Category: South East Site Engineers

The importance of fit-for-purpose building standards cannot be stressed enough now that housing development programmes are set to be reignited under our new government. With ambitious items on the agenda such as 1.5 million new homes over the next parliament and a set of planning reforms designed to accelerate building projects; we are all awaiting details of these changes with bated breath.

One thing is for sure, London’s boroughs would all benefit from a robust and unilateral structural movement monitoring policy reflective of the times we are about to enter.

The construction methods used to build, rebuild, and extend our structures today are designed to make the most of the unique infill spaces London has. Clearly, control measures have struggled at times to keep up with our modern building methods and public safety has often felt the brunt of these failures. So how do we make sure that the rate of structural failures don’t also rise significantly over the next five years?

Structural movement monitoring has become an essential practice on many modern construction projects, ensuring the safety and integrity of buildings, bridges, and other critical infrastructure utilising advanced technologies to track and analyse the movement and deformation of these structures over time.

There have been several notable incidents of structural collapses in London in recent years, highlighting the importance of better regulated construction practices, particularly around basements, piling, refurbishment and extension projects.

The 2020s have seen a significant number of collapses and partial collapses of buildings undergoing construction work, in a city where temporary housing is already extremely overstretched. These include two multimillion-pound houses in Durham Place, Chelsea that collapsed while undergoing basement work with around 40 neighbours having to be evacuated as a precaution. Last year, a building on Stoke Newington High Street had parts of its roof and scaffolding fall onto the pavement, narrowly missing pedestrians, causing significant disruption and the evacuation of around 20 people from nearby properties. There was also a terrace house collapse in Honor Oak Park, Lewisham again resulting in the evacuation of several properties. This is just to name a few.

For over 21 years now, our team of civil engineering surveyors has helped identify potential failures through structural monitoring; the last one being just this morning with a 7mm movement recorded on the top floor of a four-storey West London building.

From tight infill sites and changing below ground conditions, to aging structures and complex build needs. Below are seven areas where we believe contractors and developers benefit from structural movement monitoring within London’s ever-changing landscape.

1. Enhanced Safety

As safety is paramount on any construction project, structural movement monitoring helps in the early detection of potential issues such as foundation settlement, sink holes, and material fatigue. By identifying these problems early, preventative measures can be taken to avoid catastrophic failures, protecting both lives and property.

2. Cost Savings

While implementing a structural monitoring system may seem like a significant upfront expense, it can lead to substantial cost savings in the long run. Early detection of structural issues allows for timely maintenance and repairs, which are generally less expensive than major and complete rebuilds after significant failure. Avoiding such failures also means avoiding the associated costs of downtime and legal liabilities.

3. Prolonged Structural Lifespan

Regular monitoring can significantly extend the lifespan of a structure. By continuously assessing the health of a building, bridge or similar structure, maintenance can be performed when needed, preventing minor issues becoming major problems. This proactive approach helps ensure that structures remain safe and functional for longer.

4. Improved Design and Construction Practices

Data collected from structural movement monitoring provides invaluable feedback for engineers, planning officers and architects. Understanding how structures behave under various conditions allows for the refinement of planning permission, building design and construction practices. This knowledge can lead to the development of more resilient structures in future by incorporating lessons learned from past projects.

5. Real-Time Data and Predictive Maintenance

Our recent presentation on The Benefits of Automated Movement Monitoring at The Excel London’s Digital Construction Week helped demonstrate how modern structural movement monitoring systems can include real-time data collection and analysis. This capability allows for an immediate response as and when issues emerge. Additionally, the data can be used to develop predictive maintenance schedules, optimising the timing of interventions to prevent issues before they become critical.

6. Public Confidence

For public buildings and infrastructure, structural movement monitoring can help maintain public confidence; as knowing that a building, bridge or tunnel is being monitored can reassure the public of its safety while maintaining its use.

7. Environmental Impact

By extending the lifespan of structures and optimising maintenance schedules, structural movement monitoring contributes to sustainability. By reducing the need for repairs or replacements we have less material waste and a lower environmental impact associated with construction activities.

Structural movement monitoring is a vital tool for London’s unique range of building projects, providing numerous benefits that range from enhanced safety and cost savings to improved design practice, regulatory compliance and various other public considerations.

Structural movement monitoring systems will eventually become an integral part of most construction and maintenance processes within our built environment right across the country, as embracing these technologies not only protects local investments but also ensures the safety and longevity of the structures we have come to depend on.

For more about how we can help implement movement monitoring standards on your construction project visit our structural movement monitoring page or call us now on 020 72 78 07 78.

We recently had the opportunity to deliver on a month-long ground penetrating radar survey of utilities for a renewable energy solar farm project in Exeter.

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a geophysical technique that uses radar pulses to image the subsurface, and is often used by underground surveyors to identify buried objects, such as pipes, cables, and archaeological artifacts.

As this renewables project involves a lot of ground mount piles to be installed as the project progressed; our first week was spent establishing Primary Controls and producing accurate topographical surveys of each field so as to ensure that any anomalies picked up would be accurately positioned to Ordnance Survey OSGB36 Grid.

Once complete, our topographical survey was followed by the establishment of multiple local grids in order to segment the fields for GPR scanning. This allowed us to maintain an accurate and precise GPR survey of any below ground utilities discovered. These grids were marked out using flags, measuring tapes, and a bit of Pythagoras theorem, for our series of 200m by 15m grids; and were marked at 1m intervals using matching flags at each end.

We were then able to scan the fields by moving the GPR antenna along the survey lines marked. We made sure to maintain a consistent speed and direction, adjusting the height of the antenna when required to maintain a consistent depth of penetration. Throughout this project we were faced with both extreme weather and ground condition challenges, both of these factors can often influence the accuracy of the data being scanned. On this project, our risk management procedures were very helpful because we were able to both manually operate the ground penetrating radar and still use alternative methods to minimise manual effort; meaning that we were able to still deliver our work on time.

As soon as we finished a particular GPR survey grid as marked on the field, we uploaded the data to the cloud where one of our colleagues in London were able to process our scans in near real-time. Processing the data enabled our colleagues back in the office to create an image of the subsurface and involved filtering and stacking the data to remove noise and enhance the signal. During our survey we managed to discover a number of land drains, water pipes and manholes as important information to pass on to the client in order to help design the solar panels around these existing services.

Overall, this was a complex and time-consuming project, but with careful planning and the right equipment, we were able to provide valuable information about the subsurface to our client in good time.

Written by Engin Kaya
Edited by Olivia

For more about our GPR scanning services feel free to call us on 02072780778 where a member of our team will be happy to help.

For at least 12 of our past 20 years in business, one of our mainstays at South East Site Engineers has been the topographical land surveys, GPR underground utility surveys and construction setting out of UK solar farms. During the first half of this 12-year period the solar renewable energy industry sector was booming, with year-on-year growth exceeding 80% right up to 2015 due largely to the incentives that the government at the time had put in place on the 1 st April 2010. The latter half of this 12-year period has been quite a different story, with what I would describe as the decimation of the solar farming industry by those desperate to keep hold of power, both in its literal and metaphoric form.

Ever since the UK government switched hands on the 11 th of May 2010, I’ve been amongst those perplexed by the resistance, to what clearly feels like an environmentally sensible road to take. Yes, I am biased, as well as it being one of the big six clean energy sources the UK has at its disposal; solar farms in particular offer opportunities for both our topographic site engineering services and below ground survey services. The reasons behind such a swift and brutal policy turnaround by the new government in 2010 on what is the world’s cheapest and most popular renewable energy source may not be clear in the big bad world of politics; however, for any 70’s movie fanatics out there, I need only say “Follow the money” and we start to get an idea of what is really afoot.

The solar industry’s first political strike was on the 1 st of August 2011 when feed-in tariffs got cut from 30.7p to 8.5p per Kwh for field installations over 250Kw. This would have essentially hit any development larger than an acre and affected any project capable of powering the boiler heating systems of more than 10 typical 3-bed homes at once with no reliance on fossil fuels whatsoever.

Four years later, once the inevitable slowdown started to wain from the 2011 cut in feed-in tariffs, the few clean energy developers that survived this first strike had their heads above water once again. However, the government soon struck once more by completely removing all pre-accreditation Feed-in Tariffs (FITs) as led by then Environment Secretary Liz Truss. The fact that any minister for the environment would have previously worked for four years as an industrial economist at one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, quite rightly, shouldn’t be enough to ring alarm bells; however, this is about following the money, so more on that in a moment.

I’m not saying that the 30.7p per Kwh wasn’t an extremely generous reward for developers of renewable energy, as I witnessed first-hand, some landowners become millionaires overnight as their fields were turned from generating wheat to generating thousands of pounds worth of electricity per day at a guaranteed price for the next 25 years. What I am saying, however, is that such a deep and drastic cut was counterproductive to our environmental ambitions of the time.

The strike on FITs in October 2015 was swiftly followed by the scrapping of all subsidy support through the Renewables Obligation (RO) agreement for solar farms in April 2016 and lends itself further to a counterproductive political agenda and why we need to follow the money, very closely. One of the problems with this policy switch, and a political opposition too weak to do anything about it was that, as developers no longer had a guaranteed price for their electricity, they started to lose confidence; so, was this the plan? The short answer is that we simply don’t know; however, what I can say is that these cuts resulted in the near disappearance of all new solar farm development projects in England in less than six years. Turning an 80% year-on-year solar power generation growth industry right up to 2015, into a real-time drop in solar power generation between 2019 and 2020. The Hill Equation curve couldn’t have been starker, as the industry was given no choice but to react to the governments disinvestment.

Given the multitude of problems we have had to face over the past six years, not least Brexit, Covid-19, and the Ukraine War; today most of us are reeling at the latest fossil fuel energy price rises, double-digit food inflation, the tripling of mortgage rates, and what is officially the first non-Covid related UK recession since 2009; to the point where we would only go as far as thinking “if only…”. However, for those that dare to think a little deeper, or choose to follow the money a little further, with what are effectively all manmade problems; the question becomes, how in the midst of all of this bad stuff, do both BP and Shell split over £15Billion in profits between themselves alone?

One of many places that following this money leads us to are the recent prime ministerial elections. For example, beyond working for Shell in a former life, Liz Truss’s biggest individual prime ministerial campaign doner was the wife of former BP executive James Hay. With other campaign donors including Lord Vinson, a peer who contributes to climate science-denying thinktank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Lance Forman, a former Brexit Party politician who has also dismissed the science on climate change, Andrew Law, a trustee at the centre-right think tank Policy Exchange who have pretty clear opinions on how to handle the Just Stop Oil protestors; as well as Jon Moynihan and Barbara Yerolemou, who both sit on the advisory council of the Free Market Forum, an initiative of the BP-funded Institute of Economic Affairs think tank. Between these six individuals alone, Liz managed to raise over half of her £300,000 prime ministerial campaign spending limit.

Liz’s successful bid to become prime minister and her “not filling fields with paraphernalia like solar farms.” Spoke directly to her plan to ban solar farms on agricultural land; something that struggling farmers themselves are strongly opposed to. Our newest prime minister Rishi Sunak promising to do the same by preventing agricultural land from being covered by “swathes of solar panels” feeds the same narrative, particularly as Rishi too accepted donations from supporters with links to oil and gas for his Ready4Rishi leadership campaign, while at one point being “too busy” to attend the COP27 climate summit in Egypt.

Although it will take time for our UK solar farm clean energy industry to get back on track, it is not all doom and gloom, as last year the government did decide to include solar back into its low carbon funding programmes for the first time since 2015. And while we all hope for the effects of this new

clean energy incentive to filter through, we can at least celebrate the likes of Greece, who last month managed to supply their entire country’s electricity demand using renewable energy only for over 5-hours; with a quarter of this clean energy coming from solar. A Eurozone country that in 2015, the same year as our government started the strategic decimation of our solar farm industry, had to default on its IMF debt due to its inability to be productive (amongst other things of course).

We have known for years that both wind and solar farms (which in themselves are comparable in production costs) are by far the cheapest forms of UK energy production. Solar energy, which is what this piece is on, now costs about 10% of what it did when we started in this field 12 years ago; however, more importantly, in normal times when there was no Ukraine War, it cost a fraction of what it costs to produce oil and gas, both in its financial and planetary form. Hence, we can choose to keep blindly following the money and have most people suffer in silence; or we can choose to put the political allegiances and golden handshakes to one side and follow the maths. That way, we can give the solar PV farming industry the attention it deserved once more.

Within the movement monitoring, site engineering and GPR services industry many now believe that the pandemic has come to an end. However, are we really seeing any light at the end of the tunnel within our now decimated construction sector?

The construction sector is the backbone of many economies and is one of the best ways of seeing if there is any light at the end of the tunnel and potential for recovery. Without ongoing civil and site engineering work, society would not be able to function for very long.

Construction site engineers get to witness first hand many of the changes taking place within the building setting out, utility surveying, demolition monitoring, and topographical survey service industries.

As inflation continues to rise it has affected the cost of everything from GPR service costs and engineering surveyor labour wages to building monitoring machinery hire rates and construction material costs. Like many others, after falling off the “pandemic” cliff in February 2020, the United Kingdom’s Construction industry currently contributes only 7% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) which means the construction industry cannot be relied on alone to stimulate the economy back to normal.

The instability brought about first by Brexit, then by the virus and now the latest Crimean War has caused all of us to rethink and try to figure out new paths and services to sustain our respective economies.

South East Site Engineers recently attained its own next step closer to sustainability via its ISO141001 Certification. This is in order to help ensure we deliver a more environmentally friendly service to our growing list of clients.

Another way we have adapted in recent years, is through developing an online quote service available via our website for services including Topographical Surveys, GPR Surveys, Construction Setting Out, Building Movement Monitoring, and 3D Laser Scanning for a more wholistic BIM package.

The challenges and consequences of the pandemic are still very much ongoing, while we keep in mind current affairs including inflation, Brexit and the Ukraine war, our site engineering within the London construction surveys industry remains vital to our built environment.

Here at SESE we offer a range of site setting out services from installing Primary Survey Controls to Setting Out brickwork. All work is carried out by an experienced setting out surveyor or setting out engineer; and we use only the latest Robotic Leica and Trimble Total Stations with high specification, ensuring accurate and efficient work. All our team have access to and are proficient in AutoCAD, again ensuring accurate and efficient work. This summer our site engineers have been busy on a wide range of projects from setting-out extensions on small domestic projects to setting-out gridlines on the 30th floor of large multi-million-pound projects. We have been working closely with a range of civil engineering contractors on several large hi-rise projects on West India Dock Road, Mount Anvil Site and Nine Elms Lane. Due to the prefabricated nature of a lot of building sites a very high degree of accuracy is required during construction so our setting out is required to be extremely precise. This year alone we have come close to setting out 100 floors on these projects all accurately set out and with our experts on hand to solve any dimensional issues promptly to allow construction to continue. Our engineers have also been streamlining our processes often setting out many floors in one day. Another project we have provided setting out services for is a 5-story development in Wheatstone which includes 20 luxury flats and 2 penthouses. SESE have been assisting on this build since the beginning of the job when we provided the initial Topographical Survey and installed the Primary Survey Controls. As the building has progressed, we have provided other setting out services including setting out for gridlines, setting out for brickwork and setting out for the SFS and window openings. We recently handed over the top floor to the construction team providing a full compliment of gridlines and the perimeter wall face including openings. Height datums have also been provided as the building has progressed. Excellent levels of accuracy have been achieved by SESE throughout the project allowing the client to be confident of the position of each element of the building, rather than relying too much on each of the individual sub-contractors. Running alongside these larger projects we have also completed many single day projects for smaller developers which would include setting out gridlines, setting out foundations or setting out corners of blockwork. Alongside any other requirements such as retaining walls, drainage and site boundaries. Our projects can be positioned using GPS coordinates or offset distances from nearby structures. Contracting SESE to provide the setting out guarantees the setting out of the building is positioned with millimetre accuracy. Our engineers are always happy to go above and beyond the requirements and will communicate clearly with your site teams to help ensure there is no confusion. We can also provide as-set-out drawings of the work completed if required.
Alongside our busy setting out team we also offer many other services including measured building surveys, topographical surveys, as-built surveys and GPR surveys. We also specialise in the structural movement monitoring of buildings, providing a no fuss service with results you can rely on.

Site engineering surveyors are one of the very first people a property developer would engage when considering any form of construction or refurbishment of their property or land.

It is often the developers’ architect that first engages a site engineering surveyor for the initial measured building survey or topographical land survey, depending on whether it is for a new build development or for the refurbishment of an existing development that the property owner has in mind.

Once the land or property has been measured accurately, and both the structural engineer and architect have added their respective load bearing and visual design elements; it is then back up to the site engineering surveyors to start with the precise construction setting out services required at each phase of the project. More about this can be found in our article on the importance of a professional setting out engineer.

If as a developer, architect or contractor you are at the stage where your precise building position is a must and are not in need of construction setting out services on site every single day; our in-house site engineers can be booked either over the phone or online at any time of day, avoiding many of the problems associated with booking ad hoc site engineering services. Whether setting out foundations like ground mount pile positions, setting out steel for the superstructure, or setting out brickwork for curtain walls; if you are looking for a site engineer UK wide simply click HERE to get an instant online quote or call us now on 02072780778 where a member of our team is ready to help.

One of the questions our monitoring surveyors often get asked at SESE Ltd is whether structural movement is the same as subsidence? The simple answer to this is no; however, I’m sure, since you have opened this article, you would like to know why.

Subsidence is caused by the settlement of a grounds structure, whereas structural movement can be caused by a whole host of anomalies, including the settlement of ground strata.

Ground settlement is the downward movement of the ground, generally caused by changes to stresses levels in the strata and can either be natural or manmade. It is often caused by water (or the lack thereof). For example, a natural cause for those of us living near the coast may be a stratum layer with a high sand content; this layer could be meters deep, and still be getting slowly washed away by the incoming and outgoing tide. Another example could be an inland property built on strata with a high London Clay content, as the clay swells and shrinks through the seasons, the structure built on it may experience subsidence if its foundations are insufficient to handle the vertical stress applied.

CORE have written an interesting research paper on the shrinking and swelling effects of London.

I have written more on below ground voids and how SESE can help detect them in our April GPR Survey article on How much should a GPR Survey cost. For our ground penetrating radar survey cost for detecting voids, tree roots and utility pipes you can also click HERE to go straight to our FREE GPR Quoting App.

As alluded to above, whether a building is experiencing structural movement or subsidence, the most important thing is to monitor any building movement as soon as possible to help formulate a plan for remedial works.

Why carry out structural movement monitoring

As it increasingly becomes part of a developer’s construction phase plan, structural movement monitoring will not only help determine whether any building movement is due to subsidence or another form of structural movement, it also helps determine the extent of any damage being caused.

By implementing what we call trigger levels, a weekly monitoring report can help determine when different forms of remedial action need to be taken.

For example, building movement monitoring is often specified by party wall surveyors with weekly structural monitoring survey reports as a minimum prerequisite for major construction works, especially those taking place in close proximity to a neighbouring property or a major infrastructure.

The exercise of monitoring building movement is a preventative measure; and the building movement monitoring systems used at South East Site Engineers are designed to be non-intrusive unless specified otherwise by a party wall surveyor or structural engineer.

Our range of high-tech instruments, mean we rarely need to physically touch a building to detect movement to +/- 0.002m, which helps determine whether any potential structural movement is due to local construction work or as a result of subsidence.

For more about our range of movement monitoring services, you can visit the movement monitoring page of our website HERE.

What if the structure I want to monitor is already damaged?

A damage monitoring survey is slightly different to a movement monitoring survey as there must be a visible form of existing damage there already; whether it is a hairline crack or a wall that is starting to lean due to suspected ground settlement or another cause of structural movement.

Wall movement monitoring can be carried out as standard on walls that have already started to move; however, crack movement monitoring is better surveyed via crack monitoring tell-tale indicators.

As part of a structure movement monitoring report, tell-tale crack monitoring is reported periodically by a monitoring surveyor so as to measure whether there is a change over time, or if the existing damage has stabilised.

For more on the different forms of movement, vibration and damage monitoring surveys available, the ICES have produced an in-depth guide at https://www.cices.org/content/uploads/2013/05/Client-Guide-to-Instrumentation-and-Monitoring.pdf. You can also contact SESE to discuss your specific project requirements.

How much would a building movement monitoring survey cost

The cost of a structural movement monitoring report depends on the location of a project as well as how many walls and points need to be monitored.

Movement monitoring projects in London cost from as little as £325 +VAT with same and next day monitoring surveyor attendance available for all our measured survey services including crack tell-tale monitoring and vibration surveys.

Booking a monitoring surveyor online in under a minute

Clients in need of either building movement monitoring reports or damage monitoring survey reports in London, can book a monitoring surveyor through our FREE online Quoting App and automatically receive a personalised on-the-spot price straight to their email in as little as 60 seconds by clicking HERE.

Once you have given a project location and preferred start date, select the days you want us, how frequently you want us, how many walls and points you need monitored, then select “reflectorless” if you do not think you need us to physically touch any walls. You can also click on the chat box below at any time in the process if you need more guidance from a member of our team.

As a supplier of engineering surveyor services throughout London and the UK Southeast, our ISO quality assured building movement monitoring services can also be booked in conjunction with our other services including below ground surveys, construction setting out, topographical land surveys, and fixed wing sUAV arial drone surveys for a more comprehensive site engineering survey package.

If you have any questions or require any further information, please don’t hesitate to call us now on 020 72 78 07 78 to find out how we can help with your structural monitoring surveys in and around London.

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) although a relatively new surveying technique for the construction and measured surveys industry, has been in use for almost a century as a scanning technique in both the medical and military arenas.

As a non-destructive engineering survey technique, below ground GPR surveys are an alternative underground utility mapping service, for environments where trial pits, boreholes and other forms of visual inspection are not the most feasible measured survey options for producing a utilities map.

A project GPR survey cost is usually made up of just a few factors, such as the size of the plot to be surveyed, the surface conditions, and the depth of scan required as these three factors determine which instrument would be best suited to the task.

As a PAS128 Type B survey, all our GPR survey services are managed by a professionally qualified GPR utility surveyor, and with our GPR Survey UK office based in London, we are within easy access of projects all over the Southeast.

An underground utilities survey is just one option for the use of ground penetrating radar, as it is also becoming commonplace for contractors wanting to locate reinforcement in concrete slabs, and developers in need of underground void surveys for a better idea of the homogeny of their land.

GPR Scanning works by sending a pulse of energy into a material via an antenna, a reflection of that pulse is then received (through a receiver) and processed (by a computer) where both the strength of the returned signal and the time it takes for that signal to return are recorded.

As these reflections are caused by changes in material properties, this works brilliantly in well graded ground but is a problem in backfilled soils; it is one of the roles of a GPR utility surveyor to be able to spot the difference.

A ground penetrating radar survey cost can also vary depending on the type of deliverables you need. A brief on site visual inspection of B-Scans would be cheaper than a postprocessed report which typically includes topographical surveys and merged C-Scan tomography plans to help clients visualise exactly what is happening at predetermined depth intervals.

Safety is often the main reason for a below ground services survey and detecting whether there are pipes, conduits, structural voids, and reinforcement within a dig area beforehand will help avoid having to make the decision between penetration, or resolution as accidental penetration can be extremely costly and even cost lives.

As a supplier of engineering surveyor services all over London and the UK Southeast, our ISO quality assured below ground survey services can also be booked in conjunction with our other services including terrestrial topographic land surveys, construction work setting out, movement monitoring surveys, and fixed wing sUAV arial drone surveys for a comprehensive engineering survey package.

For an instant quote on how much a ground penetrating radar survey should cost UK wide, click HERE to use our FREE GPR Service Quote App; and receive our price via email in as little as 60 Seconds.

Alternatively, if you have any questions or require any further information, please don’t hesitate to contact us on 02072780778 now to find out how much your ground penetrating radar survey should cost.

All too commonplace within the construction industry, are stories where a small error in positioning and setting out can cause immense knock-on effects to the project and bottom-line. The block of flats in Colchester that were built the wrong way around just last October, a £12m development project in Stane Park where a mis-position of a few centimetres caused months of delay. A new build house in Mendlesham Green, Suffolk with a demolition enforcement action notice for being 4.5m out of position and a Cineworld in Cambridgeshire that was built in the wrong place – twice, initially mis-positioned by 75cm and then 36cm.

Construction site setting out has always been one of the primary tasks of site engineers. Often studying degrees like Civil Engineering and Geodetic Surveying, there are many routes into becoming a site engineering surveyor and positioning millions and sometimes billions of pounds worth of assets.

As a site engineer, setting out tasks vary from day to day, from setting out construction infrastructure such as the pile positions of a new build to marking out the overlay of measured surveys from existing utilities; with plenty of site levels, drainage runs and gridlines in between.

Hiring competent site engineers for site setting out projects is particularly important in dense cities such as London, where land values are high, and accuracy is vital given the limited space.

Professional setting out exists to introduce greater predictability to the cost of a construction project by reassuring contractors, developers and self-builders of their dimension and location accuracy

If you have any questions or require further information about our setting out engineer services, please do not hesitate to contact us. At SESE Ltd we have a wealth of experience and knowledge in providing setting out services across London and the Southeast. To find out if your project would benefit from any of our site engineering services or for a quick setting out surveyor quote call our office on 020 72 78 07 78 during office hours, or click HERE  at any time, 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

There have been several incidences over the years where structural movement monitoring would have come in very useful. In November 2020, two West London townhouses collapsed during construction work that was going on inside them; considering that less than a year before this, a similar townhouse on the same terrace sold for more than £15,000,000 the reparation costs for this collapse would have been substantial. Costs that could have been avoided through a relatively simple and cheap building movement monitoring system.

Clearly, this error could have ended up costing far more than two historic 18^th Century Chelsea townhouses and a hefty insurance claim, but for the fact that the buildings collapsed late at night, while the street was relatively empty and there was no one inside the two buildings.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time this sort of incident has happened. In April 2017 a £1M house collapsed during basement construction work in Derwent Avenue, Kingston; and in November 2015 an end of terrace property in SW London collapsed during basement extension building work that was taking place inside.

Monitoring Building Movement

The purpose here is to answer the question we frequently get asked at South East Site Engineers; what is the point of monitoring our building work?

Like everything else on the planet, buildings are constantly moving; this movement may be exaggerated during excessive vibration from road traffic, trainlines, or tunnels, and of course material movement during construction work; especially basement construction work.

When underpinning an existing building (the process of constructing a basement or lowering the existing floor level beneath an existing building) this movement is exaggerated because our contact with that building is now direct.

Movement monitoring reports provide clients and contractors with evidence of the extent of movement in their building at the designated monitoring points, before, during, and after the construction and/or demolition work.

“Early warning systems” like these are designed to notify interested parties as and when a buildings’ movement is starting to approach the given trigger levels and in exactly which parts of the building this heightened risk is occurring. All in order to avoid what could be a catastrophic disaster.

It is never too late to act…

Damage Monitoring Surveys

Even in the event where damage is already evident, it is often wise to call an engineering surveyor to monitor existing cracks, either using reflectorless monitoring points (in hard-to-reach places) or tell-tale gauges. What you really want to be sure of is that your structural movement is not continuing significantly over time. A damage monitoring survey proposal is often best reviewed by your structural engineer before deciding the extent and location of the required building movement monitoring system.

As a form of measured survey and very much part of the site engineering process, the cost of structural movement monitoring reports varies. It often depends on how large a monitoring survey you require, your project location, and how frequently movement monitoring visits are required. To get an idea of monitoring survey costs for your project click HERE to use our FREE Movement Monitoring Quote App.

This article is a brief overview of movement monitoring. If you have any questions or require any further information please don’t hesitate to contact us. Alternatively, you can find more about our structure monitoring services on our movement monitoring service page.

Here at SESE Ltd we have a wealth of experience and knowledge in providing both construction and demolition monitoring solutions across London and the Southeast.

To find out if your structure requires movement monitoring or for a structural monitoring survey quote please call our office on 02072780778 or book online HERE  24 hours a day 7 days a week.