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Concrete removal and replacement in Pakenham
The old surface out, the rubble gone and the new pour built properly in its place, priced as one flat line so the demolition never becomes the surprise on the invoice.
- Free on-site measure
- One written quote, itemised
- Mesh on chairs in every slab
- Shire permits flagged before you commit
Every replacement job starts with a confession the old slab makes on its own: the crack lines, the drop at the joints, the corner the trailer found. The corridor’s original concrete, in the older streets of Pakenham, Beaconsfield and the townships, mostly predates any serious base work, and the district’s reactive clay has spent every season since proving the point. There is no repair product for concrete built on the wrong foundations; there is removal, and there is doing it properly the second time.
What the $35 covers
Break-out of the old surface, whatever its thickness and mood. Loading and cart-away. Tipping, with the concrete going to recycling rather than landfill where the facility takes it. Because the removal is measured alongside the new surface it never arrives as a variation mid-job, and because the same crew does both halves, the site is never left as a demolition photo waiting for a second contractor to answer the phone.
Where replacement starts paying twice
Break-out day is the cheapest day your block will ever have for changing its mind. The old single drive can come back as a wider one while the formwork is out anyway. A tired path can return in the exposed aggregate that matches the new drive. Levels and falls that never worked, the puddle at the garage door, the path that tips at the house, get corrected in the new build rather than inherited. Bring the wish list to the measure; most of it costs least right then.
The rebuild standard
What goes back is built to the same public specification as everything we pour: ground stripped and compacted rock placed where the site calls for it, mesh on chairs mid-slab, thickness matched to use, control joints cut early, isolation from the house and falls that send water somewhere harmless. The whole reason your old concrete is on a truck is that somebody once skipped this paragraph.
The cost guide puts worked examples on removal jobs, the calculator has a break-out toggle that adds the $35 line for you, and the free measure makes the whole thing one written figure, demolition included.
Know enough? A measure costs nothing and holds you to nothing.
Where we pour it
Pakenham, Officer, Beaconsfield, Pakenham South, Officer South, Beaconsfield Upper, Berwick, Nar Nar Goon, Tynong, Garfield, Bunyip, Koo Wee Rup, Cardinia, and the roads between them. The areas page covers the whole shire run.
Fair questions
Concrete removal and replacement: asked and answered
What does concrete removal cost?
A flat $35 per square metre added to the rate of whatever replaces it, and that line includes the breaking, the loading, the cart-away and the tip fees. Taking out a 45 m² driveway adds about $1,600 to the job. It is measured with everything else up front, so the number on your quote is the number on your invoice. Working rates until we measure the job; after that the written quote is the price, full stop.
Why did the old concrete fail in the first place?
Around here, almost always the ground. Much of the corridor's older concrete went down thin, without steel, straight onto clay that swells every winter and shrinks every summer, and on the old swamp country it often went down over ground that was never compacted at all. The replacement gets the base, mesh and joints the original never had, which is the entire point of doing it once more and then not again.
Can you just patch the bad section instead?
Sometimes, and we will say so when it is true. A sound slab with one broken corner can take a neat cut-and-replace. But patching a surface that is failing across its area buys tidier-looking failure, not a fix, and colour-matching weathered concrete is a lottery. At the measure you get the honest version of which side of that line your slab sits on.
Does replacing a driveway involve the council again?
Only at the crossover. Rebuilding or repairing the section in the road reserve triggers Cardinia Shire's Works Within a Road Reserve permit even when a crossing already exists there, and on unkerbed roads the culvert underneath gets checked and corrected while everything is open. We run that process, insured to the shire's required twenty million dollars, as part of the job.
Next step
Price your concrete removal and replacement
A measure costs nothing and books nothing. You get one written figure and the room to decide.
Straight to a person on (03) 6155 0209, 7am to 5pm weekdays, 8am to 1pm Saturday.