For a RAAC survey in Aldershot, NDTScan brings something no general scanning contractor can: hands-on experience of identifying and analysing reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete across the UK, in schools, hospitals, housing, public buildings and commercial estates. Hampshire has its share of the roofs and floors built with these planks between the late 1950s and the mid 1990s, and most have never been properly surveyed.
The Department for Education's list of education settings with confirmed RAAC, published in February 2024, includes 5 settings in Hampshire, among them Havant Academy, St Anne's Catholic Primary School and Farnborough College of Technology. The Department of Health and Social Care's list of hospital sites with confirmed RAAC includes Royal Hampshire County Hospital, Winchester and Southampton General Hospital in Hampshire. NDTScan names these buildings to show that RAAC is a live issue in Hampshire, not to suggest it has worked on them. The published lists cover education and NHS estates only. The same planks sit in council offices, housing, leisure centres, theatres, shops, depots and private commercial stock around Aldershot that no national list has ever counted.
The method NDTScan uses in Aldershot is the one it uses everywhere: identify first, then assess. Ground penetrating radar reads the plank's internal structure without cutting into it, distinguishing RAAC from the dense precast, hollowcore and timber it is often mistaken for. Every confirmed plank is then inspected for the defects that matter, cracking, deflection, short bearing, water damage, corrosion and earlier repairs, and classified in line with IStructE guidance. The Aldershot owner receives a plank-level record, not a general opinion.
The most expensive mistake in Aldershot, as everywhere else, is to act on RAAC before it has been understood. Whole buildings have been closed on the strength of a visual inspection that could not tell RAAC from hollowcore. NDTScan's position is that identification and condition assessment come first, remediation second, and the report has to be good enough to design from.
Scan before you repair. That is the standing advice for every Aldershot client, and the reason NDTScan reports what the concrete contains before anyone specifies what to do about it.
Services Available in Aldershot
- RAAC Identification Survey GPR based, plank by plank identification of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in roofs, floors and walls across Aldershot. Confirms what the element is made of without opening it up, and records plank widths, reinforcement and bearing details as evidence.
- RAAC Condition Assessment Plank level inspection of confirmed RAAC for cracking, deflection, bearing length, water ingress, corrosion and previous repairs, classified in line with IStructE guidance. Reported so a Hampshire engineer or estates team can act on it directly.
- RAAC Management and Reinspection Monitoring regimes, reinspection intervals and management plans for RAAC that is being kept in service, plus expert input where a Aldershot owner needs an independent second opinion on a survey or a remediation proposal.
RAAC in and around Aldershot
Typical Aldershot instructions: RAAC identification in schools, halls, clinics and council buildings built between 1955 and 1995; plank by plank condition assessment of confirmed RAAC roofs and floors; risk classification in line with IStructE guidance to support decisions on closure, propping or continued use; reinspection and monitoring of managed RAAC; and independent review of surveys and remediation proposals for Hampshire owners and their insurers. NDTScan covers Aldershot from Oxford in the same way it covers the rest of England.
NDTScan also provides RAAC surveys in Southampton, Portsmouth, Basingstoke, Gosport, Farnborough and Winchester and the rest of Hampshire. The rest of the region is covered from the South East RAAC surveys page, and the service itself is described on the RAAC surveys page.
About NDTScan
NDTScan is a specialist non-destructive testing company based in Oxford and led by Neil Smuts, author of The RAAC Book. It is the UK's specialist in the identification and analysis of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, and a Level 4 UKCSS Operator, the first in the UK to achieve that certification. RAAC surveys in Aldershot sit alongside the company's concrete scanning and structural condition survey work, and every report is written to a standard suitable for engineering acceptance, insurers and dispute work.