Why Bother with a Bay Area Concrete Scan?

Everyone has seen news stories about construction accidents that resulted in oil and gas leaks and explosions, fires, electrocutions, and major power outages.  Known as external force damage, these run-ins with underground utilities can cost lives as well as huge sums of money.  While avoiding such catastrophes is probably the best and most obvious reason to perform a Bay Area concrete scan before any excavation, it is not the only reason. Certainly, many excavation and construction accidents can be preempted by calling Underground Service Alert (USA) North 811, northern California’s utility location one call center.  811 is useful service provided...

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San Francisco Bay Area GPR, Concrete Scanning and Utility Location

San Francisco boasts so many iconic images that it’s hard to isolate one that best represents the city.  When you hear the name San Francisco, do you picture the famous cable cars?  The Golden Gate Bridge?  Chinatown?  Alcatraz?  Lombard Street?  The Mission District?  Haight Ashbury?  While historical structures dominate the list, San Francisco is the furthest thing from a city stuck in the past.  From the Presidio and the Golden Gate Bridge across the Bay to Alameda and Oakland, the area is bristling with construction projects.  The city is looking up—literally.  Between the Mission District and Nob Hill, twenty high-rise...

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GPR, Concrete Scanning and Utility Location in San Diego

The city of San Diego has deep roots.  In fact, the first Europeans ever to set foot on the west coast came ashore at what was to become San Diego.  The architecture of Old Town and the Mission San Diego de Alcalá bear witness to her Spanish history.   Each year the city plays host to millions of visitors who flock to Sea World, The USS Midway, and the world-renowned San Diego Zoo in Balboa Park.  As San Diego nears her 250th anniversary, the city is looking forward, and Centre City is exploding with construction activity.  As of early 2016, 6.4...

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Concrete Scanning Reveals the Mysteries of the Subsurface

Many different professions rely on GPR for concrete scanning in order to conduct their work more safely and efficiently.  Since the mid-1980’s, ground penetrating radar has made it widely possible to locate utilities, measure the depth of a concrete slab, or “see” what lies inside a concrete wall.  Today, instead of going in blindly with a jack hammer or picking up a drill and making an educated guess, architects, builders, plumbers, and electricians can perform their work with confidence that they won’t put employees at an unnecessary risk or destroy something beneath the surface, causing expensive delays. Concrete scanning before...

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Structure Scanning with Ground Penetrating Radar

Concrete Structure Scanning with GPR How Does Ground Penetrating Radar Work? Before you start a construction project, it’s important to ensure there are no unexpected conflicts with reinforcing steel, post tensioned cables, or embedded conduits. SiteScan uses Ground Penetrating Radar to detect obstacles either buried underground or embedded in concrete structures. But just how does GPR work? GPR technology emits non-destructive radar waves throughout the ground or within concrete which bounces back when it comes into contact with an unseen object. The technology records these waves to map out the location of these objects on a grid, maximizing the area...

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