It’s not every day that you need to figure out what is embedded in the concrete slab in your home or commercial building and where everything is exactly, but when you do, it’s often vital that you get accurate information. Even if you have the building plans that indicate where things like pipes, utility lines, and rebar are located in the slab, you might want to double check their locations prior to disturbing the concrete.
You might be thinking: Why would you need to disturb an existing concrete slab in the first place? Most often, this is necessary when you want to make changes to the structure. Many remodeling projects require that a concrete slab be cut into in order to do things like reroute a pipe or wiring, or accommodate an addition to the building. Concrete block walls may also need to be cut on occasion, like when the building needs an additional opening for a new door or window.
Before any cutting, coring, or drilling of the concrete takes place, the responsible thing to do is bring an a GPR concrete scanning service. If you’re the homeowner or building owner, make sure a concrete scan is included in any contracts you sign with the general contractor who will be doing the remodeling work. If you’re a general contractor, you should have a concrete scan done even if your client isn’t asking for one! A thorough scan of the area that will be disturbed is necessary in order to avoid hitting anything that is embedded in the slab or block wall, which could cause expensive damage or even injury to the person doing the cutting.
Fortunately, concrete scanning isn’t as complicated as it might sound. You can call in a local GPR concrete scanning service that can complete the scan quickly and affordably. GPR stands for ground penetrating radar, and it is the go-to technology for just about any concrete scanning project.
Enhanced Scanning is a Southern California-based company that offers concrete scanning services. Here’s what they had to say about GPR: “In most situations, GPR scanning is more than adequate to provide the information our clients are looking for in a concrete scan, and therefore, it is the technology we use more than 90% of the time. It is safe, cost-effective, requires little to no setup prior to its use, and produces fast and accurate results.”
What about the other 10% of the time? Enhanced Scanning explains, “When we need to ‘thread the needle’ in a highly congested concrete slab, we may employ the use of X-ray. X-ray offers slightly higher resolution than GPR, but it’s also slower, more expensive, and people have to be cleared out of the area because of the radiation that is emitted.”
Unless your building has a highly congested slab and a very specific area that needs to be cut into, GPR should be your technology of choice for concrete scanning.
