STRUCTR Advisors uses Reconstruct for Full Project Visibility to Avoid a $17,000 Concrete Rework

• Sleeve error caught before pour
• Avoided $17,000 in rework costs
• Prevented multi-day schedule delay

STRUCTR Advisors needed a way to confirm that MEP sleeve penetrations were positioned correctly before a major concrete pour for a structural slab on Virginia Commonwealth University's STEM Building. Drone footage and photography had been the team's main way of tracking site conditions, but that approach offered limited ability to catch small placement errors that would become permanent, and costly, once concrete was poured.

Reconstruct was selected because it let STRUCTR use the drone data it was already capturing and overlay the resulting 3D point cloud directly against the design plans. That comparison gave the virtual construction team a clear, detailed view of where installed conditions diverged from design intent, making it possible to catch sleeve placement errors while they could still be corrected without cutting into finished concrete.

Ahead of a major concrete pour for a structural slab on the VCU STEM Building, STRUCTR Advisors needed to confirm that MEP sleeve penetrations had been installed in the correct locations. Relying on drone footage and photography alone made it difficult to catch small positioning errors, since those methods didn't allow for a precise, measurable comparison against the design.

If a misplaced sleeve went unnoticed before the pour, the team would have faced costly and time-consuming core drilling to correct it after the concrete had cured, along with the schedule delays that come with reopening a finished slab. STRUCTR needed a way to verify sleeve placement with confidence before construction became irreversible.

Before using Reconstruct, STRUCTR Advisors relied on drone footage and standard photography to document site conditions and track progress on the VCU STEM Building. Those methods were useful for general visual records, but they didn't give the team a precise way to compare as-built conditions, like MEP sleeve penetrations, against the design plans before a pour.

That gap in visibility meant misplaced sleeves could go undetected until after concrete was poured, when the only fix would be core drilling into the finished slab. On a design-build project with a tight schedule, that kind of after-the-fact correction risked both added cost and multi-day delays.

Using Reconstruct, STRUCTR Advisors captured a 3D point cloud of the site with its existing drone and overlaid it against the design plans ahead of the scheduled concrete pour. That comparison revealed that several MEP sleeve penetrations had been installed in the wrong locations, an error that would have gone unnoticed with the team's previous drone and photography workflow.

Because the discrepancy was caught before the pour, the crew was able to proactively correct the sleeve positions without any rework, avoiding the need for post-pour core drilling. STRUCTR estimated the early catch avoided roughly $17,000 in rework costs and prevented what would likely have been a multi-day schedule delay.

As Kyle Jacocks, Virtual Construction Manager at STRUCTR Advisors, put it, the ability to run a quick scan and check conditions against the design before the pour saved the team significant time and money while heading off a potential quality issue. The win reinforced the value of building reality capture into routine pre-pour checks on design-build projects.

STRUCTR Advisors provides virtual design and construction services. This project involved verifying MEP sleeve placement before a concrete pour on Virginia Commonwealth University's STEM Building in Richmond, Virginia.