Monitoring Services
Service Description
Urban construction and renovation usually involve demolition and excavation, with all the vibration, displacement and noise that goes with it. In nearly all cases, adjacent and nearby buildings and street and roadway infrastructure often react to the effects of construction, and measures must be taken to minimize the impact of the work. An optical monitoring plan allows the contractor or owner to detect minute changes in position, either horizontally or vertically, so that preventive or corrective measures can be put into place before costly damage occurs. The readings can detect movement of as little as 1/16th of an inch in either the horizontal or vertical direction.
Our staff has performed hundreds of monitoring surveys on adjacent buildings, bridges, elevated subway structures, subsurface structures, sheet piling, retaining walls and other structures subject to movement during construction operations. Our personnel establish a remote baseline, set in locations outside the limits of disturbance. A series of targets or reference points are affixed to the objects to be monitored, and a set of baseline readings are taken to establish the original position.
Periodic visits are made (monthly, weekly, daily or more often if necessary) readings are taken to determine the amount of movement or deformation since the previous readings. Spreadsheets are created so that any movement can be tracked and reported. In addition, we use crack monitors at various locations (walls, floors, ceilings) to determine if movement is occurring. The gauges can detect widening of cracks up as small as 1 millimeter.
Projects that benefit from Monitoring Services:
Adjacent Buildings
Bridges
Subway Structures
Sheet Piling
Roadways
Retaining Walls
Sidewalks
Compression monitoring
