Advice

If only someone had told me!

Along with most of our surveyor colleagues, we believe in a moral responsibility to help the public avoid incorrect, costly or wasteful decisions regarding property development or repairs.


Here are a few common observations from surveys along with links to some of the best explanations we have found. Please give a thumbs up where appropriate on the youtube videos, it helps to know people are getting the message.


If you would like something added or have found a better resource to explain the problem, please let us know and we will be pleased to share the knowledge.


Every day's a school day!

Spray Foam.

Do you already have, or are thinking about foam in your loft?

Please read the RICS spray foam consumer guide. PDF, 23 pages.


Some jargon, but I think you'll get the point:

What's the fuss about spray foam? Video 22mins West One Surveyors

The focus is on spray foam in the loft, but you can read across many of the points for use under your floor or in the walls.

Please let us know if your property is near York and has spray foam. There will be good and bad news out there, so its great to have a balanced view.

Trees & Shrubs

If your off to the nursery to pick out a nice fruit tree, maybe some hedging or shrubs, enjoy. But before you buy please consider:

  1. The size the plant/tree will grow to, here's a link to the  RHS and some published guidance from Jackie Carroll at Gardening Know How.
  2. Where your drains and soakaways are. It is not only your home walls and foundations that you need to think of, but the pipes running through your garden and driveways. Many drains are short lengths of pipes, designed to have some flex in their joints. Tree and plant roots can dislodge pipework, encouraging leaks which can further attract the roots as a water source. Botanists and others will find fault with this, but in layman's terms, assume the roots have a similar spread to the crown. In other words, if the plant can grow 4m wide, assume the roots will also. Do not assume if you control the crown, for example using beech as a hedge, it will control the roots.
  3. Once water is leaking from a drain, it can affect the soil, in turn causing damage to foundations nearby.


Chimneys & flues

Love them or hate them, they do give rise to many survey observations. If they are no longer in use, make sure you get advice from a competent person as to how to keep dry (capping) and ventilated to help prevent long term problems with damp, sulphate salts and 'spotting'.

Guide to capping a chimney from Roofing Megastore, you don't want to be up on the roof doing this yourself, your local competent tradesperson can source the correct cap from local suppliers.

For ventilation, I've yet to find a video that covers this well for the public, so let us know if you live local and have had this problem or have had it resolved. If your 'blocked' chimney has had a vent fitted, check it is open and some air can get through.

Paving & Decking - Damp Proof Course

That thin barrier (plastic, bitumen or slate) that goes all the way around the outside of your home, ideally about two bricks up from the ground is the Damp Proof Course (DPC).

I'm not going to talk here about detecting damp, but please look at the diagram and if you are having paving or decking fitted (any hard surface that the rain can bounce off), try to keep away from or below the DPC so the falling rain does not bounce above your DPC.

Minsterbuild York Building Survey observations DPC
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