You've booked your survey. Someone's coming to spend 2-3 hours at your home. Here's what actually happens during that time and why a proper survey is the foundation for getting your home improvements right.

Before the Survey

We'll make sure we've spoken to you before the survey day - either when you booked or shortly after. This conversation covers what's driving you to make improvements, any specific problems you've noticed, and what you're trying to achieve.

This means your surveyor arrives prepared and can focus the survey on your specific situation rather than starting from scratch.

What Happens on Survey Day

Your surveyor will spend 2-3 hours systematically assessing your home:

Building fabric: Wall construction, insulation levels, roof condition, floor types. They're working out where heat's escaping and what's feasible to improve.

Windows and doors: Type, age, condition. Single or double glazed. Draughts. Whether replacement makes sense or if other improvements should come first.

Heating system: Boiler age and efficiency, radiators, controls, hot water cylinder. How it's currently working and whether it's sized appropriately.

Ventilation: Trickle vents, extractor fans, airbricks. Whether you have enough ventilation or if improvements will need more.

Potential issues: Damp, condensation, structural concerns that might affect what's possible or should be addressed first.

They'll access your loft if you have one, look at your heating system, check external walls. They might take photos to reference later.

If you want to show them around and highlight specific concerns, that's helpful. But they're perfectly happy to survey the property themselves whilst you get on with your day.

After the Survey

We use the survey data to create recommendations specific to your home - what improvements make sense, realistic costs, what order to do things in, and how everything works together as a system.

Depending on your project, this becomes either your Home Energy Plan or feeds directly into detailed specifications if you're ready to move forward with work.

If we need to clarify anything or discuss options once we've analysed the survey data, we'll follow up with you to confirm preferences and ensure the recommendations fit your situation.

What Makes This Different From an EPC

An EPC assessor spends 30-60 minutes, notes down basic information, feeds it into software, and gives you a rating with generic recommendations.

Our survey takes 2-3 hours because we're not just collecting data for a rating. We're understanding your home as a system, identifying what's actually feasible, spotting potential issues before they become problems, and creating recommendations tailored to your specific property and situation.

The difference: an EPC tells you your home rates D and suggests you "install loft insulation." Our survey tells you your loft has 50mm of old insulation poorly fitted with gaps around the eaves, topping up to 270mm properly would cost around £800, and it's the most cost-effective improvement you can make before addressing your solid walls.

Common Questions

Do I need to be there the whole time?
No. You can be there at the start to show the surveyor anything specific, then leave them to it if you need to. They'll let you know if they have any questions.

Do I need to tidy up?
No. They need to see how your home actually works, and they're looking at building fabric and systems, not your housekeeping.

What do I need to provide?
Access to all rooms including loft if you have one, and they'll need to see your heating system and any relevant paperwork (boiler age, previous work done). That's it.

Can they answer questions on the day?
They can answer many questions about your home's energy efficiency and what's feasible. But specific advice, costs and recommendations - that follows once we've done some calculations using the survey data.

What if they find problems?
That's the point. Better to identify issues during the survey than discover them halfway through installation. If there are concerns (damp, structural issues, complications that affect what's possible), they'll flag them with recommendations for how to address them.

Why This Survey Matters

The survey is the foundation for getting improvements right.

Without it, you're making decisions based on generic advice, guessing at costs, hoping things will work together, and risking expensive mistakes.

With it, you understand what your home actually needs, what's realistic for your budget, what order makes sense, and you avoid the problems that come from doing improvements in isolation without understanding how they interact.

A proper survey now prevents months of problems and thousands wasted later.

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