RAAC Scanning in Caversham
RAAC scanning is how you find out what a roof or floor is made of without cutting into it. From below, RAAC and dense concrete look the same; a scan tells them apart and shows where the reinforcement inside a RAAC plank actually sits. In Caversham and across Berkshire that scanning is carried out by Neil Smuts (MCIOB, MInstNDT, FRCSP), President of the UK Concrete Scanning Standard and a Fellow of the Register of Concrete Scanning Professionals.
- Led by Neil Smuts, President of the UK Concrete Scanning Standard and Fellow of the Register of Concrete Scanning Professionals
- Confirms RAAC and locates its reinforcement without opening up the structure
- Building stays in use; quiet, room-by-room work
- Results feed straight to a chartered RAAC engineer, John Staves CEng FIStructE MIoD
Based in Finchampstead, Wokingham. Caversham is local to us.
How scanning identifies RAAC
Two things cannot be seen from below a ceiling: whether a panel is RAAC at all, and where its reinforcement is. Scanning answers both. It separates RAAC from dense concrete by its internal structure, and it maps the reinforcement in each plank, including whether the bars reach the bearings, which is where RAAC planks are most likely to fail. The results are logged to a location plan for every panel scanned, ready for structural assessment.
Who scans your building
The person holding the scanner decides whether the results mean anything. At Structured Carbon that person is Neil Smuts (MCIOB, MInstNDT, FRCSP), President of the UK Concrete Scanning Standard and a Fellow of the Register of Concrete Scanning Professionals, who leads the national standard for concrete scanning and owns the Assess and Monitor stages of our RAACSafe™ Protocol. The results of every scan in Caversham are handed straight to John Staves (CEng FIStructE, MIoD), a chartered structural engineer and one of the UK's leading specialists in RAAC, so the same evidence drives the structural assessment and, where it is the right answer, the design of strengthening in place.
Is it RAAC or ordinary concrete? Identification in Caversham
The most common question from schools, academies, NHS estates and councils in Caversham is the simplest one: is this roof RAAC or ordinary concrete? From below they can look identical. Ground penetrating radar and ultrasonic scanning settle it in minutes per panel, because RAAC's light cellular structure and its reinforcement pattern read very differently from dense concrete. The same scan locates the reinforcement and checks whether it reaches the bearings, the single most important fact about a RAAC plank. Scanning is included in our visual survey, from £395, and in every engineering inspection.
Buildings in Caversham worth scanning
Caversham sits in the Reading Borough Council area, close to Reading, Sonning and Emmer Green. It is the north bank of Reading, with Victorian and Edwardian housing, Caversham Bridge and Reading Bridge and hillside 1930s estates, and it holds schools, church halls and community buildings extended or rebuilt in the post-war decades. That is the building stock the RAAC scanning question applies to: anything with a flat or shallow roof from the 1950s to the mid 1990s, whether school, clinic, hall, leisure centre or office.
Prioritising buildings in Caversham
Not every building in Caversham needs a RAAC scanning, and we would rather tell you that than sell you one. The ones that do are flat-roofed, date from the 1950s to the mid 1990s, and have never had RAAC confirmed or excluded by scanning. Under Reading Borough Council that generally means schools, church halls and community buildings extended or rebuilt in the post-war decades. Ranked by occupancy and by the consequence of a failure, that list usually puts schools, health buildings and places of assembly first, then offices and industrial units.
Scanning as part of a RAAC survey
Scanning sits at the front of a chain. Scan and survey establish the facts about each panel in Caversham; the assessment by John Staves (CEng FIStructE, MIoD), a chartered structural engineer and one of the UK's leading specialists in RAAC turns those facts into a decision; and where that decision is to strengthen rather than replace, the CFRP is designed to the scan and survey data, manufactured in the UK, installed with the building in use and monitored afterwards. Together they ensure safe, quality-controlled delivery throughout. Full RAAC surveys in Caversham include the scan as standard. Across the RAAC tenders we cost, a bespoke CFRP scheme engineered for that exact roof frequently comes in at well below 15 per cent of the cost of full replacement. On one tender, a roof costed at around £40 million to replace was priced for strengthening at under £4 million.
What we bring to Caversham
We have surveyed thousands of square metres of RAAC, using GSSI Flex NX and GSSI StructureScan Mini ground penetrating radar, Proceq GP8800 and GP8100 radar, the Proceq Pundit PD8050 ultrasonic tomograph, and other electromagnetic and ultrasonic NDT instruments. We can usually be on site in Berkshire within one to two days, evening, weekend and holiday visits are no problem, and the report follows within five working days of the site visit, depending on the size of the survey and the level of detail required. Professional indemnity insurance is held to a maximum of £10 million, with public and employers' liability arranged on a per-site basis.
Two named specialists, one team
Neil Smuts, MCIOB MInstNDT FRCSP
Survey, scanning and monitoring. President, UK Concrete Scanning StandardNeil leads the survey, scanning and monitoring side of every Structured Carbon project. He is President of the UK Concrete Scanning Standard, a member of the Chartered Institute of Building and the Institute of NDT, and a Fellow of the Register of Concrete Scanning Professionals. LinkedIn
John Staves, CEng FIStructE MIoD
Structural assessment and CFRP designJohn is a chartered structural engineer and one of the UK's leading specialists in RAAC. He carries out the structural assessment and designs every strengthening scheme. John received both the Regional and the National Innovation Award at the HSBC Commercial Banking and Federation of Small Businesses Small Business Growth Awards for his work on RAAC repair. LinkedIn
Thank you, we have your enquiry
One of the team will come back to you within one working day. If it is urgent, call +44 118 430 8430.
RAAC scanning FAQs
Does the scan show where the reinforcement is?
Yes. Locating the reinforcement, including whether it extends to the bearings, is the main reason to scan RAAC. Bearing length is the single most important factor in how a RAAC plank behaves.
Do you scan the whole roof?
We scan every accessible panel that could be RAAC, recorded to a location plan. For a large estate in Caversham we agree the scope with you first, but the principle is that unscanned panels are unknown panels.
Who interprets the results?
Neil Smuts (MCIOB, MInstNDT, FRCSP), President of the UK Concrete Scanning Standard and a Fellow of the Register of Concrete Scanning Professionals, leads and reads every scan. The results go to John Staves (CEng FIStructE, MIoD), a chartered structural engineer and one of the UK's leading specialists in RAAC, for structural assessment.
Can you scan a school in Caversham during term?
Yes. Scanning is quiet, room-by-room work. We plan it around the timetable or use holidays and out-of-hours periods where a school prefers.
Is scanning enough on its own?
It confirms the material and maps the reinforcement. To know what condition the panels are in and what to do, you need the condition survey and a structural assessment as well. We offer all three together as a RAAC survey in Caversham.
What areas do you cover?
We are based in Finchampstead, Wokingham, so Caversham is on our doorstep. Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire are local to us, and we scan RAAC across the UK.
What scanning equipment do you use?
GSSI Flex NX and GSSI StructureScan Mini ground penetrating radar, Proceq GP8800 and GP8100 radar, the Proceq Pundit PD8050 ultrasonic tomograph, and other electromagnetic and ultrasonic NDT instruments. We have surveyed thousands of square metres of RAAC with them.
Also in Caversham
RAAC survey in Caversham
RAAC survey in Caversham, Berkshire, by Neil Smuts MCIOB MInstNDT FRCSP, President of the UK Concrete Scanning Standard.
RAAC survey in CavershamRAAC assessment in Caversham
RAAC structural assessment in Caversham, Berkshire, by John Staves CEng FIStructE MIoD, working from Neil Smuts' survey.
RAAC assessment in CavershamRAAC scanning near Caversham
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Related: RAAC strengthening, RAAC remediation in Berkshire, RAAC confirmed buildings register, RAAC in schools.