Protecting our Scottish Heritage with Durie Heritage

A late c.18 house originally built for the Sheriff of Lanark

What we do at Scottish Heritage

Our strengths:

• We survey buildings in great detail.
• We access areas most surveyors avoid - like crawling around roof spaces or around damp solums below floors.
• We test timbers, measure moisture content, quantify damage, determine patterns of moisture and assess any ongoing risk of decay
• Our reports are written for a layman to understand and follow.
• Full explanation of technical terms are provided.

For you as a purchaser:

• We will provide you with a detailed report which is designed to give you confidence that the property you are buying is for you, whether that is by quantifying the extent of known defects or confirming their absence.
• We provide clarity for significant significant to allow you to decide whether to negotiate on the asking price or to withdraw from the purchase.
• We give detailed advice on remedies, not provided in any RICS report, including the most appropriate materials to use.
• We can provide advice about the most appropriate type of contractor to use and whether necessary work is considered as specialist.
• We encourage on-going contact following purchase to ensure you get the best possible results from the report.
• Reports are designed as educational tools as well as a statement of fact.
• We provide detailed reports to lenders, where retentions are made in relation to damp proofing work, allowing funds to be released.

For you as a seller:

• We can provide the best advice to get your property ready for sale, including maintenance tasks and repairs, with the report often being attached to the sales documentation.
• We identify the true causes of issues identified in home reports which have recommended a timber & damp survey, explain any defects and provide confidence to prospective purchasers.
• We identify the causes of dampness and rationalise the risk to the fabric depending on the type of construction, minimising the impact of an often poor home report.

For you as an owner:

• All of the above plus ensuring that your budget is spent in the most appropriate and efficient manner.
• We give you a full explanation of how your property was designed to function when it was built, what materials were used, what has changed, what has gone wrong, why it has gone wrong, and a full, detailed explanation of how to remedy these defects or mitigate their effects.
• We provide on-going advice during any works whether it is to you, your architect/designer or contractor.
• We are delighted to remain in contact with clients from years past who still ask questions to make sure they are proceeding in the right direction.

Why we love old buildings

Why we serve Scottish Heritage?  Because we love old buildings.

We have spent years surveying old buildings in Scotland and the north of England from isolated crofts on Lewis, huge manses in Aberdeenshire, country houses in Wigtownshire and castles in Argyll.

​We love the type of houses we knew growing up, red sandstone tenement flats, sandstone terraced houses and aspirational 1930's bungalows.  They are all fascinating in their own way and provide so much social history at the same time.

Beautiful red sandstone tenement on the south side of Glasgow

Construction technology has developed over thousands of years and continued largely unchanged for most of that time with 'mass masonry' being the norm until relatively recently.  These materials were 'won' out of the ground, cut, sized and shaped by men wearing only a flat cap for safety, using chisels and mallets, marking the faces of the familiar stone we walk past every day and now take for granted and mistreat without thought.

Each mark on the faces of these stones are single mallet blows onto a steel chisel made, perhaps, 200 years ago.  Surely this is something worth respecting.

If you want to know how to prevent the loss of these marks, this small, but important, part of our social history, and the memory of the men who made them, then call to arrange a survey.

Email or call on 07944 611844