Survey Solutions: Solving the challenge of RAAC planks

Recent guidance from the Standing Committee on Structural Safety and also the Department of Education provides recommendations for those needing to identify the presence of RAAC planks in their buildings. Survey Solutions is working at a number of sites nationwide, helping property owners understand whether RAAC planks are present in their building and providing valuable survey data to understand the level of detail needed to inform the next steps.

The company has seen an increase in project enquiries requesting surveys of buildings that may have been constructed from RAAC planks.

What is RAAC?

RAAC stands for Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete; a material that may have been used in the construction of hospitals, schools and other public sector buildings.

Following a couple of alerts, including the collapse of a school roof, building owners are now responsible for carrying out inspections of their properties to understand whether RAAC is present in their buildings.

Survey Solutions helps clients at the earliest possible stage to support building owners along the way. If you believe there may be a presence of RAAC, one of the company’s surveying engineers can visit your site and provide expert guidance.

If RAAC is present, the company can provide a technical report and recommendations for the next steps. It had established partnerships with structural engineers who we can include within our project team to help deliver support on every stage of remedial action.

As part of this, it may be that follow up site visits are required to provide ongoing survey data to monitor the behaviour of any planks that have been identified.

As well as the technical report and recommendations, the team of survey specialists will provide the data in accordance with the Standing Committee on Structural Safety (SCOSS) recommendations.

The data can be issued in a format to suit individual client requirements, generally a combination of AutoCAD dwg, PDF and Excel files.

Survey Solutions also has a team of survey experts who are more than happy to talk through specific requirements in more detail.

For further information, visit the RAAC plank pages of the company’s website or email raac@survey-solutions.co.uk