Lesson 4
A Walk Round the Outside
Read the outside of your house from the ground: mortar that should wear before the brick, ground raised above the damp-proof course, weep holes, air bricks and sills.
Fifteen minutes on the pavement
Fifteen minutes walking round your house with your phone’s zoom shows you more than most owners ever look at. You’re looking for changes: a slipped tile, a stain, a crack, a gutter that sags, soil heaped against a wall.
Do it from firm ground in decent weather, clear of traffic, overhead cables and anything that could fall. Use binoculars or the zoom for anything high. Don’t climb, lean out of a window or go into the loft to get a better look; whatever you can’t see from the ground stays “not looked at”, and that is fine. A walk round is not a survey, and it won’t catch everything.
What you find is worth passing on as it is. Owners can brief a builder with it; renters can send it to their landlord. Neither needs to know the cause first. If something needs a closer look at height, that is a job to brief: Hiring a Trader: Brief to Handover.