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Inquiry into remediating use of ‘weaker’ concrete expanded to include UK’s wider public estate | New Civil Engineer

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/inquiry-into-remediating-use-of-weaker-concrete-expanded-to-include-uks-wider-public-estate-15-06-2023/

Confirmed in a Local Government Association (LGA) briefing, the inquiry will now ask each government department look to identify and rectify the use of

3 comments

tal

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This article is from a few weeks back, but it includes more technical details on the RAAC problems than the other news articles I could find.

C4d

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This is going to be a big expensive mess isn’t it?

tal

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In all seriousness, it may be that a lot of countries have something of a mess with RAAC.

Also, while RAAC may have been popular in the UK in public buildings for a span of some decades, it's not at all clear to me that it's not an issue in privately-owned buildings as well. I've seen a handful of articles pointing out that the British government is only acting on their own buildings. They aren't inspecting private-sector buildings.

googles

Yeah:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jun/14/uk-public-buildings-feared-to-be-at-risk-of-collapse-as-concrete-crumbles

The government has an extensive property portfolio, which was valued in March 2021 at £158bn and estimated to cost the taxpayer £22bn a year to maintain.

Some of the estate has been sold off the private sector – raising the prospect of expensive and extensive inquiries into the material’s use by private landlords.

The association has issued guidance for councils that says the concrete was “used by some municipal architects primarily in office and schools”. But it says it has been “found in a wide range of buildings, not all of which are still in the public sector”.

“The problem may be more serious than previously appreciated and … many building owners are not aware that it is present in their property,” it said.

I read another article that had some professor of civil engineering or something saying that it might be necessary to wind up treating RAAC the way asbestos is treated today -- that is, there is a legal obligation to know if it is present in a building if you own that building.