News & insights

A large five-star hotel and conference centre began experiencing what started out initially as relatively minor escapes of water, which were dealt with easily by the hotel’s in‑house maintenance team.

Some unusual aspects that caused an exothermic reaction, and relate to the use of calcium oxide (also known as quicklime), as an animal-friendly sanitization product.

Civil engineering and building failures are often caused by geotechnical issues and these can be grouped by the different stages of the project: ground investigation, design, and construction, often with a combination of interacting issues.

The importance of a good desk study is exemplified by this case where a sinkhole opened up in the grounds of a school.

Hawkins was instructed to investigate the cause of a fire in an electric road sweeper which occurred at a council depot approximately ten minutes after a service engineer had repaired the sweeper.

Hawkins investigated the cause of a fire and explosion on board a container ship on behalf of an insurer of various cargo interests. One of the key questions, as always, was which occurred first, the fire or the explosion?

In July 2009, a guest at a large hotel in Swansea slipped and fell whilst walking on the surround of the hotel’s swimming pool. Minutes afterwards, after recovering from that fall, the guest fell a second time, sustaining severe personal injuries.

The manufacturer of beef burgers suffered major damage at their factory when a fire broke out in the control panel of a defrosting unit. However, one of the main concerns of the insurers was why the fire managed to spread so quickly.

St Margaret’s Church in Uxbridge is suffering from decay of the stone walls some of which is serious. The church authorities were advised by their conservation experts that the cause of the decay was attack by salt overspill from the council’s wi