Robby is back! But fear not, he is here to help build a better world not to destroy it. Our brand new Leica Robotic Total Station has arrived. His name is Robby, he has a laser but he is very well behaved.
Robby is purpose built for high precision surface scanning, deformation monitoring, setout and surveying. Fantastic for scanning cliff faces, tree limbs, domed ceilings and other unusual objects. He is also extremely good at detecting mm movement in structures when in deformation mode.
If you want Robby on your project call the BCL team (no flame throwers please!!).
Wow!! A huge thanks to Penny Hay for organizing the 500 Friends earthquake appeal to help the people of Christchurch. Roselyn Vodanovich was instrumental in rallying our troups so much so that when our boxes arrived (amid a buzz of excitement) they were promptly filled and delivered by our field assistant Fergus to the appeal centre.
The controversial Mr Ken Ring the Moon Man was an entertaining speaker at a recent event, his mix of magic tricks and wacky weather ramblings hit the spot with the crowd (that included a good number of Cantabrians). His earthquake 'predictions' were explained and then promptly ignored (well more accurately put on the wacky shelf) as they are entertainment and not to be taken seriously. Ken does believe this stuff but we should not; it is rubbish.
I spoke with Ken after the 'gig' and he was a real laugh, an entertainer through and through. The fact that he had to have security with him was sad, he has had death threats over his earthquake predictions. We all have our beliefs and most are keen to tell others however when the media pick up on opinions like Ken's and broadcast them so widely it causes a lot of pain and anxiety. I think the media should take a good look at themselves.
The world needs wacky entertainers, they are good for the spirit in tough times...just don't take them seriously!!
Our emergency involvement in the last hours of the Palace Hotel late last year (click to see our rant article) tested our deformation team to the limit. Our team’s ability to provide the required information in what can only be described as extraordinarily difficult circumstances gives us a great sense of achievement.
Deformation Monitoring is a very technical aspect of surveying, only the right combination of equipment, method and knowledge will yield an appropriate result. Our team are experts in deformation monitoring.
If you want to know if it is moving call the BCL team.
When cracks appeared in the Historic Palace Hotel yesterday afternoon BCL immediately mobilised our deformation monitoring team to the site. Amid real fears for the immediate and catastrophic collapse of the building our team quickly assessed the requirements of engineers and implemented a remote deformation array on the building facade. Within ten minutes we where able to begin streaming information back to the contractor, engineers, Council, politicians, historic places, media and the demolition crew.
This stream of extremely accurate and consistent information continued throughout the evening with the hope that we would see some slowing in the collapse of the building. Finally the Auckland Council CEO Mr Doug McKay made the very difficult and very sad decision to demolish the hotel. Our team completed their work and watched with sadness as the demolition progressed through the night.
Yes, our team is ready to plumb the depths as well as the tops with our newly acquired Wild Heerbrugg ZNL Optical Plummet. It has just arrived in the country and we are very excited to have this precise instrument in house. The ZNL allows us to plumb in both the nadir (down) and zenith (up) directions to an accuracy of 1:30000!! This is a world class instrument and is the standard for high rise buildings and mines throughout the world. It is used to survey high rise buildings, shafts, towers, gantries, light poles, top down construction, basements, deformation monitoring etc.
If you need to ensure verticality give our team a call.
During excavations phone calls that include the words ‘cracks in the neighbours building’ can send a shiver up your spine (and your insurance companies). Proving liability either way can be expensive and time consuming. A growing part of our work is precise deformation monitoring, which is the measurement of any movement in a structure.
We use our Leica DNA03 digital level with invar staff that is capable of accuracies of 0.3mm per km! This type of accuracy is critical when looking for small movements. It is also critical to begin monitoring before construction or excavation and to have a methodology that will stand up to the rigours of construction (and courts).
Call our team before ‘that’ phone call to discuss your requirements.
With horizontal shifts of up to 4m and vertical displacement of up to 1.5m the Christchurch Quake has certainly had the city (literally) on the move. One of our team, Brian Curtis, was in the area last week and took the dramatic photo above showing a 3m displacement! In this case the road boundary that was once straight will now have a dog-leg in it, the legal boundary will move with the ground movement. Our cadastral system is, thankfully, not a coordinate based cadastre and as with all surveys we look for evidence on the ground meaning old pegs, fences and survey marks near the site.
As the rebuild starts to kick in our team is gearing up to support engineers on the ground with the provision of high precision survey information.
If you need accurate survey information in Christchurch contact our team.
