RAAC

Is a concrete lintel over a window a RAAC plank?

No. A lintel is a member over an opening, while RAAC, as IStructE describes it, is reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete used most commonly as precast roof panels. Ordinary concrete is not RAAC because it is concrete. A crack or rust stain on a lintel is a lintel comment: it does not identify the roof, and a tidy lintel is not a RAAC survey of the roof.

Last reviewed 24 October 2026. Written for buyers in England and Wales unless this answer says otherwise. No named surveyor has signed this page. It is general guidance, not a report on your house, and not legal advice.

What is the fuller explanation?

Buyers are now shown every grey element and told it is the same scandal. The survey should keep the words apart. If it saw a concrete lintel, it can say so, and it can say whether the lintel is cracked, stained or sagging. If it saw roof planks, those are a different paragraph. If it saw neither clearly, it should not borrow the word RAAC to cover the uncertainty.

IStructE’s engineer’s assessment is for when RAAC panels are present or genuinely suspected. A lintel question may instead be a local structural question about that opening. A home survey does not test the steel in the lintel. The RICS consumer guide does not set a national tariff. Do not invent a fee for either material, and do not treat them as the same element.

What should you ask your surveyor?

Are you describing a lintel, a roof panel, or both?
What did you see on the lintel: crack, rust, sag, or only concrete?
Are you using the word RAAC for the lintel? On what evidence?

What are the typical next steps?

Keep the lintel repair, if one is needed, separate from any RAAC question about panels.
Do not tell a lender the roof is RAAC because a window head is concrete.
If roof panels are a real suspicion, that is the engineer’s assessment, not the lintel.

Costs vary with the building and with who you instruct. Where this page does not cite a published figure, ask the surveyor, a relevant specialist, or your solicitor for a written quote. Do not treat a forum average as the price.

Also asked about this

Is a rusted concrete lintel safe because it is not RAAC?

Not automatically. Not being RAAC only means it is not that material. The crack or the rust still needs the words the survey used.

Does a steel lintel rule out RAAC in the roof?

It rules out nothing about the roof. It is a different member. Ask what the roof deck is.