Two surveys, two completely different purposes, and one badly worded form that causes half the confusion I see.
There are two types of intrusive survey that people often get muddled about, and it is costing them time and sometimes a lot more. A management survey and a refurbishment and demolition survey do fundamentally different jobs, and where I see clients come unstuck most is with the titling, believe it or not.
Here is how it happens. A client comes to us and asks for a refurbishment and demolition survey for, say, the first floor of an office block. No problem. We do our desktop review, ask for plans, and pay a site visit if we need to. Then we come back with a quotation for a refurbishment survey, because that is what the job is. And they say, no, I want a demolition survey as well. But you are not demolishing anything. You might be taking a wall out, you might be pulling a room apart, but you are not demolishing the building. That is refurbishment, not demolition. And people will dig their heels in hard over it, because a form somewhere has one combined tick-box that says refurbishment and demolition survey, and they have ticked it without anyone ever asking the actual question.
What that form should have is separate boxes. Do you need a demolition survey or a refurbishment survey, and has it actually been discussed? They are two different surveys with two different scopes. When we quote, we title it correctly, either a refurbishment survey or a demolition survey, and we tell you which one your job needs and why. That is not us being awkward; that is us keeping you compliant.
The bigger problem sits beneath all of this, and it is understanding. Many of the contract and project managers I work with are good people who work with buildings every day, but the intricacies of an asbestos survey are not their world, and it shows. The classic example is access. If we cannot get into a room, that room has to be recorded as presumed to contain asbestos until it is inspected. People do not like hearing that. It is fine, just go in. We cannot just go in. And if we do not record an area as not accessed, we leave it wide open for a trade to walk in there later thinking it is clear.
So yes, it all comes back to client education, and I am more than happy to do that. I like doing it. We have been at this for twenty-five years, and we are not here to tear the backside out of a job and run off into the sunset. I want clients who come back, who ring me when their mate or their family has a problem. Give us the engagement, let us walk you through the minefield, and we will make sure you get the right survey for the right job every time.
