Remedial concrete · Sydney
Concrete Cancer & Spalling Repair Sydney
Concrete cancer is the reinforcing steel inside a slab rusting and swelling until it pushes the concrete off. It is repaired by breaking back to sound concrete, treating the steel and reinstating — not by patching the surface, which leaves the steel corroding underneath.
- Residential building work over A$5,000 in NSW requires a contractor licence
- Remedial work on a Class 2 building is covered by the NSW registration scheme
- Every quote follows an inspection, because published rates disagree threefold
What gets repaired
Concrete Cancer & Spalling Repair services in Sydney
Concrete Cancer & Spalling RepairBreakout to sound concrete, treat the reinforcement, reinstate. The sequence that addresses the cause rather than the stain.See concrete cancer repair
Balcony & Strata Concrete RepairsCommon property, owners corporation process, and the access equipment that usually decides the quote.See strata repairs
Concrete Crack Repair & Water IngressCracks, failed membranes and the water that keeps the corrosion going after the concrete has been patched.See crack and water repair
Before you get a quote
Four things worth knowing first
- The stain is not the problem. Concrete cancer is reinforcement corroding inside the slab. Rusting steel expands to several times its original volume, and that pressure is what cracks the concrete covering it and pushes it off. Painting over the result leaves the steel doing exactly what it was doing before.
- A unit block is not a house, legally. Remedial building work on a Class 2 building — most apartment blocks — falls under the NSW Design and Building Practitioners scheme, which requires registered practitioners and a regulated design lodged on the NSW Planning Portal. That is a fact about how the job must be run, and it changes who can do it.
- Scaffold is often the biggest line. On a third-floor balcony the repair itself can be smaller than the cost of standing safely in front of it. One published Sydney guide puts scaffolding alone above A$15,000 on some jobs. It is the line an owners corporation is really voting on.
- Published rates disagree by three times. Two current Sydney guides put minor work at A$250–600 and A$700–1,500 per square metre. Both are describing real jobs. The gap is the reason a number before an inspection is a guess, and why anyone quoting off a photograph is quoting the photograph.
How it works
From your call to a scope
- Tell us the building and what you can see. House, strata, or commercial; which element is affected — balcony edge, soffit, column, façade — and whether concrete has come away or it is cracking and staining so far.
- A Sydney remedial contractor calls you. They ask what a photograph cannot answer: the age of the block, the floor level, access down the side, and whether it is common property or inside a lot.
- Someone looks at it. Hollow concrete is found by sounding the surface, not by eye. The extent is marked out, and that marked area is what gets priced — which is why the quote follows the visit rather than the call.
- You get a scope and a price. Broken out to sound concrete, reinforcement treated, reinstated, and made good — with the access equipment priced as its own line, because on most balconies it is the one that moves.
What concrete cancer repair costs in Sydney
| Job | What it covers | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| Minor work — guide A (Atomic Projects) | Two current published guides give a per-square-metre rate for minor concrete cancer work, and they disagree by about three times on the same description. This is the lower of the two. | A$250–600 |
| Minor work — guide B (awesim) | The same job, the higher published rate. Neither guide is wrong and neither is a quote for your building — the gap between them is the reason a real number follows an inspection. | A$700–1,500 |
| Severe or structural repair | Both guides publish the same band here — the one figure on this page the two sources agree on. | A$1,200–2,500 |
| Extensive beam or column repair | The upper band from the guide that publishes one. Structural elements rather than a balcony edge. | A$2,000–4,000 |
Ranges reflect typical Sydney jobs and vary with access, site conditions and scope. These are bands published in two current Sydney and NSW cost guides, not quoted prices for your building. On minor work the two disagree by about three times — which is the honest reason a real number follows an inspection. A firm price comes from a site visit — call (02) 9072 0403 or use the quote form.
Concrete Cancer & Spalling Repair across Sydney
Sydney's affected stock is largely three- and four-storey walk-up flats from the 1960s to the 1980s, in liver and blond brick, with concrete balconies and painted soffits. On the coast — Bondi through Coogee and Maroubra, the beaches from Manly to Narrabeen, and Cronulla — salt air drives the corrosion from the outside, and it shows first on the elevations facing the water. Through Mosman, Neutral Bay and the Inner West the driver is more often internal and the buildings are the same age.
Where we work
Suburbs we cover
Enquiries are passed to a remedial contractor covering the corridor the building sits in. The Eastern Suburbs, the Northern Beaches, the Sutherland Shire, and the Lower North Shore and Inner West are four different jobs — exposure, building age and access all change across them.
Get a quote today
Tell us the address, the building type and what you can see, and a Sydney remedial contractor covering your area will call you back.
Call (02) 9072 0403