Survey Solutions: Helping to solve the challenge of RAAC planks

Recent Department of Education guidance provides recommendations for those needing to identify the presence of RAAC planks in their buildings. Greg Norman, Director for Survey Solutions, explains how they are working at a number of sites across the UK helping property owners understand whether RAAC planks are present in their building. They are also providing valuable survey data to understand the level of detail needed to inform the next steps.

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

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

We are able to help our clients at the earliest possible stage to support building owners along the way. If you believe that there may be a presence of RAAC, one of our surveying engineers can visit your site and provide expert guidance.

If RAAC is present, we can provide a technical report and recommendations for the next steps. We have established partnerships
with a number of leading 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, our 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.

Nationwide coverage

As the UK’s largest engineering surveyors, we have nine offices located across the UK. Our nationwide coverage spans from
Scotland to Somerset and with new offices recently opened in Manchester & Bedford we can be on-site quickly to help with early
investigation work.

We have a team of over 150 engineering surveyors meaning wherever your project is, we are close by and available at a time to suit you.

Should you also wish to discuss a project in more detail, we have a team of RAAC plank survey experts who are more than happy to talk
through specific requirements in more detail. You may also wish to refer to industry guidance that has been published on RAAC planks.”