For a RAAC survey in Salisbury, 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. Wiltshire 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 published RAAC lists cover education and NHS estates, and none of them names a Salisbury building. NDTScan treats that as an absence of surveys rather than an absence of RAAC. Planks of this kind were installed across Wiltshire 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 Salisbury 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 Salisbury owner receives a plank-level record, not a general opinion.
The most expensive mistake in Salisbury, 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 Salisbury client, and the reason NDTScan reports what the concrete contains before anyone specifies what to do about it.
Services Available in Salisbury
- RAAC Identification Survey GPR based, plank by plank identification of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in roofs, floors and walls across Salisbury. 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 Wiltshire 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 Salisbury owner needs an independent second opinion on a survey or a remediation proposal.
RAAC in and around Salisbury
Instructions in and around Salisbury 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 Wiltshire 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 Salisbury from its Oxford base.
NDTScan also provides RAAC surveys in Swindon, Trowbridge, Chippenham, Stratton St Margaret, Calne and Devizes and the rest of Wiltshire. The rest of the region is covered from the South West 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 Salisbury 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.