Status: complete. Client: James Clifford Construction. Location: a large registered club at Leumeah NSW, trading throughout. Scope: strip out of five toilet blocks and an ATM alcove ahead of a full amenities refurbishment, done in stages and after hours.
The club never closed. Bistro, gaming lounge, bar, auditorium and entertainers' toilets all had to be stripped back to the structure for the builder's refit while members were in the building, so the work ran after hours with the noisy part of each shift finished by 10am.
What the job involved
- Strip out of the male, female and accessible toilets in five blocks across the club: floor tiles and the 40 mm bedding under them, wall tiles with the glue ground off the walls, decorative architraves, ceiling linings, partitions, cabinets, fittings and fixtures
- Demolition of lightweight screen walls in the gaming lounge toilets and a cut back of an existing wall to suit the new layout
- A new opening cut through an existing wall, with the wall propped on needle beams to the engineer's detail until the builder's lintel went in
- ATM alcove: lightweight walls, metal skirtings, carpet and timber flooring out around the vending machines and the column
- A first stage in July 2024 on the same club and a return visit in January 2025 to grind the old waterproofing off the toilet floors ahead of the new system
- Loadout by wheelie bin and skip bin through the trading club, area left clean at the end of every shift
What made it hard
The building was open. Every shift the crew set up, stripped, loaded out and cleaned up while the club traded on the other side of a door, and the noisy work had to be done and dusted by mid morning. Tile bedding does not come up quietly, so the sequence inside each block was planned around that window.
Toilet blocks are small rooms with a lot in them. Five of them, each with tiles bonded to the walls, thick bedding on the floors, partitions, ceilings and live services overhead. Dust from grinding the tile glue off the walls had to stay in the room, so air scrubbers ran the whole time and the doorways were sealed.
One wall came out to form a new opening. It carried load, so it was propped on needle beams before the cut and stayed propped until the builder installed the lintel.
How it was run
Each block was taken as its own small job. Services isolated and capped by the builder, then the fittings and partitions out, ceilings down, wall tiles off, floor tiles and bedding broken out to the slab, and the wall glue ground back so the new linings had a clean substrate. Rubble went out in bins through the club before opening, and the room was cleaned and closed off at the end of every shift.
The new opening was set out with the builder, propped with needle beams and props to the propping design, cut and knocked through, then handed over for the lintel. The props stayed until the builder released them.
In January 2025 the concrete care crew came back to grind the old waterproofing off the toilet floors so the waterproofer had bare, clean concrete to work on.
How it went
Five toilet blocks and the ATM alcove handed back bare and clean for the refit, with the club trading every day of the works. James Clifford Construction has kept asking us to price club and venue refurbishments since.
If you have something similar
Clubs, pubs and hospitality venues that have to stay open while the amenities are rebuilt: this is the kind of after hours, area by area strip out Perfect Strip Out and Demolition does across Sydney. Have a look at our commercial strip out, demolition, structural propping and make good and defit pages, or get in touch.
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Perfect Stripout & Demolition 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.