NDTScan carries out RAAC surveys in Ampthill for schools, hospitals, councils, housing providers, universities and commercial owners. Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete was used in roofs, floors and walls from the late 1950s to the mid 1990s, and a great deal of it is still in service across Bedfordshire. NDTScan is the UK's specialist in identifying it, assessing it and telling an owner plainly what to do next.
The published RAAC lists cover education and NHS estates, and none of them names a Ampthill building. NDTScan treats that as an absence of surveys rather than an absence of RAAC. Planks of this kind were installed across Bedfordshire from the late 1950s to the mid 1990s in public buildings, housing, leisure centres and commercial units, and the owner of a flat-roofed building of that age has no way of knowing without an identification survey.
The method NDTScan uses in Ampthill 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 Ampthill owner receives a plank-level record, not a general opinion.
The most expensive mistake in Ampthill, 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 Ampthill client, and the reason NDTScan reports what the concrete contains before anyone specifies what to do about it.
Services Available in Ampthill
- RAAC Identification Survey GPR based, plank by plank identification of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in roofs, floors and walls across Ampthill. 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 Bedfordshire 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 Ampthill owner needs an independent second opinion on a survey or a remediation proposal.
RAAC in and around Ampthill
Typical Ampthill 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 Bedfordshire owners and their insurers. NDTScan covers Ampthill from Oxford in the same way it covers the rest of England.
NDTScan also provides RAAC surveys in Luton, Bedford, Leighton Buzzard, Dunstable, Kempston and Biggleswade and the rest of Bedfordshire. The rest of the region is covered from the East of England 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 Ampthill 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.