Tight Quarters Episode One – Full Demo, Propping, Structural Steel and Piling in Greenwich

Dialogue by Dan

Perfect Contracting’s latest demolition project, surrounded by residential and commercial buildings merely metres away, Perfect Contracting is bringing down a multi-storey building in the heart of Greenwich without a single hitch.

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Recently sold to an unnamed developer, the Northside Clinic at 2 Greenwich Road is being dismantled by your favourite Sydney demolition contractor. Except there’s far more to it than just swinging a wrecking ball. The entire SoW includes soft internal demo, heavy propping, structural steel bracing, rock anchoring & shotcreting and finally, a full civil works package. With a works scope this broad you’d expect enough space to land multiple skips and stockpile material for segregation. At least to slew an excavator. But real estate in Greenwich is rare. And with a single lane driveway servicing both the site and the busy commercial building next door, things were always going to be tricky.

Boots on ground

The adventurous project lifted off the day after Anzac Day this year when seasoned Perfect Demolition Supervisor Moustapha Merhi strapped on his steelies and pre-started the boys. A full envelope scaffold had already been installed so there was no holding back. Project Manager and Engineer Hisham Tarish was on hand – and would stay on hand – for science, engineering guidance. Built on a steep slope, the ex-psychiatric hospital was to be reduced from five stories to one-and-a-bit with the retention of just the L2 basement and a handful of tilt up walls.

With a sea of Perfect RIW shirts cladding an army of willing participants, Mous and the team got stuck in. First up was running a fleet of gensets, lighting stands, extension cords and floodlights. Such was the maze of passageways and rooms this alone took most of the first day. Then the real work began: gutting the thing. Using manual labour, pinch bars, grinders, sledgies, recipro’s and small machines, the Perfect crew pulled, cut, reefed and prised the interior free. Given that there was 80+ rooms on each floor this process alone took weeks.

Inside out

Scores of skips of plasterboard and timber battens were sent to Bingo. More scores of skips of the furring channel and overhead lighting were sent to SIMS. Acres of electrical wiring were salvaged. The stainless kitchen was sawzalled into chunks and recycled. Hundreds of aluminium windows were retained for their alloy. The steel fire suppression system was dismantled and sent to scrap. All internal ceramic was tossed in the rubble pile. Even the tap ware was reclaimed. Recycling? We Get It Done. The only service left intact was running water.

Just under three weeks later the interior was a sea of clean, empty grey: concrete floors & ceilings and Besser Block walls. To walk around the place alone was a little spooky, especially in the darkened bowels of the beast. But as established a few paragraphs up, this ain’t no Indiana Jones tale. We came here to reduce the thing to rubble and that’s exactly what was about to begin.

Outside in

While the internal demo was full steam ahead, a steel hoarding had been erected over and adjacent to the driveway. Its purpose was twofold, a] to prevent any dismantled material getting away from us and b] to provide a safe place to crane demolition machines onto the roof. Yep, we were going to demolish the building from the top down.

But first, Props

With some heavy machinery about to land and some even heavier machinery due down the track, Hisham’s phase one propping design was implemented. Scores of Perfect’s own props were installed in strategic fashion to bear the load. Once complete, the machinery could be landed.

Cue the crane

Hook truck legends Rob and Loren 8-wheeled a few choice toys across the Harbour Bridge that day, arriving just in time to meet the 150t mobile crane. With some quick thinking and years of lifting experience the roof of the former hospital found itself populated by a 5t Kubota, a 3.5t Yanmar, a Kubota Posi, a Brokk 200 demobot and an S590 Bobcat. Naturally their full suite of attachments came with. The rooftop was perimetered in temporary fencing and within minutes of Hisham and Mous’ detailed briefing, the sound of hammering filled the air. The existing running water was used for dust suppression. Soon after the break-out began one of our sweet, new 14t Volvo’s arrived. It was parked up on the driveway for its soon-to-be loading out duties.

The circle of life

And so it began. With leading hands/senior operators like Yuri, Hamad, Lucas and Leon under the expert guidance of Hisham and Mous, the building was relieved of its structure. The excavators broke out the material, skilled hands segregated good steel and the skid-steers pushed the rubble over the edge to the waiting 14t below. Operated by Ross, the mid-weight Volvo loaded Perfect’s own 10 wheeler tipper where driver Billy would run to Concrete Recyclers in Camellia. In between loads Ross would mount the grabs and pluck good steel where he could and load it into Perfect skips. Because there was only one driveway [which had to remain clear at all times], ensuring no machine sat idle for extended periods took some orchestrating. But you don’t get to where we do in a dozen years without being able to find efficiencies. This cycle was repeated rain, hail and shine for what was to be months of good, solid demo.

And then the lockdown hit.

Saturday 21st July, 2021. A day that will live in infamy. Okay, comparison to the attack on Pearl Harbour is a bit of a stretch but it certainly took us all by surprise. Being a world weary character, Moustapha called the Saturday crew into the site office and gave them the bad news. A two week lockdown starting tonight. He sent them away to get their affairs in order, secured the site and went home.

Deep down Moustapha knew it would be longer than two weeks.

He didn’t know how right he was..

To be continued..

Perfect Contracting was bringing down a multi-storey building in the heart of Greenwich without a single hitch. The SoW included soft internal demo, heavy propping, structural steel bracing, rock anchoring & shotcreting and finally, a full civil works package.