Hello again, in our last article we discussed exactly what benefits you might get out of doing a structural integrity audit. Now this article is going to explain why you should probably make sure this task is completed by an experienced professional.
Why You Shouldn’t Perform a Structural Audit Yourself
This might sound simple, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to perform your own structural audit unless you have experience in this area or at least the support of a very experienced person. The advantages granted by a strong education and years of experience working with structures gives the structural engineer a unique perspective that makes them especially adept at picking up faults within structures.
The benefits of using a qualified structural engineer are multifaceted.
Firstly it’s likely the engineer is going to know the most common places where a fault might occur, in most structures there are places that are higher risk than others, for example places that are exposed to moisture are more likely to rust. Years of experience working with structures gives these engineers the ability to intuitively know which areas of a structure are higher risk and what sort of issues they’re likely to experience.
Secondly, they’ll know what questions to ask. It’s important to ask the people in charge of the asset, what sort of maintenance is performed on the structure, what intervals any maintenance is performed at and who is completing the maintenance. These questions can lead to information about what sorts of problems are likely to have been ignored.
The Role of a Structural Engineer in an Integrity Audit
Thirdly, structural engineers are likely to know when further investigation is required. Many of the issues are common across structures so you can be sure that if a building has signs of an issue it’s likely the engineer has seen it dozens of times. What this means is that even small signs of issues can raise the alarm and prompt the need for further investigation, meaning that absolutely nothing gets missed. Additionally they also know what form of investigation is required to reveal the problem, after all, not everything can be solved with a simple visual inspection.
Hopefully now you know exactly what a structural integrity audit is, what sort of people should be conducting it and what information they’re looking for. The last thing is what sort of information gets produced at the end of it.
When Rapallo performs a structural integrity audit we produce a lengthy report detailing each issue identified with each one highlighted using photographs. With each issue we also provide a recommendation on corrective actions that can be carried out to ensure the structure is kept in its best condition.
This concludes our series on structural integrity audits. If you’d like to know more information about anything that we’ve written here or would like to request a topic for future articles please contact us in the submission form below.
