Investigating defects

Material science can also inform us about the age of a building, or at least the element you are looking at. For example, different glass making techniques are associated with different architectural periods and styles. However, surveyors should not use this type of investigation alone to inform their study. Through the reintroduction of traditional techniques and the trend for conserving older properties, a building can have a vast amount of elements that span through the ages.

This is also true for when surveyors specify defect remedies. A surveyor should understand what materials they are specifying and how this will have an effect on the building. Added to this, they should also be aware of the type and age of a building when investigating and remedying defects.

The way a building was constructed, and why it was built in the first place relate to social, economic and political circumstances. Once these are examined it becomes less difficult to establish building materials and techniques used in its construction. This can then inform the surveyor of any potential defects that may be liable to occur. Again, these should be taken in context and the surveyor should examine whether there have been any adaptations to the property, e.g. new construction onto older elements and how these are designed to interact, or cavity walls being turned into solid through the insertion of insulation or damp injection techniques.

The surveyor should dig deeper rather than establishing the age of the building and then assuming that the typical defects associated with the age of the property are the main cause. With modern methods of construction also come modern methods of adapting buildings. We have been adapting properties for millennia, and the surveyor should not take it at face value that although a building is say, Victorian, one may be looking a modern addition, which in its own right will have a new set of defects associated with it.