Episode 32 – Part 2 – The basic requirements around Level 3 surveys with Tim Kenny

The following transcript is autogenerated so may contain errors.

Matt Nally: In part two with Tim Kenny, we’re going to discuss the basic requirements around level three surveys, and we’ll touch on sort of inspection requirements and reporting requirements around level threes. But the first thing I wanted to ask was how do you decide whether you’re able to carry out a level three?

So I’m thinking from the perspective of like competencies and knowledge. Yeah. 

Tim Kenny: I think the kind of the building pathology and the actual technical competencies in terms of the building itself and defects and everything else. My argument would always be if you can do a level two on it, you can do a level three on it.

From a practical point of view, there’s no difference in the level of knowledge you need to have. Fundamentally to take a, an example. So we talk about the level three, you have to give a bit more information about repairs and how you actually go about the repairs and some of the different options and timescales and everything else to do that.

You you have to do the same thing on a level two, because on level two, although you may not include that information in the report, you still have to have that in your mind when condition rating it, for understanding the severity of it, you have to have the same knowledge. And one of the things I, one of the kind of the ways I encourage people to move towards doing level three surveys is to think, okay approach your level twos and go, okay, if I was doing it at level three, would I do anything differently?

What else would I do on this level two survey? Because. Obviously we think about level three surveys as being for older properties, special properties. We hopefully we’re going to see some guidance and some more information about. The definition of a special property, but it’s there, we do have it now in the retrofit standards and I always advise people to go and look at those retrofit standards as a template for what we might see in the future for our home survey standards, but they’ve gone anyway, then that they’ve got a definition of special properties and we think, okay, level threes are for those special properties, listed old stuff, complex stuff, poor condition stuff.

But actually, there’s also a good market in doing level threes on fairly standard stuff. As we said, a level three is not only for old buildings. It doesn’t say you can’t do it on a relatively modern building. It might be you do it because a client wants a bit more information because they’re planning on doing some work to it.

They’re planning on doing some retrofit work or some extension work or a massive renovation. They’ll need a bit more detail. You get some of it. Some people will book a level three because they just want the best one that’s available. There are people who when faced with a choice. We’ll walk into the shop and go, okay, I’ll have the most expensive one.

Cause that’s bound to be the best. My mom’s if she doesn’t, if she can’t choose something, she’s got, she’ll go to John Lewis and she’ll say, okay, I’ll have the most expensive one. And that, that, that keeps her happy. Cause she’s can work it out. She can deal with that. But some clients who are the same and they pick the expensive one and that’s actually fine.

You will find yourself doing level three surveys on relatively straightforward, modern buildings. And you can go, okay how would I, what, where, what more am I saying on what would, so if you’re approaching a level two and you’re saying, okay what more would I do for a level three, you can start to get a feel for it.

But of course, that’s why you have to understand what is actually required for a level three, and this is where I try and get across to students or these surveyors when I’m teaching them about level threes. It’s all well and good in saying, focusing on that building quality, make sure you do understand how that building is put together.

Make sure you understand how the defects have occurred. Make sure you understand how you fix those defects. But also, you have to understand what you’re going to report. Because if you don’t understand the difference in the reporting, You’re going to be producing a level two and a level three, and that’s not satisfactory.

Matt Nally: Oh, so as I say, should we touch on then the sort of the inspection requirements around level three and where they’re similar and where they 

Tim Kenny: differ? This is the one where I’m going to be honest, I struggle a little bit. Because I can’t find much difference between the two. We have, obviously, we have in the home survey standards, we’ve got our, there’s a section that covers the differences.

For level one, you open one window per elevation. Level two it’s one window per elevation plus one of each type. Level three it’s all of them, right? Okay that’s windows. Just, and it’s just the opening of the windows, you still inspect all of the windows that are present. You don’t gonna, you’re not gonna ignore the windows just because you’re not opening them.

That’s quite a small bit, subfloor voids. It’s funny, when I do a teacher session on Retrofit to some students and one of the things we talk about subfloor voids. I get overexcited about subfloor voids, I get, it’s one of my favourite subjects, but one of the things, we’ll just look in the subfloor void, because we talk about doing a level three, so we’ll just look in the subfloor void to decide whether we’re going to insulate.

How often do you actually get underneath the floor in most properties? It might be, if I’m optimistic, it’s one in ten. Realistically, unless you’re getting in, I was in a cellar a couple of days ago and that’s great, but most suspended timber floors, occasionally you might find a couple of boards in the, under the stairs that will come up or whatever, but, 95 percent of them, you’re never looking under that floor.

We’ve got to be honest about that. So the fact that there is a distinction as to whether you go in a subfloor void or not.

It’s almost confusing that it’s there because we know most subfloor wards are not inspected. And there’s a in the loft, you, a level three, you lift the insulation to check the upper side of the, what the ceilings are made out of level two, you don’t. To be fair, most ceilings can be, ceiling construction types can be identified from looking up at the ceiling, 90 times, nine times out of a hundred.

But it’s there. And there’s a few other ones. I would say that accounts to, what, 15, 20 percent in the inspection? Everything else is the same. 

Matt Nally: The difference is in the length of the appointment. The length of the inspection, sorry. Appointment is probably the wrong word, but 

Tim Kenny: Yeah, 

Matt Nally: I’m 

Tim Kenny: To find things, you’re still going to spend the same amount of time, I would have thought.

I don’t book them differently, if I’m honest. I allow for the same, because I can’t see If I know that coffee’s going to take me longer, I’ll book it. Because it’s a complicated property, but it’s the same, the time taken to look in some, open some windows, the time taken to move some items. And again, moving items is a complex issue.

The one example I always give is that one level for gardens, for grounds, it says we carry out a thorough inspection. One level, it says we give a, do a comprehensive inspection. Which one do you reckon is which? 

Matt Nally: Yeah, that’s a good point. Comprehensive sounds like it would be the higher, but thorough you’d expect to cover a similar amount of things I would have thought, so yes.

The legal definition, the 

Tim Kenny: dictionary definition as I look these up thorough or comprehensive is without admission, so comprehensive means everything. Thorough means you’d look at, it’s most of it. Thorough is for level three, comprehensive is for level two. 

Matt Nally: Oh, okay. Interesting. I know it 

Tim Kenny: doesn’t make much sense.

We talk about one is that one is a detailed visual inspection. One is a visual inspection. If I’m standing there looking at a wall, I’m looking at the wall. I can only look at the wall. It’s the same inspection. And I think this is, again, we come back to heart and large. I think we’ve made a rod for our own backs by trying to distinguish the levels of inspection between these two products.

Because for me if we say, okay, a level three is more detailed and yet in reality, we know that inspection is can’t be much more detailed. What we’re actually saying to the courts is that if I do a level three, I’ve got to find a defect. I’ll be more likely to find the defect when you’re not. So we’re saying every time you do every with every level two, right?

There’s a risk that if you go to court. The judge would say, why didn’t you have a level three, because you’d have found it. And they can, they’ll log it away, but it’s more, it says in the documents, a more, more detailed investigation. But it’s not, and that’s where we’re causing a problem.

We need to look at that in the next version of it. Is there scope, do 

Matt Nally: you think, that it might cover, if it doesn’t already, extra tools that you might use to analyse something further in terms of the type of wish to test you do for DAMP or? 

Tim Kenny: Yeah, I think, yes, there I can, I do say there is a difference, but it’s not because of the home survey standards, it’s actually because of the joint position statement.

If you don’t know, that’s the joint position statement between the Property Care Association, Historic England and the RICS. It’s not RICS guidance, but RICS do very specifically say on their website This is the standard you will be judged for judged against for carrying out any investigation of moisture in a building, right?

It’s designed around traditional buildings, but fundamentally that’s what applies And in that, it certainly says that you have to have a better understanding of how moisture moves through buildings. The differences between the way it moves through traditional and modern buildings, and this idea of the great coat versus the anorak that we use to describe breathing buildings and dry buildings.

So you should understand more of that. It also says in there, it gives a list of some of the different ways of assessing moisture content in moulds and some of the different equipment in there. Now it doesn’t say you have to use it. It says you have to have an understanding of it. So you should understand what a gravimetric testing is, that carbide testing is.

You should, but it also lists things like hygrometers and the thermometers. One of the key ways of identifying, for example, differentiating between condensation and a damp problem, is looking at relative humidity levels, looking at wall temperatures, and using that information to identify Problems.

So I personally, I use that use those within level three. So I actually use them in level two service because my damp meter does both of them. It does all that anyway. And we do have, equipment that does it. I might, I still record some of that information on a level two because it’s useful and if I see a problem I’ll still use that information.

But I would say certainly now on a, definitely you should be thinking about it in terms of a traditional building, and as we define traditional buildings in terms of solid walls, breathable, whatever you want to use. Certainly you should be considering those pieces of equipment as it’s more standard.

Because otherwise, not because you can breach HCI home service stands, but because you’re ignoring the joint position statement. So I think you do have to really bear that in mind. It’s yes, it doesn’t say we have to use them, but if you can understand them, the equipment is readily available.

I have my old one, old icometer on my desk. I don’t use it anymore, but it’s still, I haven’t actually put it, thrown it away yet. That one, first one I got when he cost me like 20, 30 quid from Amazon and it’s perfectly functional. There’s no reason not to have them.

Obviously, the kind of the more complex stuff like drones and thermal imaging are for me, yet they’re not a standard part of any survey level. I think there are an added extra. And, I personally, I don’t use drones. I use a camera pole and been enough for me. But I know a lot of people, a lot of people use them.

A lot of people love them. But I have a personal dislike for drones because I think they’ve killed all YouTube videos ever because YouTube videos have so many people’s drone footage. But anyway, I do accept to have a place within the survey market. I think they’re not yet to the point where we can say they should be standard because I don’t think within the industry, there’s a level of knowledge to understand.

What they can tell you and what they can’t tell you. And drones have the limitations same as any other kind of inspection. Yeah. But what we don’t wanna do is ever over promise. If someone’s, if you say to a client, okay, I’m gonna do a drone inspection of your roof in their head, you are gonna see every element of that roof and you’re gonna report on it in the best possible way.

They’re gonna perceive it as if you are climbing up on that roof and looking at it, aren’t you? Which, yeah, it’s great, but it’s not quite the same thing as that full level roof inspection. And I always make that point when I talk even about my pole camera, that it is something that is, is not, literally within every single survey report that I, if I use the pole camera, it will say, this is not the same as a full roof level inspection.

It still has its limitations and we need to be clear on that. Um, same with thermal imaging, thermal imaging, I think is a great tool in the right hands. But I think you have to have such a deep understanding of what the technology is telling you. It is not just as simple as going out and buying the attachment for your iPhone and snapping a few pictures and thinking you understand demography.

It’s a hell of a lot more complex than that. So I think we’re a way off that, but I can see it happening in a few years time anyway. 

Matt Nally: Yeah, that’d be interesting to see how that changes my final question. I think on the inspection side, before we discuss a bit more around reporting requirements is I don’t think this is prescribed, but is there a certain length of time you’d expect or should be at the property for different levels?

I was saying that the inspection length should, it should really be the same for each, but is there a minimum time? It’s as long as it takes. I 

Tim Kenny: don’t know. I, again I, yes, but I’m perhaps trying to try it again, trying to put this in the right way. So I’m an independent, right? I work for myself.

I set my own diary. I don’t do, I do three surveys a week and I don’t do high volume. So I, again, I’m, and I’m, again, I’m not going to be critical of those guys that do it. I’m going to be corporate. Server function there. There’s good reason for the way they work, and I’m not going to say that they’re wrong But I do for me that I can see massive difficulties in accurately predicting how long an inspection is going to take and I can’t get to grips with okay I’ve booked in this job And then I know I’ve got two hours and I’ve got a bit that other job in two and a half hours And I know it’s half an hour and I go get keys You know that to me doesn’t work because you don’t know what’s going to be there until you get there You know, how long is it going to take to follow that trail?

I mean You perhaps could be a little bit more even a lot more laxity when it comes to a level three because there is some requirement to move objects. So that might take a while to move the objects and put them back. Discussions with an owner about them moving the objects and putting them back.

These things all take time and you don’t know how long they’re going to take until you physically get there. I I, I struggle with this concept of setting a time limit on anything. I’ll start, I was, I will do if I was thinking about how long it takes me to do surveys recently.

And I reckon when I first started I aim, I aim to get really good at doing them quickly and trying to see how, get quicker and quicker at doing them. And then I maybe, I maybe reached a peak and I think I’m just dropping down the other side now. It seems to me every day, it’s just, I’m not that old.

I’m, I’m still fizzy fit and active. So it’s not a drip decrepitude problem. I just, you tend to get more indulged in it. We talked about technology. These things take a little bit longer. Every time I’m taking a reading, I’m thinking about the register of humidity, wall temperatures and and bits and pieces like that.

So I’m considering more information. So it is slowing down. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing, these properties do take attention and. And again, one of the things I always aim to do is provide the best possible level that I can do for what I’m doing on the property that’s in front of me, and that takes the time it takes.

Matt Nally: I have one, one question actually, it’s popped into my head, coming back to something we touched on at the beginning of this topic, this particular topic, before we go into the reporting requirements was there, there’ve been some I suppose cases recently where. Potentially people surveyors who are newer to the industry have maybe been forced to go out and do level threes that they, maybe they haven’t got the experience at that point to do.

I suppose around what we were discussing, what then determines when you’re able to do a level two or a level three? Because I suppose we’re saying that they’re similar in terms of what you’d need to know to be able to do an 

Tim Kenny: inspection. Yeah. And this is the challenge. So for me, it’s not the survey level.

It’s the property, that’s what it comes down to yet again, we can talk about the report requirements and I’m saying what to report, and how to report. And really, that’s what I tend to focus on. Because, that’s a guy I teach. I teach by teaching it, a six hour, three days, two to three hours or one six hour.

And that’s, you can’t cover all the building quality you would need to know in six hours. I’m not entirely sure I know. I never need to know, but. But actually what’s the knowledge around how to report? So I keep telling that this is equally important, and I think that’s what we need to impart on students.

But I’d say because you should, if you can do a level two, if you can inspect and understand level two, you can do a level three on that same building. Obviously, if you’re drifting, if you can’t do a level two on it, you can’t do a level three on it, and, unfortunately, we’re still at this, we, unfortunately, fortunately, we’re a self regulating profession in the sense that we, as individuals or employers determine whether we are competent to do something, we’ve had, people say, Oh, you couldn’t, maybe you can’t do a level three until you, if your asset groups, you have to be Emirates and this sort of thing, but actually that doesn’t work because, Just because you’re Emirates doesn’t mean you can do level three surveys because you haven’t had the experience so that we don’t have any Objective measure or what makes somebody competent do a level three server I think I feel maybe there should be more around that with more regulation more kind of certification of that, you know Obviously, we have the, the value is registration scheme, which theoretically determines whether you’re competent, although there was a case recently where a guy just ticked the box.

So it’s not foolproof, but at least that, that exists. We don’t have the same thing on condition based surveys. There isn’t external checking. 

Matt Nally: It’s a good way of looking at it though. If you couldn’t do a level two on that property in terms of the knowledge of the building pathology and so on then by definition, it gives you the answer for a level three.

Tim Kenny: You then get into all, are you competent to do a level two? That’s a, again, when you want to talk about survey levels, one of the funny things about the way the home survey standards are written It says that we have a Level 1, and it says that’s, it basically says a Level 1 is less detailed than the other two.

It says a Level 2 is more detailed than a Level 1 and less detailed than a Level 3, and a Level 3 a circle. We don’t have this fixed basic level. So I actually make the argument, unless you have started doing Level 1 surveys, you can’t determine whether, what’s, what more you need to do on a Level 3, a Level 2 and a Level 3.

You have to do a level, have to do, I’ve never done a level one survey. So technically I’m not competent to do level two surveys. If you want to take a kind of a, an odd view on it. Yeah, it’s a little bit of a mess. Again, we’ve got a couple of good documents out there that are setting a precedent for determining what is competent.

So the joint position statement, for example and to a lesser extent, the retrofit standards are better documents for expressing what competency means. And again, rumor is that we’ll see this guidance document on special properties, We’ll have a little bit. It’s a bit more based around the joint position statement.

And we’ll have a little bit more of a framework as to what you need to know to be competent. Yeah, I think that’s going to be a challenge to write because it’s a very broad subject. I’m keen to see it when it happened, but I would like to see that, I’d like to see a little bit more definition of what a competent today really is.

So we can work with that definition. I 

Matt Nally: think it’s useful for both employers and employees, or if you’re on your own, because you can, you’ve got something to judge against whether you’re being asked to do the right thing. But, um, should we touch then on the reporting requirements around level three and it, and the ways detail can be added into reports and stuff like that.

Tim Kenny: Yeah. The start, the starting point on a level three reporting requirement is again, home survey standards. It says that the report should reflect. The detail of the inspection. Now that’s that’s the first thing. Flooring that of course is. We know that a level 2 inspection is pretty much the same as a level 3.

So based on that, what you write in a level 2 3. I don’t, that’s a kind of a fairly maybe slightly facetious view on it, but that’s what the document says. So I can certainly make that point that your level 2 should be the same as your level 3’s, for most of the property.

Now of course there’s, there, it does go a little bit further and it gives you a little bit more, a bit more scope within there to write a little bit, to write more. It, I think the way to view the document is it’s not it’s maybe not an ideal way, but I think the only way you can view it is it’s not there to set give you rigorous examples.

It’s to set a, an idea or a tone for your surveys. I think that, I think is perhaps more of a, an approach to take. But I think we know they need to be detailed. The biggest mistake I think a lot of people do make with a survey is misunderstanding what detail actually means. They think, okay if I just throw everything in, then that’s a detailed survey.

That’s because I’ve thrown everything I know about this into it. Oh, I’ve seen examples where people have put in, everything they know about the entire history of cavity wall construction. That’s great. You’ve got a really good history of cavity wall construction. But if your client wanted to know that, we’ve got Wikipedia.

Do you know what I mean? It’s not necessary for them to understand, how these systems develop. They’re not necessary to understand all of the different materials that have ever been used in the past to reach different type of construction. They want to know about the materials that are present in their property.

It has to be relevant. I, the phrase I use, which I have stolen from somewhere else is, More is not better. Better is better. Don’t just keep churning in detail after detail. If it doesn’t have a purpose for your client what’s it there for, 

And it ties 

Matt Nally: back in with what you said earlier around customer experience.

If it’s, it might feel like you’re offering more value through more information, but actually it’s more of a headache to read through 

Tim Kenny: and it’s not getting to the point. And how many suppliers complain about the fact that clients don’t read the report? Again, much as we’ve had people thrown up because we’ve not read their terms, we’ve had the people thrown up because they’ve not read the report.

And they’re saying, do you, why didn’t you mention this thing? Look at page 57 it’s in there. You know, probably, I’ve had an example where friend of mine based up in Bristol way miles away from me. Not my patch couldn’t make a direct recommendation.

So they found a surveyor, locally. Who, it was an old property quite small, but 1860, 1870, converted shop, I think. And it had some complex issues for it. And they’d obviously had a building survey done, it was under the old, for the HCS, termed a building survey. They sent it to me to read through.

I read it, I don’t know, I couldn’t tell you whether that was a good building or a bad building. From a point of view, it had, it was, all the information was there and there was some good technical information, but I couldn’t make head nor tail as to what they were supposed to do with that information.

I’ve been doing my job long enough. I understand, what’s there. What do I do with this? What repair, what do I go out and actually action? How do I resolve any of this? 

Matt Nally: A question I’ve got actually from that is, and it comes back to what does the client want?

Do you write the report from the perspective of, you wanted this level of survey in terms of detail. So I’m providing a report that answers that in terms of what I’ve seen on the investigation, or do you only report. From the perspective of what the client wants to potentially do, for example, with the property.

So if there’s someone that’s thinking of doing an overhaul, do you admit quite a bit of detail? You mentioned this about the outbuildings because they’re possibly ripping out the kitchen and the upstairs and taking them all out or do you still need to put a certain 

Tim Kenny: detail in? Yeah, that’s always a tough one, isn’t it?

Because, much as they might have expressed an intention to you. That intention may change, and that’s the thing we might, you might say, oh yeah, we’re going to rip that kitchen out. We’re going to do all of this. We’re going to do all of that. And then between, between moving in and, or, they might buy the house and then they move in and somebody has lost the job or, the money they thought was going to come through, didn’t come through and therefore they don’t have the money.

So they’re going to still have to live with that kitchen. If it’s got defects, they’re still going to be coming to you. To say there’s defects with it. It is a tough one. I think we do need to obviously make whatever we can to talk to our clients, understand their needs, understand their plans, but we can’t tempt that to exclude something unless we go again, we come back to, is it written in my terms yet?

If they want an an extension, for example, where they’re just going to, they know they’re going to knock down that conservatory and they’ve written to you saying, we’re going to knock the conservatory down. Please exclude that conservatory from the inspection. There’s another conversation is whether you drop your price for that.

And personally, I wouldn’t, but they want to exclude it. Fine. We can do that. We can write that in the terms. We can very clearly specify that. And I can ignore that physically separate element of it. But again, personally, I’d still be if I saw particular significant details, I might certainly make a note of them.

So we do have to be cautious with that idea of tailoring it too much to the client. Now, of course we can tailor up, tailoring up is absolutely fine. Tailoring down is dangerous, but tailoring up, they say they’ve got, again, as long as you’ve got the competency to do it, if they say to me, okay, we want additional information about this element, or we want to know what we can do with this, or, whatever it may well be. The classic one is okay, can we knock down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room and what’s your opinion on that? And they want specific detail. Certainly your recording, whether it’s a starred wall or a masonry wall anyway, but they want that explained a little bit more detail.

That certainly is a, we can go up, but I’m more reluctant to come down. 

Matt Nally: I get that. Is there anything before we move on to our final topic around like added detail in level three ports? Is there anything else that you’d like to touch on around, the sort of key difference on level twos to level threes?

Tim Kenny: One bit of advice, I’ll leave the one, my kind of. Bit of advice I tend to give everybody on this is that remember that the detail you include in a report doesn’t just have to be words, I’m, we live in a very visual age. Now everybody has, everyone has a phone to hang with them all of the time.

Now we’ve pictures are really key. And certainly I think we should be aware of that. Pitches, for me, should be part of every single level of survey report, it’s not a strict requirement. And some people say that photographs in level 3 know photographs in level 2, or more photos in level 2 than in level 3.

Certainly I would say that annotating photographs is a very beneficial thing to add into a level. three survey, again, you should have the technical equipment to be able to just draw on a photograph, whether you’re just using, MS paint will do it. There’s these other packages is available that can be really helpful to explain things to a client and take a photograph.

The other big thing, useful thing to include is diagrams, technical diagrams that really give it a much better explanation of a construction type marked up floor plans. A really useful, I use the example of a property which has got, I think, four or five different wall constructions.

So I, I use it in that, where each wall type is color coded with a little key that explains what they are. Now if I wanted to explain all of that in words, that’s a big old chunk of text. And it’s quite, you can’t use your standard text for, detailing which wall is which. And again, that’s important for a client because they might be planning on doing work to it or retrofitting or whatever.

So they need to know it. You need to explain it, but explain it in a diagram, make it easy, go ahead. Yep, I can see on that floor plan, I can go and I can touch that wall. I know which wall that one is and I know which wall that one is. Think around just chucking in, 10, 000 words on every element.

It’s not going to help anybody. 

Matt Nally: No, I agree. I think from a customer experience perspective, it’s as you say, far easier to visually see something in a second rather than try and. Understand what’s been described to you and possibly from your own benefit, you’re going to have fewer follow up questions when people are trying to understand where something is you’re talking about when they get to see an annotated picture.

Yeah. 

Tim Kenny: My, my favorite email, the favorite emails I ever get from clients, my favorite kind of response from clients. See, Oh, thank you. No questions. I get that. I’m a happy man. I’ve been able to talk to my clients now and I’ll chat to them for hours about what was going on, but if they sent me an email saying, thank you.

No questions. That’s a good day as far as i’m concerned. Yeah. Yeah in good report 

Matt Nally: Nice I think that rounds us off nicely. So tune in for topic three where we’ll be discussing added detail in level threes