied on, because tendons are placed to a curved profile — high over supports and low between them — and their final position can differ from the drawings. Ground-penetrating radar and cover meter scanning locate them at the actual cut or core position, and where confirmation is needed a tendon is exposed by careful hand removal of the cover concrete.

Yes. A stressed tendon stores a large amount of energy, and an uncontrolled cut can release it violently. No cutting or coring proceeds in a post-tensioned slab until the tendons have been located, and de-stressing and re-stressing are carried out under an engineered procedure with exclusion zones in place. This is also why coring for a small penetration in a post-tensioned building should not be treated as routine.

A consulting structural engineer designs the works and the procedure, and inspects and certifies them. Stressing and de-stressing are carried out by specialist post-tensioning operatives working to that procedure. Whether a building permit is required is a determination for a registered building surveyor.

Frequently not. Rope access and elevated work platforms can service inspection and localised repair at a fraction of full scaffold cost. Where the density of the scope justifies scaffold, the comparison is presented with the costs attached, and the access strategy is itemised as a separate line in the scope rather than absorbed into repair rates.

The failure modes that matter — fixing corrosion, lintel deterioration and delaminating render — develop behind the surface. Victorian owners corporations increasingly face insurer and essential-safety-measure pressure for evidence of facade condition. Periodic inspection identifies these conditions while remediation is still localised.

Yes. Mortar analysis informs repointing mixes, lime-based systems are used where the substrate requires breathability, and sample panels are approved before full application. Heritage facade work is documented for permit compliance where applicable.

Because most are scoped from the surface. Lifting the tiles reveals the actual condition of the screed, membrane and slab. We carry out targeted openings during investigation so that the scope reflects the conditions present, and provisional quantities are identified and priced as such rather than absorbed into a lump sum.

Possibly not, and the position is more nuanced than it is often presented. The National Construction Code sets barrier requirements for new building work; it does not apply retrospectively to existing buildings. Whether an existing balustrade must be upgraded during remedial works is a matter for the relevant building surveyor under Victorian building regulations, and depends on the scope of what is being permitted. Our role is to measure — anchorage pull tests, section loss at fixings, and geometry against current requirements — and to report the findings with an engineering position, so that the decision is made on evidence rather than assumption.

A higher load than is commonly applied. Under AS/NZS 1170.1 Table 3.3, the "within a single dwelling" category explicitly excludes external balconies and cross-references category C3, which covers stairs, landings, external balconies and roof edges. A residential balcony barrier is therefore designed for a 0.75 kN/m horizontal line load at the top edge, not the 0.35 kN/m figure that applies within a dwelling. The 0.35 kN/m value is less than half the load required at an external balcony, and it is among the most frequently misapplied figures in remedial practice.

Affected balconies are closed for the duration of the works, as there is no safe alternative. What can be controlled is the duration per balcony, typically a matter of days and staged in runs, together with clear notification ahead of each stage and sequencing that keeps individual closures short.

CSV was formally abolished on 1 July 2026 under the Cladding Safety Victoria Repeal Act 2026, with its functions, staff and liabilities transferred to the state building regulator. The underlying obligations were not extinguished with the agency. Buildings with combustible cladding remain subject to the ordinary enforcement regime under Part 8 of the Building Act 1993 — building notices and building orders issued by the municipal or relevant building surveyor, and emergency orders where the risk warrants it — as well as to insurance conditions and duty-of-care exposure. Privately funded rectification is now the available pathway, which increases rather than reduces the importance of transparent scoping and staging.

Frequently. Cladding Safety Victoria analysed 359 buildings it funded for cladding rectification and found nearly half had defects unrelated to the cladding — structural, fixing and sealing, or water ingress — and of those, nearly 80% had water or moisture related structural damage. Separately, one in four buildings in the program had leaking balconies, balustrades or terraces causing structural damage. Under the program, owners were required to fund those repairs before cladding rectification proceeded. Investigation scopes should therefore extend behind the panels rather than being limited to the panels themselves.

No. Risk depends on core type, extent, configuration relative to exits and openings, and the fire measures of the building. A fire-engineered assessment can support partial rectification, or retention with mitigations. We build to what the fire engineer and the building surveyor approve, and where a staged or partial rectification is supported by the assessment, that is what is priced.

Managed properly, buildings remain occupied. Works are staged elevation by elevation, with weather-tightness maintained at the close of each day, protected access paths, and communication protocols for residents. The program set out in our scope shows the staging explicitly.

Managed properly, rope access has a strong safety record, based on two-rope redundancy, certified technicians, documented rescue plans and supervision ratios. The regulatory position is that Australia has no law requiring rope access certification. IRATA International certification is the industry benchmark rather than a legal mandate, and the instruments that apply are AS/NZS ISO 22846.1 and .2:2020, together with the Victorian OHS Regulations 2017 Part 3.3 and WorkSafe Victoria's compliance code on preventing falls in general construction. AS/NZS 4488 is still cited occasionally; Part 1 has been withdrawn and Part 2 superseded, which is a useful indicator of how current a contractor's systems are.

On inspection, surveys and distributed repairs — sealant joints, isolated spalls, fixings and glazing details — where mobilisation is the dominant cost. For this class of work, rope access is usually the lower-cost method, because it avoids the erection, hire and dismantling costs of a full scaffold. Dense repairs across whole elevations still favour scaffold or mast climbers, and the crossover point is costed in the proposal.

Existing anchors are assessed for certification status and load path, and engineer-designed anchors are installed where the building lacks them. Certified anchors are an asset that reduces the cost of all subsequent facade access works.

In timing and in information. A program inspects on a defined cycle, tracks identified defects against photographic baselines, and intervenes while the repair remains minor. The owners corporation obtains a maintenance line that can be budgeted within the annual cycle rather than a special levy raised after failure, together with a condition record that supports insurance, sale and compliance obligations.

An establishment inspection and baseline condition report, followed by scheduled inspections at intervals set by exposure, typically annual or biennial. Each cycle includes gutter, drainage and sealant checks, monitoring of identified defects against defined intervention triggers, and a rolling five to ten year expenditure forecast updated after each inspection.

The client. Reports, photographs and defect histories are the property of the owners corporation or asset owner, and are available to the owners corporation manager, the insurer and any subsequent contractor. Retaining the data is a matter of transparency rather than a commercial position.