Method 02
Concrete slab core cutting in Abu Dhabi, Dubai & Al Ain
Vertical coring through suspended and ground floor slabs for risers, drainage and MEP penetrations. Every suspended slab scanned for post-tension cables before the barrel turns.
What it is
When to specify slab core cutting
Slab core cutting is vertical core drilling through a floor, and it carries two risks that wall coring does not. The first is what the core passes through on the way down. The second is what happens to the cylinder of concrete when the cut completes and gravity takes over.
On suspended slabs across Dubai and Abu Dhabi towers, post-tensioning is common and often not obvious from the finished floor. A post-tension cable carries stored energy, and cutting one is dangerous as well as structurally serious. We scan every suspended slab before drilling, mark the cable runs on the surface, and set cores to clear them.
The second risk is the slug. A Ø200 mm core through a 250 mm slab weighs around twenty kilos, and it exits through the soffit into whatever is below: a ceiling grid, a corridor, a tenant's office. We fit soffit protection and capture the slug on every downward core rather than trusting it to stay put.
Applications
What we use it for
Riser penetrations
Vertical cores stacked floor to floor for drainage, chilled water and electrical risers, set out from a common gridline.
Drainage and waste
Cores through slabs for soil, waste and rainwater pipework, positioned to suit falls and connections below.
Electrical and data routes
Small diameter cores for conduit and containment passing between floors in commercial fit-outs.
Fire fighting services
Penetrations for sprinkler mains and hydrant risers, sized to allow the required fire sleeve.
Post-pour corrections
Cores added after the pour where cast-in sleeves were missed or mispositioned during construction.
Test and inspection cores
Slab samples taken for strength testing, cover survey verification or investigation of a defect.
Sequence
How the job runs
Set out from the grid
Positions transferred from your drawing to the slab and checked against the floor below so stacked cores line up.
Scan for PT and services
GPR run over every core position. Any core landing on a tendon or a live service is flagged before setup.
Protect the soffit
Below-slab area isolated and slug capture arranged so nothing falls into the space beneath.
Drill, capture, seal
Core drilled at controlled feed, slug removed intact, slurry vacuumed and the opening sleeved or capped as required.
Site control
Working above an occupied floor
Most slab coring on live buildings happens above a space somebody is using. That changes the job from a drilling exercise into a protection exercise, and it is where the cost difference between contractors actually sits.
We isolate the area below before any downward core, physically rather than with a sign. Ceiling tiles come out so the soffit is visible, drop protection goes in, and somebody is stationed below on cores over sensitive spaces. Water is contained on both faces because slurry finds the path of least resistance and that path is usually the ceiling void.
None of this is optional and none of it is charged as an extra. If a quote for slab coring in an occupied building does not mention the floor below, that contractor has not thought about it yet.
Questions