RAAC Survey in Hungerford

Inside a Structured Carbon RAAC survey

We start with the building's history: when it was built, when it was extended, and any drawings or previous reports you hold. On site we inspect every accessible roof, floor and wall panel that could be RAAC, record its condition, and use non-destructive scanning to confirm whether a panel is RAAC and where its reinforcement sits. Bearings are checked, because RAAC planks fail at the ends before they fail in the middle. We record cracking, deflection, water staining and any evidence of previous repair, panel by panel, with a location plan so nothing is lost between survey and assessment.

What you get back is a report written for a structural engineer to act on, not a photo album. Because that engineer is John Staves (CEng FIStructE, MIoD), a chartered structural engineer and one of the UK's leading specialists in RAAC, the survey is designed around what he needs to classify each panel and decide what should happen next.

School, academy, NHS and council RAAC surveys in Hungerford

Most RAAC surveys we are asked for in Hungerford come from four places: schools and academy trusts working to Department for Education guidance, NHS and primary care estates teams, council property departments, and the owners of halls, churches, sports centres and offices with flat roofs from the 1950s to the mid 1990s. Each gets the same two-part offer. A visual survey, from £395, identifies and records the RAAC. An engineering inspection and structural assessment, priced per building, classifies every panel and tells you what to do, signed by a Fellow of the Institution of Structural Engineers.

For a school or academy trust that needs a RAAC surveyor who can also provide a management and remediation strategy after the inspection, that is what the two-part offer is for.

A practical starting point in Hungerford

If you are responsible for buildings in Hungerford, start with a list. Which of them have flat or low-pitched roofs, and which were built or extended between the 1950s and the mid 1990s? In the West Berkshire Council area that will usually take in a listed high street with post-war school and community buildings behind it. Anything on that list that has never had RAAC ruled in or out is a candidate for a RAAC survey. Send us the list and we will tell you which buildings justify a visit, and which can be cleared from the desk with drawings alone.

Equipment, experience and insurance

Scanning is only as good as the instruments and the person reading them. We 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. Professional indemnity insurance is held to a maximum of £10 million, with public and employers' liability arranged on a per-site basis.

For Hungerford, we can usually be on site in Berkshire within one to two days, 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. Evening, weekend and holiday visits are no problem.