Structural assessment · Drummondville
Structural assessment in Drummondville
Structural assessment evaluates the condition of a concrete structure with non-destructive test methods, before a repair, an alteration or a regulatory verification in Drummondville. What the report will have to state is decided before the survey, not while reading the results.
Drummondville
Working in Drummondville
An assessment report serves someone, for a specific decision. In Drummondville, when the project involves a planning meeting, knowing who the report is for helps set its content. State the recipient, the decision expected and the level of detail that is useful. A survey framed on a decision produces a usable document; a survey framed on a worry mostly produces further questions.
Drummondville asks that you book an appointment for any planning request that involves meeting an inspector, and states that appointments will become mandatory. A meeting to schedule is one more step in the calendar, better secured early than discovered once the opening date has been set.
Preparing your project in Drummondville
- Name the recipient of the report and the decision it has to inform
- Set the useful level of detail before the survey
- Agree on what the report will say about areas that were not covered
Drummondville’s manufacturing past and your concrete surveys
Drummondville’s industrial shift began with electricity. According to Histoires de chez nous, Southern Canada Power arrived in 1914, acquired the operating rights to six falls on the Saint-François River, bought the generating station built in 1896 at the end of rue des Forges and completed its new hydroelectric complex in 1919. Textile manufacturers followed: Butterfly Hosiery and Canadian H. W. Gossard were announced in November 1919, then Jenckes Canadian Tire Fabrics (1920), Dominion Silk Dyeing & Finishing (1923), Louis Roessel (1924) and Canadian Celanese (1926). The population tripled between 1921 and 1931, from 4,433 to 12,023 residents.
Canadian Celanese, which made cellulose acetate fibres, employed 1,757 workers in 1933 and some 5,000 in 1945, according to the Répertoire du patrimoine culturel du Québec. In 1926 it also built the Carré Celanese, a group of about a dozen red-brick houses for its executives, designed by the architects Ross and MacDonald. The plant closed on March 31, 2000.
The industrial base has since been renewed. Drummond économique counts about 600 manufacturing establishments in the Drummond RCM, several of them international in scale, in an area crossed by highways 20 and 55.
A plant built during the 1920s boom and extended over the decades puts side by side parts of different ages and designs. When a new use or a heavier load is being considered, the engineer needs to know which part is concerned: locate the known extensions and their dates, then focus the reinforcement survey on the areas that carry the question asked.
If drawings exist for only one of the phases, say so, so that the survey serves to fill in what is missing rather than confirm what is already known.
Non-destructive test methods
The American Concrete Institute report ACI 228.2R-13 reviews non-destructive test methods for in-place concrete, including visual inspection, stress-wave, magnetic and electrical methods, infrared thermography and ground-penetrating radar.
Parking garages in Quebec
In Quebec, the Building chapter of the Safety Code requires parking garage owners to carry out a visual verification every year and, every five years, to obtain an in-depth verification report from an engineer. Non-destructive surveys can document the condition of the concrete in support of these verifications.
- Before repairing or strengthening a slab
- Before a change of use or an alteration
- When monitoring a parking garage
- After cracks or spalling appear
Assessment methods, process and limitations
Complementary methods, how the survey runs, what the report contains and what an assessment does not replace are covered on our structural assessment in Quebec page. This page only covers what is specific to Drummondville.
Frequently asked questions
Does a structural assessment replace an engineer’s opinion?
No. Non-destructive tests provide data on the condition of the concrete; structural interpretation and recommendations are an engineer’s responsibility, as the Safety Code provides for parking garages, for example.
Which structures can be assessed?
Usually reinforced concrete slabs, walls, columns, beams and parking garages, in commercial, industrial, institutional or residential buildings.
Why name the recipient of the report?
Because a contractor and an engineer do not expect the same thing. One wants positions usable on site, the other a methodology and explicit limits. Saying so in advance avoids an unusable deliverable.
Can a report conclude that a structure is compliant?
No. It documents observations and their limits. Compliance rests on an evaluation made by a qualified person, from those observations and other elements.
Sources
- American Concrete Institute, ACI 228.2R-13, Report on Nondestructive Test Methods for Evaluation of Concrete in Structures
- Régie du bâtiment du Québec: Parking garages, maintenance and inspection
- Ville de Drummondville: Prise de rendez-vous avec l’urbanisme (in French)
- Histoires de chez nous: Le grand développement industriel de Drummondville (in French)
- Répertoire du patrimoine culturel du Québec: Compagnie Celanese (in French)
- Répertoire du patrimoine culturel du Québec: Carré Celanese (in French)
- Drummond économique: Investir (in French)
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