Unfortunately this is all too common practice these days.

Here is the link to the CSRT course syllabus produced by the only people who provide it – the Property Care Association themselves. Compare it to the 4-year syllabus from any building surveying degree course and decide who you would prefer to have advising you on your home.

This shows the sum total of the experience of the ‘surveyor’ who you are allowing to diagnose and, at best, rarely occurring phenomenon and charge you from hundreds to tens of thousands of pounds to remedy.

Neither I, nor any or my colleagues, have discovered rising dampness as a phenomenon and always find multiple defects or causes.

Who else but the Property Care Association would be able to recommend that only their own members should carry out inspections of dampness. The very same people who say they are the experts in all things damp related. Have a look at the syllabus above and you decide whether you can trust someone who has completed a 3-day course to obtain an alleged professional qualification. CSRT indeed.

“Wise Property Care (the largest of it’s kind in Scotland) whose founder, Les Meikle, is also a board member of the PCA……” If you want a successful business, become a board member of your own industry regulator!

I, like all of my colleagues, completed a 4-year full-time course at university to learn the ‘basics’ and begin training as a building surveyor even before specialising in old buildings, architects can study for up to 7 years before specialising. Had I only known on my first day at university that I could become an expert in dampness three days later – what a waste of 4 years of hard studying. I would be a millionaire by now if only I didn’t have a conscience!

The bullet points below have been taken from the three day course syllabus and shows how flimsy their knowledge is expected to be on completion. No previous knowledge of construction is necessary.

Day 1 – CONDENSATION & DAMPNESS (09.30 start) Causes, diagnostics and treatment options

• Materials used in construction
• Causes and effects of dampness in buildings
• Diagnosis and methods of treatment of rising damp
• Surveying procedures
• Ancillary procedures
• Methods of measuring and assessing moisture
• Condensation compared to other sources of dampness
• Understanding relative humidity, vapour pressure and environmental moisture
• Hygrometers, surface thermometers and data loggers

Interestingly they also suggest helpful websites – their own and the Health & Safety Executive are prominent – not suggested are anyone who cares for old buildings, such as National Trust, Historic England, Historic Scotland, SPAB, IHBC etc., or provides advice that doesn’t include chemicals, this is purely sales training..

An older article, still relevant today, highlights failings and limitations of these fraudsters and recommends paying for a proper survey from someone with no treatments to sell, you can read it here.

This is one part of a six-part one-day module so, allowing for lunch and tea-breaks and chatting etc, maybe up one hour on all methods of construction, ever, in the UK. It is in no way even possible to adequately cover even the foundation level of a cavity wall in that time, let alone ALL the various methods of construction that still exist after hundreds of years of changes of methods and materials and different regional and material variations. I have difficulty sometimes with diagnosing problems because they are so complex, that’s after 4 years at university and a first-class honours degree and huge experience in various roles and attending in-depth training – more than 2 or 3 day courses. I recently attended a two-day sash window repair course – you may be surprised to hear that it didn’t qualify me as a joiner.