How Do I Find a Good Damp Proofing Company?

So you will need a damp proofing specialist?

There are several explanations why we occasionally need the help of a damp-proofing specialist. These can range between a damp patch on wall plaster; mould growing on walls and ceilings or, a pre house purchase damp survey.

By far the most effective way of finding any contractor is by recommendation and if you are lucky, a pal will have first hand connection with using a local damp proofing firm and that is always worth looking at.

However, assuming that isn't the case, how will you look for a good firm and steer clear of the cowboy trader?

These days the web may be the place we tend to start and of course Google and Bing will provide lots of firms, when you enter 'damp proofing'. But before believing all the claims on company internet site like 'honest service', 'high quality workmanship' or 'fully qualified staff' it can pay to check a little deeper.

In saying this we must recognise that a lot of people haven't got hours and hours of time to spend pre-vetting a damp proofing company before engaging them, so some short cuts are justified (quite often).

A straightforward short cut to pre-vetted damp proofing specialists

In the UK there's only one nationally recognised trade association for damp proofing contractors, therefore the Property Care Association is a superb place to start. The PCA have written standards they work to and companies need to meet these, and pass a strict financial, safe practices and insurance test before they are able to join. On top of that, member firms are visited regularly and subjected to an unbiased quality audit.

Okay so the PCA want members and the members pay the associations running costs; if they threw all of them out they'd be out of business, so can these checks be relied on?

On their own no, they can not; all organisation have the odd bad member and you could be unlucky and obtain the worst PCA member, rather than the best. The truth is though, by selecting a PCA damp proofing member, you're already weeding out the non-members, anyone who has been vetted by nobody. On balance, you've already increased the probability of finding a good damp proofing firm, who are qualified, financially sound and well insured.

Right, so now we've narrowed the field down and an instant search utilizing the PCA find a contractor widget on the PCA web site will give you a list of PCA members in your area.

That is the main shortlist of damp proofing firms complete but how will you really find the best?

What next? Go to the web site of each in turn and also have a quick scan. These days building a site is a snip and a flashy site template with several generic images and photos is common - this tells you hardly any about those behind the business.

Look deeper though... You are interested in some real facts; some sign of substance behind all that damp proofing gloss.

Clues to an excellent firm include images of the staff, the boss, his managers and key employees. If the firm is small, all of the employees should be represented; in the end, if you can find only ten roughly, then each one of these represents 10% of the service package - check them out. It's hard for a shallow 'front' of a business to fake this part.

Next consider the footer of the contact and home page. In the UK it's the law that all company web pages will need to have the dog owner details shown. Things such as the true holding company name and it's really registered company number and registered address. These let you check a firm's past records such as for example court cases and financial records at Companies House (that is free). If these details is missing then move on - the company know the law and when they are breaking it in this manner, there's a justification for it and they have something to cover - beware vendors who wear masks!

Customer testimonials are used by many firms and it's really true that what customers say about damp proofing specialists they've used, mean much more than what the management say. However, anyone can write a few glib sentences and call these a testimonial, just how is it possible to weed out the dodgy ones?

Once again it is a case of looking a little deeper; are there photographs of these happy clients? Are any commercial clients named (after that you can check these exist with a simple internet search engine)? Commercial companies guard their brand and goodwill very carefully and most will have Google Alerts create so they see if anyone is using their name in vain. So if all of the testimonials on a traders site are from Mrs Smith or Mr Jones, with no real details - consider why.

Most sites nowadays will have a news section - that is key to getting under the skin of a company. Is the news up-to-date? What kind of news is 'good' in the companies' eyes? Whether it's about how great they're, with no real depth then shy away. Just think, what would you desire to put on your news pages if you were owning a company? Think about the achievements of your staff? New certificates for training; awards for good service; any charity efforts and events? Of course you will have news about new services and jobs done well too - look for a real story which represents the efforts of a group of people behind the firm - that is always an excellent pointer to an ethical, good company. Should they care about their staff, they also care about their customers - the two go together.

Accreditations are the next good pointer. In the UK the minimum generic accreditation to look for is TrustMark. TrustMark is really a government sponsored set of basic consumer focused standards, which must be met by a company before they are able to display the logo. It's not fool proof, but whether it's not there - you will want to? Meeting these minimum standards; having insurance, a complaints procedure, customer deposit protection and similar basic good practice should be easy to meet for any half-descent company.

In construction related activity in the UK health and safety keeps growing in importance. Therefore the government has another sponsored scheme called CHAS. This stands for Construction Health and Safety Scheme. The CHAS logo is displayed if the firm have met and so are seen to continue to meet up basic safe practices standards, which are audited each year. CHAS is not hard to get, but once more, if it is missing be careful - the firm either never work on real construction sites (where CHAS is mandatory), or they can not be bothered to accomplish the work to meet up the CHAS standard. If you use a firm without CHAS you may be inviting danger into your home or risking harm to others on the project - I'd avoid non CHAS members.

The Property Care Association is a must when i said, but of course we are only looking at PCA member companies anyway.

Investors in People can be worth looking for. That is an established accreditation that is quite hard to win and also harder to keep. IIP is only awarded when a firm can demonstrate commitment and good practice in eight areas, which revolve around staff engagement, training and development. We've all had poor service from bored, poorly motivated and underpaid staff. IIP is really a way of checking that the damp proofing company really put their staff first, so you will probably served by enthusiastic, well paid and well motivated people - I know who I'd rather deal with.

Whilst we're about people why not check out the qualifications of the people in the firm. In the united kingdom you can find national qualifications for damp proofing surveyors and technicians. Search for the letters CSRT after the surveyor's names - this stands for Certificated Surveyor in Remedial Treatment also it implies that the surveyor has had his knowledge of damp, timber defects and health and safety validated by independent examination. Anyone can call themselves a damp specialist surveyor - but are they? Should they have CSRT after their name they're; if not then why not?

https://builders-barrowinfurness.co.uk/  with the damp proofing installer; the guys who actually perform the damp proofing on site. THE HOUSE Care Association run validated training for technicians and there is also a City and Guilds NVQ level 2 for damp and timber treatment technicians - ask should they have this.