RAAC Survey in Woodley
Structured Carbon provides RAAC surveys in Woodley and across Berkshire. The survey is led by Neil Smuts (MCIOB, MInstNDT, FRCSP), President of the UK Concrete Scanning Standard and a Fellow of the Register of Concrete Scanning Professionals, and it is designed to give John Staves (CEng FIStructE, MIoD), a chartered structural engineer and one of the UK's leading specialists in RAAC, exactly what he needs to assess each plank and tell you what should happen next.
- Led by Neil Smuts, MCIOB MInstNDT FRCSP, President of the UK Concrete Scanning Standard
- Findings assessed by John Staves, CEng FIStructE MIoD, a chartered engineer who specialises in RAAC
- School RAAC surveyor and academy RAAC surveyor: most of our work, arranged around the timetable
- Non-destructive: RAAC and its reinforcement confirmed without opening up the roof. Visual surveys from £395
- Usually on site in Berkshire within one to two days; report within five working days of the visit
Based in Finchampstead, Wokingham. Woodley is local to us.
What a RAAC survey in Woodley involves
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.
Do you need a RAAC survey?
The buildings most likely to contain RAAC are the ones Woodley has plenty of: post-war schools and colleges, health centres and clinics, sports halls and swimming pools, community centres, libraries, courts, offices and light industrial units, all built between the 1950s and the mid 1990s with flat or shallow roofs. If a building like that has never been surveyed for RAAC, it should be. If it was surveyed on a visual basis only, the findings are worth confirming with scanning, because RAAC and dense concrete are hard to tell apart from below.
RAAC surveyor for schools, academies and public buildings in Woodley
School and academy RAAC surveys are most of our work. Headteachers, school business managers and multi-academy trusts in Woodley need a RAAC survey that is quick to arrange, quiet to carry out and written so that the trust, the Department for Education and the insurer can act on it. The same applies to NHS estates, GP surgeries, council property teams, churches and village halls, leisure centres and commercial landlords: anyone with a flat-roofed building of the RAAC era.
Which school RAAC surveyors can also provide a management and remediation strategy following inspection? We can, because the surveyor and the chartered engineer who assesses the findings are one team, and the strengthening that follows is designed by the same engineer. A visual survey starts from £395; a full engineering inspection is priced per building.
Why Woodley has buildings of the RAAC era
Woodley is a large post-war residential town east of Reading built on the former Woodley aerodrome, with the Headley Road business area. With around 28,000 residents in the Wokingham Borough Council area, it has a town built almost entirely in the post-war decades, so its schools, halls and shopping precinct are of the RAAC period. Buildings of that period are exactly where RAAC turns up: flat or low-pitched roofs, sometimes floors and walls, in schools, halls, health buildings, sports centres and offices built between the 1950s and the mid 1990s.
RAAC survey: how to get started in Woodley
Three pieces of information get a RAAC survey in Woodley moving: the age of the building, the type of roof, and any drawings or previous reports you hold. With those we can say whether the building is a realistic RAAC candidate, what the visit would involve, and how long it would take. For estates spread across Woodley, Earley and Reading, we plan the visits as one programme so that nothing is missed and nothing is surveyed twice.
What happens after the survey
The report lands with John Staves (CEng FIStructE, MIoD), a chartered structural engineer and one of the UK's leading specialists in RAAC, and his assessment is where the survey turns into a decision for the building in Woodley: what stays in use, what is propped or monitored, and whether the roof can be kept and strengthened rather than stripped out. On the tenders we cost, that last answer changes the budget by an order of magnitude. 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.
Every stage after that, from CFRP design to manufacture, installation and monitoring, stays with the same team under our RAACSafe™ Protocol.
The practical questions, answered
How soon: we can usually be on site in Berkshire within one to two days. How long: the report follows within five working days of the site visit, depending on the size of the survey and the level of detail required. When: evening, weekend and holiday visits are no problem. With what: 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. How much experience: we have surveyed thousands of square metres of RAAC. Insured: professional indemnity insurance is held to a maximum of £10 million, with public and employers' liability arranged on a per-site basis. Where: Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire are local to us, and we work across the UK, and Woodley is on our doorstep.
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 survey FAQs
Do you need to open up the roof?
No. We confirm RAAC and locate its reinforcement using non-destructive scanning from the underside or the roof surface. Where a small opening is already present we will use it, but the survey does not depend on cutting into the building.
What 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.
Are you insured?
Professional indemnity insurance is held to a maximum of £10 million, with public and employers' liability arranged on a per-site basis.
Can the building stay open during the survey?
Yes. The survey is quiet, non-destructive work carried out room by room. Schools in Woodley usually ask us to work around the timetable or in holidays; health and office buildings carry on around us. Neil is DBS checked.
What does the report contain?
A panel-by-panel record of what was found: whether the panel is RAAC, its condition, bearing details, cracking, deflection, moisture, previous repairs, all referenced to a location plan with photographs. It is written for a structural engineer to assess from.
Who assesses the findings?
John Staves (CEng FIStructE, MIoD), a chartered structural engineer and one of the UK's leading specialists in RAAC, carries out the structural assessment. The survey is designed around what he needs, which is why the two stages work as one.
Is a RAAC survey the same as a RAAC assessment?
No. The survey establishes what is there and what condition it is in. The assessment is the engineering judgement about what that means and what to do. We offer both, and you can read about RAAC assessment in Woodley separately.
Also in Woodley
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RAAC structural assessment in Woodley, Berkshire, by John Staves CEng FIStructE MIoD, working from Neil Smuts' survey.
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RAAC scanning in Woodley, Berkshire: non-destructive identification of RAAC planks and their reinforcement by Neil Smuts, President of the UK Concrete Scanning Standard.
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Related: RAAC strengthening, RAAC remediation in Berkshire, RAAC confirmed buildings register, RAAC in schools.