NDTScan carries out RAAC surveys in Chester-le-Street 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 County Durham. NDTScan is the UK's specialist in identifying it, assessing it and telling an owner plainly what to do next.
The Department for Education's list of education settings with confirmed RAAC, published in February 2024, includes 4 settings in County Durham, among them Ferryhill School, St Bede's Catholic School and Byron Sixth Form College and St Benet's Catholic Primary School, Ouston. The Department of Health and Social Care's list of hospital sites with confirmed RAAC includes University Hospital of North Tees in County Durham. Forum Theatre has also been publicly reported as containing RAAC. Those are the buildings that made the published lists, which cover schools, colleges and NHS sites. They are named here as evidence that the construction is present in County Durham, not as NDTScan projects. Around Chester-le-Street the same roof and floor planks are in council buildings, housing, leisure centres, retail units and industrial sheds that nobody has counted.
The method NDTScan uses in Chester-le-Street 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 Chester-le-Street owner receives a plank-level record, not a general opinion.
One rule applies to every RAAC survey in Chester-le-Street. No remediation, propping, strengthening or replacement should be designed until each plank has been identified and its condition recorded. Some of the most expensive RAAC decisions in the UK were taken on roofs that had never been properly surveyed. The survey is the cheapest part of getting the decision right, and NDTScan will say so to every Chester-le-Street client.
Scan before you repair. That is the standing advice for every Chester-le-Street client, and the reason NDTScan reports what the concrete contains before anyone specifies what to do about it.
Services Available in Chester-le-Street
- RAAC Identification Survey GPR based, plank by plank identification of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in roofs, floors and walls across Chester-le-Street. 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 County Durham 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 Chester-le-Street owner needs an independent second opinion on a survey or a remediation proposal.
RAAC in and around Chester-le-Street
Instructions in and around Chester-le-Street follow the RAAC lifecycle. Identification surveys where the construction of a flat or shallow roof is uncertain. Condition assessment of planks already known to be RAAC. Risk classification to IStructE guidance to support closure, propping or continued use decisions. Management plans and reinspection for planks kept in service. Independent review where a County Durham owner has been given a survey or a remediation quote and wants a second opinion before spending. NDTScan works for the Department for Education, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Office of Government Property funded bodies as well as private owners, and attends Chester-le-Street from its Oxford base.
NDTScan also provides RAAC surveys in Darlington, Hartlepool, Stockton-on-Tees, Durham, Billingham and Consett and the rest of County Durham. The rest of the region is covered from the North 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 Chester-le-Street 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.