Before the committee signs anything
There is no concrete cancer licence. Knowing that changes what a committee should be asking for, and it is not a licence number.
Concrete Cancer Brisbane inspects and repairs concrete cancer. The checks below are the ones a committee should hold any remedial contractor to.
The Queensland Building and Construction Commission licenses concreting, and describes its scope as “concreting including install formwork, reinforcement and concrete”. Read that again, because it is about placing new concrete. Remedial work — breaking out failed cover, treating corroded reinforcement, reinstating with a repair mortar — is a different activity, and there is no QBCC class named for it.
That does not make the work unlicensed. A contractor doing structural repairs on a building needs an appropriate builder or trade licence, and it is a licensed activity under the QBCC Act. What it means is narrower and more useful: there is no single licence class that proves somebody understands concrete cancer.
Where reinforcement has lost section, the question of whether the element is still adequate is an engineering one, not a contractor's opinion. Ask who is signing off the repair design. On our jobs, where steel has lost section, a structural engineer specifies the repair before we start.
Breakout extent, steel treatment, the repair mortar product and how it is cured. A quote that does not specify these things cannot be checked, and a low price may be low because it specifies less.
Ask for it, then check it on the QBCC licensee register, which is public. Confirm it is current and the name matches the business you are paying.
Public liability, and confirmation that remedial structural work is not excluded from it.
A repair mortar carries a manufacturer's warranty only when it is applied to their specification. Ask which one, and ask for the data sheet.
Ask what caused it. Carbonation and chloride attack are different problems with different repair strategies, so we establish which one is in your building before we quote. A price given without that is a method, not a solution. See carbonation versus chloride.
A correctly licensed contractor repairing the symptom of a problem nobody diagnosed will be back on the same balconies in five years, and the body corporate will have paid twice. The licence proves who may do the work. It never proves the work is right.
The suburbs below cover the 1960s–80s walk-up belt and the bayside strip, where salt air can reach the steel faster.
Tell us what the concrete is doing. We will inspect it and give your committee a written scope and a quote it can actually vote on.
