Structural Reporting Save Money

3 Ways To Not Save Money on Site

  1. Poor quality construction
  2. Poor quality supervision
  3. Poor quality assurance systems

The following is an example found on the UK Structural Safety website that shows the absolute need for quality site supervision of structures during their construction phase.  At a Primary School, Edinburgh in January 2016 nine tonnes of masonry from the outer skin of a cavity wall fell onto an area used by pupils and other pedestrians but fortunately, there was nobody in the vicinity. 

The primary cause of the collapse of the wall at the school was poor quality construction in the building of the wall which failed to achieve the required minimum embedment of 50mm for the wall ties, particularly in the outer leaf of the cavity wall.

The poor quality relates to all three of the following aspects:

  1. the direct laying of the bricks and the incorrect positioning of the wall ties;
  2. the direct supervision of the laying of the bricks and the positioning of the wall ties; and
  3. the quality assurance processes used by the sub- contractor and main contractor to confirm the quality of the construction of the walls.

The inquiry into the defects in the construction of the external walls lead to 16 other schools in Edinburgh, resulting in the enforced closure of all 17 schools for a period of several months.

The inquiry noted the impact of the increasing lack of independent scrutiny on the quality of construction across the industry.  

There is no substitute for physical progress inspections by suitably qualified technical teams to achieve good quality work and anyone that tries to tell you to the contrary is either misinformed or dishonest.

Collapsed section of wall

You can download the SCOSS Alerts article “Inquiry into the construction of Edinburgh Schools – February 2017” from the Structural Safety website http://www.structural-safety.org/publications/scoss-alerts/

No Comments

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.