There is a persistent assumption that internal demolition is slow because breaking concrete is slow. It is not. On almost every job inside an occupied building, breaking is the fastest part of the operation and four other things set the program.
1. Getting the machine to the work
This is the question that decides whether a job is a week or a month. A 20 tonne excavator will out-break anything, and it is useless two levels below ground behind a 1.1 metre corridor. Compact remote demolition machines exist precisely for this gap: small enough to pass a standard doorway or ride a goods lift, heavy hitting once they arrive, and able to be dismantled and rebuilt in the room when even that is not enough.
The practical consequence is that the access drawing matters more than the demolition drawing. Lift capacity, corridor widths, door swings, floor loadings and turning circles decide method before anyone talks about hammers.
2. Temporary works
Internal demolition is a structural engineering job that happens to involve breaking. Which slabs are propped, in what sequence, to what load, and who certifies it. What holds the structure once the element being removed is gone. Where the load goes when a machine tracks across a suspended slab that was never designed for it.
Programs slip when propping design is treated as a document to be produced rather than a sequence to be followed. Hold points before load comes off any element are not bureaucracy, they are the thing that stops a bad afternoon.
3. The spoil route
Every tonne broken has to leave the building, usually through the same lift the tenants use, often on a different shift, and always without overloading a floor. Spoil handling capacity is the real production limit on most internal jobs.
Sizing matters. Material broken into pieces that fit a barrow moves continuously. Material broken into pieces that need two people and a rest stop does not. Getting that right at the working face is worth more than a bigger hammer.
4. The people who never left
Most of this work happens above, below or beside tenants who are still trading, patients still being treated, or production still running. That drives shift timing, dust screening and negative air, protection of finishes, agreed vibration trigger levels with monitoring, and a building manager who needs to be told what is happening before it happens rather than after.
Vibration limits in particular can halve productivity, and they are non negotiable next to sensitive equipment, heritage fabric or hospital theatres. Planning around them beats arguing about them.
What good looks like on paper
Before mobilisation, a competent contractor should be able to show you the access assessment, the temporary works design with named hold points, the spoil route and shift plan, the dust and vibration control measures with trigger levels, and the sequence in enough detail that someone else could follow it.
If those exist, the job usually runs close to program. If they do not, the first surprise sets the schedule instead.
The safety dividend
Working an operator remotely rather than sitting them on a vibrating hammer inside a dust cloud is not just better for the person. It changes what is possible on fire damaged, contaminated or structurally uncertain work, because the question stops being how long someone can tolerate the conditions and becomes what the machine can reach.
Talk to someone who has run these jobs
If you have one of these coming up, the earliest conversation is the cheapest one. Call 02 8015 6345 or read more about our confined space and internal demolition.
Perfect Contracting 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.