Top Tips #10

This will be a ‘top to toe’ survey of all the visible and accessible building elements and should be carried out by an experienced Building Surveyor or a Conservation Architect. Such reports and should include a costed Schedule of Repairs and any recommendations on any further investigations or surveys required.

This will often require some opening up work to access timber joists, trusses, floor boards, wall plates etc and will identify wet rot, dry rot and other forms of decay and remedial actions required to rectify. These are normally carried out by specialist companies.

In order for the Architect and design team to develop design proposals and understand what is possible accurate dimensional surveys are essential and will save redesign time and cost if designs have to change later to reflect the reality of what is on the ground.

Particularly in historic buildings we would strongly recommend a point cloud survey which is done using Lidar technology and will provide an extremely accurate 3d model of a building, picking up undulations in surfaces and fine details such as cornice mouldings and other decorative joinery and plasterwork. We would normally ask for the surveyors to provide both the point cloud survey and to translate this into a 3D revit models from which plans, sections and elevations can be pulled.

Although many older buildings will predate the use of asbestos based products later alterations from the 1930s up to 1990s could have involved asbestos products. This could be in roof tiles, floor tiles, insulation, pipe lagging, cladding and many other building elements. Many commercial properties will have asbestos registers and prior to any works a Type 3 Survey should be carried out be trained specialists.

If the building is listed and retains a original features and historic character it may be necessary to carry out a Significance Assessment which will identify and grade the particular significance of the building and architectural elements. This will then inform any design development decisions in terms of how those elements may be impacted by future development plans and this should be done in consultation with historic building and planning authorities.

Although this sounds obvious a good room-by-room survey which records historic features will provide an important baseline and record of information for the Architect and design team as they progress the works.

If dealing with significant historic buildings, this is a method of dating the timber to determine its age and can also help inform the building’s date or important historical interventions.