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Structural Surveys
Properties are built to last perhaps not forever, although with care and maintenance applied by owners and occupiers on a regular basis, the life of a property can be extended.
Defects in properties can result from many factors that may occur singularly or severally including but not limited to problematic trees, over-loading of parts of the building, unsuitable specification of materials, reduction of stiffness of the structure, ingress of wet weather, changes in ground conditions, poor design, improper detailing, low standard of construction, leaking drains, extreme weather conditions and accidental damage from fire and flooding and explosions.
Before cost-effective repair options can be recommended it is vitally important to determine and understand and report upon the most likely cause or if certain the actual cause of the defect and to eliminate any of the suspected possible causes. This can involve comprehensive inspection implemented by 'opening-up' of the property below the readily visible external and internal surfaces during which the finishes and fittings and decorations might need to be removed to enable scrutiny of the underlying structure. Depending upon the condition of the defect, the inspection may require underground inspections to be conducted and reported upon by other specialists so that a fuller picture of the cause can be formulated and presented.
THe Consultants has experience in conducting surveys and reporting upon defects and making recommendations for repairs for a variety of buildings and structures of principal constructions including aluminium gantries, filler-joist clinker concrete floors, brickwork retaining walls and medium-rise brickwork constructions, cut-timber and pre-fabricated timber frameworks, rolled steelwork and cold-formed steelwork mezzanine floors and frames, and reinforced concrete elements and frames.
Structures can be forgiving to abuse and distress but only for so long before they require comprehensive repair or replacement. Early as possible expert intervention to conduct the diagnosis and prognosis is the medicine that will either relieve or cure the condition; we like to think that our efforts help to return the structure to its best possible health.
Case study: Riverside House, Shoreham, Kent
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