ScanAxis · Quebec
Concrete scanning for property managers
In a building in use, the dominant constraint is not technical. It is access, occupants and the calendar. A survey is therefore prepared as much with the occupancy schedule as with a drawing, and its value often lies in what it will allow to be compared later.
Request a quoteAccess decides what gets examined
An area occupied at the time of the visit drops out of the survey and appears as not covered. Freeing spaces means notifying, signing and sometimes relocating parking, which takes real time in the day.
Agreeing the available windows before the visit, rather than discovering them on site, avoids paying for a trip that yields partial coverage. An area freed for an hour is not surveyed the way an area freed for half a day is, and that difference is settled upstream, with the occupancy schedule at hand.
Who authorises, who is notified
In a co-ownership, access to common portions rests with the syndicate, even when the work serves a private unit. In a rental building, notice to occupants follows its own timelines.
These authorisations are not paperwork detached from the survey: they determine the date, the duration and the extent of what can be examined.
- The person who authorises access to common portions
- The occupants to notify, and how far in advance
- The protection to install and remove the same day
- The person on site during the visit
A survey that still reads in two years
A building is followed over time. A single survey describes a moment; a series is only worth something if the division into areas, their naming and the drawing format stay identical from one pass to the next.
Fixing those conventions on the first pass costs little and changes everything: without them, a later comparison cannot say whether an area changed or only the way it was outlined. Whoever picks up the file in a few years will have only these documents, and rarely any memory of the visit itself.
Regulatory verifications for parking structures
Parking garages are subject to specific obligations in Quebec, described by the Régie du bâtiment du Québec.
A non-destructive survey replaces none of those verifications. It can document the condition of the concrete in support of them, and help locate the sectors to watch between deadlines.
What the report has to support deciding
A manager does not need the same document as a contractor. What serves here is a clear transfer onto a drawing, areas named in a stable way, and an explicit mention of what was not examined.
Saying what the result will be used for, budget, planning or building records, lets the useful level of detail be set before the survey rather than when reading the report. A manager who states that intent up front usually receives a shorter document, and a more usable one.
Preparing a request
Describe the building, the areas concerned, the occupancy constraints and the intended use of the result on the contact page. The method used is detailed on the concrete scanning page.
Frequently asked questions
Does a whole parking structure have to be emptied?
Rarely. Phasing by sector is common, provided it is decided before the first pass so the covered portions join up cleanly on the final drawing.
Does the survey replace an engineer’s verification?
No. It documents observations and their limits, in support of a verification. The obligations applying to the building are unchanged and rest with qualified persons.
How do you compare two surveys spaced in time?
By keeping the same division into areas, the same naming and the same drawing format. If those conventions change, the comparison loses its meaning, however good each survey is on its own.