The library
What the instrument is actually telling you.
Kit, site practice and reporting reference for residential surveyors — ordered the way the day runs. Entries go up as the casework they come from is finished, and everything not yet written is listed unlinked rather than promised.
- 01
- Published
- 10
- Being written
- 04
- Planned
The instrument decides the evidence.
What you carry
Every meter, camera and probe answers one narrow question well and several others badly. These are notes on what each one is actually telling you — and where it misleads.
- 01.01Read ↗
Moisture meters
Pin and pinless instruments measure different things, and neither measures moisture content in masonry. What the reading means, where it misleads, and how to record it so the report survives challenge.
- 01.02Writing
Thermal imaging
Thermal patterns suggest where to look; they do not diagnose. Sensitivity, emissivity, the conditions a survey needs, and the claims that get surveyors into trouble.
- 01.03Writing
Borescopes
Probe diameter, articulation, lighting and recording. What a cavity inspection reasonably shows, and the written consent that has to sit behind every hole.
- 01.04Writing
Laser measures
Range, accuracy and the features that matter on site over the ones that sell the box. Where a laser beats a tape and where it quietly does not.
- 01.05Writing
Crack monitoring
Tell-tales, calibrated studs and digital gauges. How long a monitoring period has to run before it means anything, and how to write up an inconclusive one.
- 01.06Writing
Cameras and 360° record
A whole-room condition record, frozen at the date of inspection, is the cheapest insurance a surveyor can buy. Kit, workflow and storage.
- 01.07Writing
Access and safety
What you can reasonably reach, what you decline, and how to record a limitation so it reads as a professional judgement rather than a gap.
Capture it once, properly.
What you record
Checklists, photograph discipline, sketches and limitation wording. The difference between a site visit you can write up in an hour and one you cannot.
- 02.01Writing
Inspection checklists
Printable and digital checklists ordered the way the Home Survey Standard reports, so the site sequence and the report sequence are the same one.
- 02.02Writing
Photograph discipline
Establishing shots, scale references, annotation on site rather than at the desk, and a naming convention that survives the drive home.
- 02.03Planned
Measured sketches
Enough drawing to carry a defect location, a crack pattern or a room layout, without pretending to be a measured survey.
- 02.04Planned
Recording limitations
Furniture, floor coverings, locked rooms, weather on the day. The limitation wording is the part of the report most likely to be read back to you.
The reading was never the slow part.
Back at the desk
Wording, ratings, templates and — in time — a capture tool that carries the site record through to a finished report.
- 03.01Writing
Clause library
A structured bank of condition-rating wording, organised by building element, so the phrasing you settled on two years ago is still there and still consistent on the next job.
- 03.02Writing
Condition ratings
What separates a 2 from a 3 in practice, why the reasoning matters more than the number, and how to keep ratings consistent across everyone writing in a firm.
- 03.03Planned
Report templates
Level 1, 2 and 3 skeletons that follow the Home Survey Standard, ready to adapt to a practice rather than adopt wholesale.
- 03.04Planned
Field capture
An iPad and iPhone capture tool that takes a survey from site notes, annotated photographs and room-by-room observations through to a formatted report, without the evening spent retyping it.
End of sectionNext step / 01
Which one would save you an evening?
The library grows in the order surveyors ask for it, not to a content calendar. Say which entry would be most useful and it moves up.