Two years ago the education sector was hit by the crisis of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete – or RAAC – which was causing buildings to crumble. Education estates constructed between the 1950s and the 1980s were most at risk, although RAAC was still being used as late as the 1990s.
I took 13 calls from clients on the afternoon news of the problem – and fears that classrooms could collapse – reached the public domain.
Many required the procurement of specialist structural surveyors to undertake RAAC-specific surveys across a vast number of school and college sites.
The panic from chief executives, business managers and estates managers was obvious. A total of 234 schools and 12 colleges in England were eventually confirmed to have buildings constructed with RAAC, and many of these sites had to introduce immediate full or partial closures until further surveys and risk assessments were done.
Most colleges and schools with RAAC have been able to operate largely unaffected. This may be due to temporary supports being installed, areas being closed, activities being relocated to other areas of the education estate, or remedial works being undertaken in a relatively short space of time.
But there is another building structural problem which I believe is just starting to hit the sector. Over the past 18 months, Eddisons has witnessed a number of mechanical distribution pipework defects resulting in the closure of educational establishments.
These are typically buildings constructed in the 1970s and 80s, and their steel distribution pipework is approaching the end of its design life expectancy.
Most of these pipes are located within underground ducts, with licenced notifiable asbestos contained within the voids.
This makes any attempt to track, locate and remedy any known defect more difficult.
On the face of it, a visual inspection of distribution pipework is largely considered satisfactory. However, a typical defect of distribution pipework is corrosion from the inside out which isn’t visible when undertaking a condition survey.
In these cases, corrosion can become too great and the distribution pipework will become redundant until such time as it is replaced in its entirety to provide heat to the academic buildings. If there is no heating in schools or colleges, particularly in winter months, then the risk of complete building closure is high.
For this reason, the age of distribution pipework may present a bigger risk to colleges.
Not every college has RAAC, but all of their buildings have a heating system.
Unfortunately, this is a risk which doesn’t usually become apparent until such time that the defects present themselves within the pipework.
In these instances, colleges have little choice but to react instinctively, because if a system is functioning as it should then understandably, detailed surveys have not usually been carried out.
However, it is important that if colleges can carry out the surveys ahead of faults appearing then they should do, for this could save money and also remove the need for potential college closures in the future.
College managers with buildings constructed in the pre-1980s era need to understand that pipes heating their buildings are coming to the end of their lifecycle.
Unfortunately, this is a hidden and largely unfunded crisis that schools and colleges with outdated heating distribution pipework and emitters are facing.
Now is the time for senior teams to consider exploring budgeting options, survey work and the eventual replacement of their pipework before it is too late and they face the possibility of closures.
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