Wall Sawing and Track Sawing

Wall sawing, also called track sawing, is a diamond blade running on a rail bolted to the surface being cut. The track holds the line, the blade is driven hydraulically or electrically, and the result is a straight cut to a set depth in a plane a floor saw cannot reach: vertical, horizontal, overhead or at an angle.

Most wall sawing is opening formation. Door and window openings in solid or reinforced walls, lift and riser shafts, stair openings through slabs, plant openings in decks, and access holes through basement retaining walls. The finished opening is square, to line, and needs no making good, which is the whole reason for choosing it over breaking out.

Depth is governed by blade diameter, and cutting from both faces roughly doubles what a given machine can reach. Where a section is thicker than that allows, the job becomes wire sawing instead.

Two things. The first is the corner: a circular blade cannot cut a square internal corner, so the cut is over-run on the hidden face or the corner is finished by core drilling or hand. A method statement that does not say which of those is happening has not been thought through.

The second is the panel. Once the last cut completes, the piece is free, and a wall panel or slab section is heavy, unbalanced and in the wrong place. Propping, needling and the lift are planned before the first cut, not improvised at the end. On an occupied building that plan is most of the risk assessment.

Wall sawing is the technique for structural alteration inside live buildings, which is why so much of ours is on public sector and commercial estates: schools, hospitals, depots and offices being altered while they stay in use. Electric machines, full slurry containment and dust extraction are standard on that work rather than an upgrade.

We are based at Little Westerhill Farm near Maidstone in Kent. Kent, London, Sussex, Essex and the wider South East are covered from our own yard, and longer programmes are mobilised UK wide. Wall sawing is part of our concrete cutting service.