GPR concrete imaging before cutting, coring or drilling. Locates rebar, post-tension cables, conduits and voids. Radiation-free, no site shutdown.
GPR concrete imaging before cutting, coring or drilling, locating rebar, post-tension cables, conduits and voids.
Radiation-free with no site shutdown, so trades keep working around the scan.
The safe way to cut, core and drill on concrete structures without hitting embedded services.
Concrete scanning uses ground penetrating radar tuned for structures to see inside a slab, wall, beam or column before anyone cuts, cores or drills into it. The scan locates reinforcing bars, post-tensioned cables, electrical conduits, in-slab heating and plumbing, voids and the thickness of the element itself. The results are marked on the surface in real time, so the trade can move their penetration a few centimetres and avoid the cable rather than waiting for a report.
Post-tensioned slabs are the reason most scanning jobs exist. Cutting a live tendon in a Sydney apartment or office building is dangerous, expensive and often structural, and the tendon layout drawings rarely survive the handover. GPR shows the tendon ducts and the rebar layers without radiation, without a licensed radiographer and without clearing the floor, so the rest of the fit-out keeps working while we scan.
Scans are delivered as surface markings for a one-off core, or as a scaled plan with a photo record for larger penetrations, slab demolition, anchor layouts and condition assessments. We scan floors, walls, soffits, car park decks and precast panels, and can combine the structural scan with a utility locate where a slab-on-ground has services beneath it.
The same accredited crew, the same AS 5488-2022 report, from our Lindfield office to the regions. Choose your area.
Most scans on existing homes are the first step in a second-storey addition or an opening through a slab or wall. LCG Architects designs those additions and LCG Solutions provides the structural engineering, so the scan result goes straight into the drawings rather than being discovered on site.
Reinforcing bars, post-tension cables and ducts, electrical and communications conduits, water and heating pipes, voids and honeycombing, slab thickness and, in a slab-on-ground, the services below it. It cannot read through metal, so a steel deck or a dense top mat of rebar will shadow what sits beneath it, and we say so on the plan.
For most jobs, yes. Radiography gives a sharp image but needs both sides of the element, a licensed operator, an exclusion zone and usually a night shift. GPR is one-sided, radiation-free, immediate and can scan a whole floor in a day. X-ray still has a place for very congested elements where the extra resolution matters.
Typically 300 to 500 mm depending on the antenna frequency, the moisture in the concrete and the density of the reinforcement. That covers almost every slab, wall and beam in commercial and residential construction.
No. GPR emits no ionising radiation, so there is no exclusion zone. We need clear access to the surface being scanned and, for a floor, enough room for the cart to pass over the penetration area. Trades keep working around us.
For a single core or anchor, surface markings and a photo. For larger works, a scaled plan showing the reinforcement, cables and conduits with depths, a photo record and a short report noting any limits of the scan. The plan can be overlaid on the structural drawings.
Detection, tracing and marking of underground services using electromagnetic and ground-penetrating radar, to the accuracy each site demands.
Engineering-grade utility survey and drafting to AS 5488-2022, delivering 12D/DWG models, BIM-ready 3D strings and GDA2020 deliverables.
Safe vacuum potholing to positively identify services and achieve the highest Quality Level (QL-A), without damaging the asset.
Push-rod and crawler camera inspection, connectivity mapping and condition reporting for pipes up to 2 m in diameter.
USTs, concrete substructures, voids and rock seams, plus unmarked-grave, forensic and archaeological investigations.