Concrete Scanning Services in San Diego for Building Improvement Projects

Thinking of doing a renovation project in your home or place of business in San Diego that involves disturbing a concrete slab? Before you rent that jack hammer or concrete saw and start tearing into things. You might want to pause and think about what could be embedded in that concrete slab. Not only could there be water lines, drainage pipes, and conduit, but there is also likely to be reinforcing elements such as rebar or post-tensioned cables. Hitting any of these things during the demolition process could have costly consequences!

Even if you have the construction documents for your house or commercial space, you should still proceed with caution. Builders don’t always strictly adhere to the plans, so the plans you have could be inaccurate. 

So, what do you do? Just go for it and hope for the best? 

Fortunately, there are concrete scanning services in San Diego that can tell you which areas to avoid when you are disturbing your concrete so you can avoid causing any damage or injury. 

Concrete scanning services typically use a technology called ground penetrating radar (GPR) to “see” through the concrete to locate any potential hazards. Whether you’re dealing with steel rebar, post-tensioned cables, conduit, or utility lines, GPR can tell you the areas to avoid. If you’re concerned about the thickness of your slab or are wondering if there are any concerning voids in the concrete, GPR can also give you insight into those things.

Locating concrete scanning services in San Diego is fairly simple—a simple Google search will yield multiple results—but you want to make sure go with a company that has highly trained technicians on staff. Interpreting the data put out by GPR scanning tools isn’t always straightforward. It takes some training a good amount of field experience to become skilled at it. A good GPR technician should be able to tell you, with a good amount of certainty, where hazards are located and what they are exactly. If there is any ambiguity, they are also likely to have other tools at their disposal to confirm their findings.

If you need more comprehensive understanding of your concrete slab, be sure to ask about a holistic concrete structural analysis. This will involve bringing in other types of scanning tools, in addition to GPR, to give you all of the information you are looking for. 

While concrete scanning services in San Diego will cost you some money, the money spent can be well worth it if it means you avoid causing damage that would be expensive and time-consuming to fix. Do your research, read customer reviews, and ask questions about a company’s capabilities and experience before hiring a concrete scanning service in San Diego.