Archives for 2011

The Leeds Estate Agents, Surveyors and Valuers Association annual luncheon; a room full of winners.

I spent last Friday afternoon at the Hilton Hotel in the centre of Leeds.  David Grindrod, of well known Leeds Chartered Surveyors, Wardle Grindrod, kindly invited me as his guest – along with Eddie Lumley of St James’s Place Partnership; financial consultant and Karen Conway of Wrigleys Solicitors.  David’s office administrators Carol and Hilary completed […]

Damp. The (very) basic guide. part 3

Now that you have read part 1 and part 2, we can move onto more problematical damp.  This is rising damp. Despite what some daft journalists and conservationists say, it’s very common. However, it is also often misdiagnosed and I’d say that quite a few expensive damp courses are installed when they needn’t be (I […]

Customer satisfaction = joy

This is a bit off the preservation topic, though it still involves my work.  I had a long and busy day surveying today, around Leeds mainly, looking at rising damp, wet rot and wall tie corrosion. The traffic was awful. The following is copy of a letter that came in the post whilst I was […]

Micro-drilling construction timbers. How and why it works.

Wet Rot. Dry Rot, beetle infestations.  All real problems in construction timbers.  In most cases diagnosis and estimation of the extent of the problem is easy; a torch and a screwdriver being all the tools needed, by any half-decent timber infestation surveyor. However, when large section timbers, valuable historic members or restricted access is concerned, […]

Property Care Association Thermography day.

Having had my appetite for this subject wetted, by a course with the National Flood School, I spent a morning at the PCA thermography day in Huntingdon this week. PCA general manager Steve Hodgson sat at the back of a room which was full of the usual suspects; those PCA members who never tire of […]

Copyright © 2010 Preservation Expert. Legal Stuff: All the advice and information in the posts on my blog is made in good faith and is based on my experience and knowledge at the time of writing. However, nobody is infallible and whilst I’m confident that most of what I write about preservation issues is accurate, there’s a good chance there’ll be an error or two somewhere. I do change my mind about stuff, as I gain more experience. In view of this you must make your own decisions on whether to follow any advice I write and think about this; I could be wrong. No responsibility will be accepted by the author for any losses anyone may suffer as a result of any mistake or for the consequence of any action you take as a result of reading this blog. If you do suffer a loss, resulting from anything I’ve written, a verbal heartfelt apology will be your only compensation.