Case studies

• Customer: MRI (London)
• Project: Buckingham Palace Road
• Date: July 2011
• Buckingham Palace Road Survey Drawing

The Challenge

MRI London (MRI), a mechanical removal and installation company, were asked to install 2 air conditioning units onto the roof of a large inner city London building. The property itself comprised a shopping parade on the ground floor and glass offices above, located in Buckingham Palace Road, which is in a busy Central London location, close to Victoria Railway Station.

In order to install the air conditioning units, MRI had to use cranes to lift the units onto the roof of the building, for which the out-rigger, placed on the pavement, would put substantial pressure onto the ground below.
As part of the Lifting Plan, dictated to by the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER) 1998, MRI asked GEOTEC Surveys to carry out a survey, firstly to ensure that there were no voids or cellars located underneath the proposed location of the crane pads and secondly to locate any buried utilities and services within the site.

Voids and anomalies located in the ground could cause the crane to fall into those voids, which could result in personal injury, damage to buildings, vehicles and equipment.

The weight of the out-rigger, placed on the crane pads could also crush any underlying gas and water pipes as well as damaging telecoms and electric cables and water ducts.

Both scenarios would result in massive disruption to the project itself, as well as the public and result in huge costs being incurred.

The Solution

GEOTEC Surveys undertook a survey covering the length of the footpath along the front of the building on Buckingham Palace Road, which extended to approximately 30 linear metres, as well as the full width of the footpath, covering the areas for the crane pads.

Due to the busy nature of the location, our highly experienced survey team employed a certain amount of demarcation to ensure the safety of any local residents & pedestrians/visitors, other persons/contractors and our own surveyors alike during the time spent on site.

As always, GEOTEC used a range of techniques, such as cover lifting, which includes tracing cables and ducts leading from the manholes using radio frequency locators, such as the RD 4000 and RD 8000 as well as employing the Sir-3000 with 400MHz Antenna ground penetrating radar (GPR), to locate any voids or anomalies within the ground. This data was all collated onto an AutoCAD drawing, for which a Total Station was used to ensure that the positioning of all found features were recorded against the associated hard features on site.

The Result

The completed survey indicated that were, indeed, a range of services detected within the footpath area, including power cables and telecommunication cables as well as gas and water pipes ranging from a depth of just 0.15m to 1.2m.

Also, the radar data collected indicated to an anomalous area at around half a metre below the subsurface.

This information was used by MRI to determine where the required crane should sit and allowed them to position it onto the pavement at its safest and most stable location, with the air conditioning units successfully installed on the roof soon after the survey was completed.

Testimonial

Mike Allchin completed our “Project Completion Questionnaire”, which accompanies the drawings sent out to each client, as part of our ISO Quality Management System, describing our service, our understanding of the client’s needs, attendance and performance on site and presentation and accuracy of drawings to be “Excellent”.

Mike added that “Geotec were extremely professional from the first telephone call through to our receiving the Data. Without Geotec’s fast and efficient service this crane lift would not have commenced”.

Photo Courtesy of spikesfotos.