More than perhaps any other facilities, hospitals have a significant need to locate electrical conduits prior to any cutting or drilling. In a manufacturing facility or residential complex, cutting an electrical line can be a major inconvenience. In a hospital, cutting an electrical line can be deadly. With oxygen lines and other vital piping running through floors and walls, hospitals need to be certain that drilling a hole will not put any patients in danger.

At Community Hospital in Munster, Indiana, Berglund Construction is overseeing a renovation to the postpartum care unit. This renovation includes re-routing all of the plumbing, which means drilling new holes through the floor. Berglund has brought in Ground Penetrating Radar Systems of Gary to scan every proposed hole location to ensure that no electric conduit or other vital piping is cut. More than thirty holes have been drilled in this section, and not even a single piece of rebar has been cut accidentally.

Berglund Construction is one of GPRS’ more frequent customers in the Chicago area. They have taken a proactive stance to make scanning concrete a standard procedure before cutting or drilling. This is a trend that we are beginning to see more frequently as safety conscious construction companies, like Berglund, and many hospitals have instituted GPR scanning as a requirement prior to saw cutting and core drilling taking place on their projects.