For committees and building managers
Who pays, how to get quotes you can actually compare, and how to put a resolution together that survives a general meeting.
Most concrete cancer in Brisbane is on common property, which means the decision is a committee's rather than an individual's. Concrete Cancer Brisbane arranges the inspection and the written scope; this page is about everything around that, because the technical part is usually the easy part.
In Queensland, common property is generally the body corporate's responsibility and lot property is the owner's. Concrete cancer complicates that because balconies sit right on the boundary and the answer turns on the plan — whether it is a building format plan or a standard format plan — and on the by-laws. A slab is very often common property while the tiles and the balustrade on top of it are not.
Get this resolved before scoping the work, because it decides who funds it and whether the levy is general or a contribution lot by lot. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. Your body corporate manager or a strata lawyer should confirm it in writing, and it is worth the small cost of asking.
Someone competent walks the building, hammer taps, takes cover readings and maps what is actually affected — not what is visible. This is the document everything else is built on.
Quantified work: square metres of patch repair, linear metres of injection, number of anodes, access method, reinstatement. Without this you cannot get comparable prices, and comparable prices are the whole basis of a defensible decision.
Two or three contractors, all pricing the same document. Any contractor who wants to quote off their own assessment instead is making comparison impossible, whether or not they mean to.
If there is section loss, a post-tensioned slab, or any question about capacity, an independent engineer's report before committing. It is cheaper than the argument that follows not having one.
Sinking fund, special levy, or staged over years. The forecast almost never anticipated this, so expect to be choosing between a levy and a staged programme.
Someone independent verifying that what is invoiced is what was done, particularly on variations. On a large job this pays for itself.
The objection you will meet is not that the work is unnecessary — it is that it is expensive and it could wait. The strongest answer is not urgency, it is arithmetic. Show what the repair costs now, what the same repair costs once spalling has spread, and what the building's obligations are regarding falling material. Owners discount alarm and respond to numbers, and on this defect the numbers genuinely favour acting.
It also helps to be plain that this is not a defect of maintenance or neglect. Buildings of this era were constructed to the cover requirements of their time. Reaching this point at fifty years old is ordinary, not a sign that anyone failed.
Where the whole job is genuinely unaffordable in one year, staging is legitimate provided it is prioritised on risk rather than on visibility. That means anything overhead or over an access path first, then structural elements, then durability work, then cosmetic reinstatement. Staging on appearance — doing the street elevation because it is what owners see — is how buildings end up spending more overall.
An inspection and a written scope at no cost, arranged with a QBCC-licensed remedial contractor. If your committee needs an independent engineer rather than a contractor, say so and we will arrange that instead — it is a different document for a different purpose, and on a serious job you may want both.
Most of the stock affected is the 1960s–80s walk-up belt and the bayside strip, where salt air reaches the steel faster.
Tell us what the concrete is doing. We will arrange an inspection and a written scope your committee can actually price.
