Building Diagnostic
A crack, a damp wall, a leaking roof, a floor that has started to settle. Most owners are told what to do by the person who wants to do the work. We are not that person. We examine the building, identify the cause, and give you a written report — the problem, why it is happening, what your options are, and what each one should cost.
When a wall cracks, most people call a contractor. The contractor looks at it for five minutes and quotes for the repair he knows how to carry out. Nobody establishes whether the crack is cosmetic plaster shrinkage or a foundation that is still moving — and those two problems need completely different work, at completely different cost.
So the owner pays, the crack comes back, and the second contractor blames the first.
What we see, repeatedlyWe are engineers, not a repair crew touting for the job. The assessment is paid for on its own, which is exactly what keeps it honest — our report does not become more profitable by recommending expensive work.
If the answer is that nothing needs doing, the report will say so. That is a legitimate outcome and it has saved clients a great deal more than the fee.
Cracking in walls, beams, columns and slabs. Settlement, deflection and the difference between a crack that is finished moving and one that is not. Where it matters, we set up monitoring rather than guess.
Roof and terrace leakage, bathroom and kitchen seepage, rising damp, basement water ingress, and failed waterproofing. Tracing where water is actually entering, which is rarely where the stain appears.
Loading and distribution, earthing, ageing wiring, and plumbing that is undersized or wrongly routed. The failures that are invisible until they are urgent.
Flooring, plaster, paint, tiling and joinery that has failed early. Usually a specification or application problem rather than a material problem — and worth establishing before it is redone the same way.
A condition survey before you commit to a property, so you know what you are taking on and can negotiate against it. Commonly requested by overseas buyers who cannot inspect in person.
A second opinion on drawings, specifications or a contractor's estimate before you sign. Quantities checked, rates sense-checked, and the items that have quietly been left out of the price.
Online, by WhatsApp, or in a meeting.
On site, or remotely where that is genuinely sufficient.
A document, not a verbal opinion.
With us, with your own contractor, or not at all.
Most construction disputes in Pakistan are not engineering failures. They are payment and scope failures — money paid too early, work not defined clearly, and no agreement on what happens when something goes wrong. This is project management, and it is what ABA has done for corporate clients for years. We will apply it to your job whether or not we carry out the work.
Payment tied to work actually completed and verified, not to the calendar and not to the contractor's cash flow. The single most effective protection available to a building owner.
What is included, what is excluded, which materials and which standard. Most disputes come from what nobody wrote down.
Where the value justifies it, we help you put an advance guarantee, performance guarantee or retention in place, and we verify the documents. The guarantee is issued by the bank — our part is arranging and checking it.
These are standard commercial documents prepared from engineering and project management practice. They are not legal advice, and for a high-value contract we will tell you plainly when a lawyer should review them.
Where you need a specialist — waterproofing, structural repair, electrical, testing — we can introduce vendors who have been checked and who work to our standards.
ABA takes no commission on your job. Vendors pay to be listed in the network and nothing else. Where a vendor offers a discount to ABA clients, that discount goes to you in full, and it is stated before you engage them.
We say this plainly because the opposite is common, and because a recommendation is worth nothing if the person making it is being paid for it.
ABA does not own a laboratory. What we provide is the part owners get wrong: which test is actually required, what it will establish, and which laboratory to take it to.
Concrete strength, soil investigation, water quality, steel testing and material composition are all routine — but an owner who orders the wrong test pays twice and still does not have an answer.
Registered laboratories in the network offer ABA clients a reduced rate, which again goes to you.
Tell us what is happening. The more detail you give, the more useful the first reply — and in some cases we can tell you straight away that it is not serious.