Concrete scanning and GPR in Laval

Île Jésus building stock and your concrete surveys

Until 1965, Île Jésus was made up of 14 municipalities, from Sainte-Rose to Chomedey by way of Duvernay and Saint-Vincent-de-Paul; the merger order is dated August 6, 1965. Laval is at once an administrative region, an RCM and a city, a unique case in Quebec, on a 246 km² territory, the smallest of Quebec’s regions. According to the Centre d’archives de Laval, postwar suburbanization transformed farmland: families of more modest means settled in Pont-Viau or Arèsville, and the bungalow spread through neighbourhoods such as Duvernay.

The older building stock rests on local stone. The Sainte-Rose-de-Lima church, a classified heritage building, was built from 1852 to 1856 on the bank of the Rivière des Mille Îles, using stone taken from nearby quarries. The island’s quarries also supplied stone for the Jacques Cartier Bridge and the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul penitentiary; one of them, after serving as a dump, became the Centre de la nature in 1970.

On the industrial side, a refinery once operated in Saint-François, and Laval’s manufacturing jobs are now concentrated in complex processing, such as printing and chemical products. The extension of the metro’s Orange Line added Cartier, De la Concorde and Montmorency stations, opened in April 2007.

In areas built during the bungalow wave, such as Duvernay or Pont-Viau, the basement slab and foundation walls may have been altered by successive owners: finished basement, extension, new bathroom. Before drilling, indicate the approximate year of construction and the known work, then mark the planned points on site. In a printing or chemical plant, also point out trenches, floor drains and containment basins: these embedded items change the area to cover and must be located before any cutting.