Oliver Hudson Surveying

Oliver Hudson Surveying Residential property surveys across Hull, East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire Welcome to Oliver Hudson Surveying! Buying a house, bungalow or flat?

Whether it's 1 or 100 years old, mortgage or cash, you need a condition survey to avoid nasty surprises. Before you make one of the biggest investments of your life, please allow me to investigate the property first. I carry out residential property surveys in Hull, East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, including RICS Level 2 Home Surveys, level 3 Building Surveys, Structural & Damp surveys, Spec

ific Structural Reports, and Tree Proximity Reports. So, if you're looking for a firm of surveyors that provides residential property surveys in Hull, East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, look no further than Oliver Hudson Surveying!

Greetings !I hope this post finds you all well. I'm loving the lighter mornings that come with Spring. Keeping pretty ...
26/03/2026

Greetings !

I hope this post finds you all well. I'm loving the lighter mornings that come with Spring. Keeping pretty busy, which is always a bonus. The eagle-eyed amongst you will have clocked the new shirt and jumper - the last ones were getting a bit threadbare (or rather, let's be honest, tight). Not sure how much life is left in the hat.

Last week I got out on my bike for the first time in a while and did a circuit of the outskirts of Beverley. It's a Specialized Rockhopper and I bought it new back in July 2000 just 22 days before my wedding in the hope of losing a few pounds - nothing like planning ahead! It cost me £649 (plus a few accessories) from good old Rob Winstanley on Anlaby Road. I thought it was a good way to spend my final sales commissions (from selling drinking water machines). It's still going strong today, including the 'computer', and I get it serviced every couple of years. Probably only worth a fiver now but it has served me well.

A Facebook memory popped up last week from 15 years ago, back in 2011 when I was an estate agent, and we had a stand at a business exhibition in Hull City Hall. Some bloke came up to the stand and asked me what the hell I was doing in Hull. It was just after Phil Spencer had apparently made some derogatory comments about Hull on 'Location, Location, Location', and this guy couldn't believe I then had the cheek to turn up at an exhibition in Hull. The more I tried to convince him that I wasn't Phil Spencer, the angrier he became, and he eventually walked off in disgust.

I recently surveyed a 1970s house in Beverley. Classic case of a pitched trussed rafter roof structure not having been properly reinforced before it became mandatory under the Building Regulations. There are no longitudinal binders and diagonal wind bracing across the rafters, nor is there any lateral bracing between the gable wall and the timber structure, both of which are essential, especially given the gradually worsening weather conditions and stronger winds that seem to be becoming more prevalent. The purpose of the wind bracing is to stop the trusses buckling under wind or snow loads, and to transfer horizontal wind forces battering the gable end wall down into the roof structure and then down into the load-bearing walls to the ground. Speaking of the gable end wall, the purpose of the lateral bracing is to both prevent wind uplift of the roof and also to stop the gable end wall from falling outwards. At this particular property, there was minor evidence of structural movement within the accommodation on the gable end wall side of the house, on both floors, due to a lack of wind bracing to the roof structure and a lack of lateral restraint to the gable wall, in the form of slight separation (uplift) between the walls and the ceilings, and slight separation between the gable end wall and the internal walls and ceilings, usually caused by wind suction. It is not serious at the moment, only minor, but will gradually get worse, and is easily resolved by installing lateral restraint straps between the roof structure and the gable wall itself, and longitudinal binders/diagonal wind bracing to the roof trusses, to bring this roof up to current British Standards. I won't go into the technical specifications (you're probably asleep already) but it's essential that these works are carried out properly.

Finally, is it just me who didn't know that the entire section of the A63 between the M62 at North Cave and the Hessle slip road just before the Humber Bridge was renamed in 'Petuaria Way' in July 2018, in memory of the name of the Roman fort situated where Brough now stands and which was built in 70 AD and abandoned in 125 AD? I discovered this by accident a few days ago. So, the route to Hull is M62, Petuaria Way and Clive Sullivan Way, ending up at our fabulous new Castle Street underpass! I say 'fabulous' but realise it's probably a controversial development. I still can't quite believe that, in order to widen the eastbound carriageway, they had to exhume and reinter almost 20,000 bodies from the historic Trinity Burial Ground (1783-1861)!

Until next time folks... over and out.

Greetings ! This post is about beauty and the beast, but in reverse order.I hope you're all keeping well. I'm keeping ...
05/03/2026

Greetings ! This post is about beauty and the beast, but in reverse order.

I hope you're all keeping well. I'm keeping busy as usual, visiting properties around the Humber region. I don't talk to you about trees much, but sometimes they form an important part of an inspection, particularly if they are affecting buildings or drains, and I am occasionally called in to carry out tree proximity surveys, which can also be useful when there is disagreement between neighbours about the impact a tree on a property. I was carrying out an RICS Level 3 Home Survey at a big old house in Beverley recently and came across a couple of interesting trees, neither of which are currently affecting the property, but one of which will almost certainly do so in the future!

The first tree was a Tasmanian Blue Gum tree. There are 29 different species of this tree, 17 of which are only found in Tasmania itself. The most common species is the Eucalyptus globulus, which is the species I found in this garden. Essentially, it's a Eucalyptus tree. As you will know, these trees are favoured by koala bears, although their preferred species is actually the Eucalyptus viminalis, but they are happy to eat from my tree also! Sadly, there were no koalas in the garden during my visit. My tree is a monster of the gum tree family, although not quite the largest - that honour goes to the Eucalyptus regnans, otherwise known as the Mountain Ash, which is the tallest flowering plant in the world and reaches over 100 metres in height, the length of a football field!

The important information about my tree is that it is a very high water demand species - it can consume huge amounts of water - and it has very deep root systems, often being referred to as the 'thirsty' tree. It can grow up to between 90 metres in height and is both one of the fastest- growing and one of the tallest tree species in the world. Why is this in any way relevant? Because thirsty trees remove water from the soil in the ground and, given that most of the superficial subsoils around Hull and East Yorkshire are clayey, removal of water from subsoils close to a property's foundations causes the clay to shrink and dry, causing localised shrinkage of the soil itself. The reduction in soil volume means that the ground effectively shifts down away from the foundations, losing its capacity to support them (leading to subsidence).

Typically, the potential lateral root spread of high water demand trees in the UK is around 1.25 times the height of the mature tree, but this monster's root spread can be up to 2.5 times the height of the mature tree! My tree is approximately 12 metres in height and 9 metres from the house so, in theory, the tree already has the potential to damage the house's foundations, although of course root spread is random and unpredictable to some extent. Fortunately, there is currently no evidence of structural damage to the house, but I have recommended that the tree be pruned and maintained on a regular basis at no higher than its existing height, particularly given the possibility of another drought this summer, which will result in thirsty tree roots spreading further underground in search of water. Fortunately, no drains to the rear of the property, so no concerns there - drains are particularly vulnerable to collapse due to clay soil shrinkage, and old deteriorating drainpipes with small leaks are sometimes penetrated by tree roots desperately in search of water, resulting in gradual collapse.

The second tree was a Saucer Magnolia tree (Magnolia × soulangeana), a member of the Magnolia family. This tree poses no risk whatsoever to the property, and in fact my interest in this tree is of a more romantic nature. I would like you to take a look at the way some of the branches seem to make way for each other and sometimes actually alter their own shape to accommodate and make way for another branch. This beautiful, natural phenomenon is known as 'inosculation', sometimes referred to as 'self-grafting' or 'natural grafting', but the term comes from the Latin word osculari, meaning 'to kiss', which is why trees that do this are sometimes called 'husband and wife' trees or 'love trees'. The combined branches are known as 'gemels', from the Latin word for 'pair'. Form a dendrological point of view, when branches grow in close proximity, they often rub together in the wind. This friction wears away the bark, exposing the inner cambium layers. When these layers touch, the trees fuse together, allowing them to share nutrients and water. How perfect is that?

Thank you for your attention to these matters, and have a great day!

Oliver

Hi ! We must stop meeting like this. Apologies for the sudden regularity of my updates, and their appalling length - I ...
05/02/2026

Hi ! We must stop meeting like this. Apologies for the sudden regularity of my updates, and their appalling length - I promise this will be the last you hear from me for a while. I can't believe we're already in February. It's been a busy start to the year.

I used my elder daughter's car for a survey last week and discovered she's been renting out the under-door space to a very large spider. Anything for a bit of extra cash. Now that Section 21 evictions have been abolished I didn't like to interfere so left her/him be.

A rare shot of me in my loft overalls, which merely serve to limit the number of spiders that climb into my pockets. As you can see, the ceilings and joists are, correctly, covered with thermal insulation. However, this now greatly limits our ability to move around the loft space to carry out a thorough inspection without damaging the insulation. More importantly for the homeowner, it makes access to the roof slopes, the roof structure and often the chimney breast, very difficult for the purpose of inspection, repairs and maintenance in the future, so we now recommend appointing a joiner to install a permanent access walkway fixed to the joists, or to build the walkway on stilts in order to maintain as much insulation beneath the walkway as possible, to solve this problem.

Given the length (13mm) and shape of these rodent droppings in a Beverley loft, my money is on the brown rat.

Sometimes, common sense doesn't show up. A builder has installed a modern PVC damp proof course (DPC) in replacement brickwork following removal of a window bay. The original bitumen DPC is also visible. The problem with both is that they are level with the outside ground level, which will result in rising damp, which I confirmed internally. Solution? Lower the outside ground level so that it is 150mm above the outside ground level. Amazing that the builder was happy to install the modern DPC without thought to the Building Regulations requiring it to be 150mm above ground level.

Finally, on the way home from the school run with my younger daughter last week, I suddenly realised I was driving with a completely flat tyre. I don't know how many cars still carry a spare tyre but I was grateful for mine as we were on a tight schedule and relieved I still knew how to change one!

Until the next time...

Greetings !First of all, here is the photograph of the Hedon Road spider that I so rudely forgot to attach to my last po...
02/02/2026

Greetings !

First of all, here is the photograph of the Hedon Road spider that I so rudely forgot to attach to my last post. Followed by a very unfortunate selfie accidentally taken while trying to enter a sub-floor void inside an under-stairs cupboard. As you can see from the look on my face, I had a feeling the opening was narrower than me, which turned out to be the case. How about that for spatial awareness? Too many mince pies mind.

I love old terraces and their character, less so the look of the eclectic range of flat-topped extensions that go up along the back of them, which also sometimes really complicate inspections.

As you know, I love a good wasp nest, so imagine my joy on discovering 6 sizeable nests inside the roof of an 1840s farmhouse in a village just south of Barrow upon Humber. Fortunately, the guests had all opted for an early check out, otherwise it could have been quite a party up there.

Happy February everyone - lighter mornings and evenings heading our way soon...

Hello again ! A very busy end to last year, not only with surveys but also with harmonica and karate, which are of cours...
30/01/2026

Hello again ! A very busy end to last year, not only with surveys but also with harmonica and karate, which are of course far more important!

Competed at my club's national championships at Ponds Forge in Sheffield (no photos this time). Instead of competing in my age division (45-54), I decided it would be a good idea to try the male black belt opens (18+), and got my backside handed to me on a plate. A humbling experience but glad I had a go. About 35 competitors in this division and my first fight was against a young lad who eventually went on to win the silver medal, so it was a baptism of fire. Think I might return to my age division next time...

Great fun jamming at the Mirage Cocktail Bar monthly open mic session in Beverley. An honour to be able to get some practice in with seasoned professional musicians and I hope to join them again soon. Played 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door' followed by a blues song I've never heard of (see attached clip).

An original lath and plaster ceiling visible in the loft space - about 125 years old and still hanging on in there, so well installed, but will of course eventually need removing or overboarding with plasterboard, the latter being much easier and far less messy.

Asbestos-cement pipe in loft space in a 1930s ex-council house in Beverley - not seen one of these before - it's a redundant flue that used to serve an old gas boiler which has long since been removed. In good condition so won't cause any harm if left in peace and not disturbed or damaged, but removal advised with it being redundant.

Made friends with a beautiful horse while surveying an old farmhouse with equestrian facilities in North Lincolnshire, as well as with a stunning spider outside a house on Hedon Road.

Inspection of a brand-new house in Beverley, which thankfully had very few issues, which isn't always the case unfortunately. A worrying amount of water on site though!

And a bracing walk on Beverley Westwood with beautiful Coco.

Hello again ! I really must do this more often but time just seems to run out. I of course have to keep up-to-date with ...
01/12/2025

Hello again ! I really must do this more often but time just seems to run out. I of course have to keep up-to-date with the latest developments in the world of surveying, and have just been to my favourite annual all-day training conference in Brighouse - it's always proper old school in that we get a delicious 2-course lunch with a glass of wine thrown in. Huge thanks as usual to the wonderful team at Professional Conferences. Like most people, most of my training is online these days, so this is a more civilised, enjoyable and sociable experience, and it's always interesting getting to know a couple of new faces over lunch.

As well as brushing up on my structural surveying skills under the tutelage of the legend that is Larry Russen (blurred on stage in the distance), it was really useful to have a refresher from another surveying legend, Geoff Hunt, on the dreaded spray foam insulation that more and more people are getting conned into having installed in their lofts. The timing was great as I have just surveyed two properties, one in Cottingham and one in Beverley, both of which have spray foam insulation (as shown in the photos). If you haven't got it, please don't, and if you have got it, we probably need to talk!

Hello ! Huge thanks to SALT Architects for sending me up to Flamborough earlier this month to survey a large bungalow ro...
29/09/2025

Hello ! Huge thanks to SALT Architects for sending me up to Flamborough earlier this month to survey a large bungalow roof, a trip I thoroughly enjoyed, not only because of the property itself, but also because of the astonishing location. Apart from a camping trip there a couple of years ago, I've spent little time at Flamborough, but I shall be going back, because it is so beautiful. I started the day with a cappuccino from The Headlands Family Restaurant & Café Bar, where I received such a friendly, welcoming and professional service. Then up the ladders to do what I was there to do, and then a walk around the headland and lighthouse, followed by a second equally pleasant visit to the café where I invested in the 'Headlands Club Sandwich' to restore my strength after a long and tiring inspection - delicious and packed to the gunnels (nautical metaphor intended). I plan to return to Flamborough on a stormy day in the depths of winter. According to the owner of the property I was inspecting, on really rough days the sea spray travels up and over the clifftop, over the bungalow roof, and lands in the field behind!

Hello ! Busy as ever on the surveying trail, with surveys all over Hull and East Yorkshire in very mixed weather conditi...
29/09/2025

Hello ! Busy as ever on the surveying trail, with surveys all over Hull and East Yorkshire in very mixed weather conditions. Too many chats to mention with spiders, and still managing to find time for karate and the odd tournament, and for harmonica practice. Having spent the last couple of years learning to play the diatonic harmonica, I'm now learning to play the chromatic harmonica, which is completely different, kind of like shoving a piano in your mouth. Family trip last weekend to Alpacas at The Field, Dunswell to walk their alpacas, where I enjoyed getting to know Inca, as well as the owners Julie and Andrew, who gave us a wonderful morning!

Hello ! Well it's been a busy few months of surveying with an enjoyable mix of East Yorkshire locations including east H...
13/07/2025

Hello ! Well it's been a busy few months of surveying with an enjoyable mix of East Yorkshire locations including east Hull, west Hull, Howden, Driffield, Sutton and Beverley and surrounding villages. Few interesting defects - good news for my clients - and lots of wildlife, including some worryingly large spiders, an old mouse skeleton in a trap, my first bee rescue with sugared water, and the ever loyal Coco supervising the reporting process. My first ever 'sedum' living room, that wasn't in the best of health, and some beautiful Beverley roof tops...

Hi . It’s been an interesting few weeks since my last post. Surveys in places like Beverley and Swanland, so not too f...
06/03/2025

Hi . It’s been an interesting few weeks since my last post. Surveys in places like Beverley and Swanland, so not too far afield of late, and not too many defects to report on, which is great news.

You know how I worry about perished underfelt beneath the bottom rows of roof tiles? Well, it was a delight to see combed and vented PVC eaves protectors installed to a 1980s bungalow in Swanland following perishment of the original bitumen underfelt – great job!

As you also know, I sometimes come across mice and rats, but more commonly evidence of their presence, such as droppings and bait boxes. Got a slight shock when I shoved my head through the access hatch to see this poor blighter. Almost turned me vegetarian again.

Sometimes it’s really hard to inspect roofs, especially when the sun is shining right back at you. Nice problem to have though.

I occasionally see defensive weapons next to beds, and particularly enjoyed this elderly lady’s choice of baseball bat – nice manageable size, bit like a sawn-off shotgun in that sense, not too unwieldy.

Surveying aside, a couple of weeks ago I thought I’d broken my hand sparring with my regular sparring partner Pawel – an ill-timed Gedan Uke sweeping block by me against a brutal Mae Geri Keage front kick by Pawel resulting in the back of my hand taking the full force of his shin. Fortunately just bruising and burst blood vessels making it look much worse than it was, so I was only out for 24 hours. Insane pain and dizziness at the time though!

And finally, it was good to have a week off in hotter climes during half term, which may have involved me doing a little sand-surfing and getting intimate with the most beautiful camel, who I’m going to call Kamila, on account of her magnificent eyelashes. She couldn’t get enough strokes, scratches and cuddles, smelled wonderful and didn’t spit at me once. What a lady!

I can't believe this is my first post of 2025 - apologies for radio silence, it's been a busy month of surveying, karate...
15/02/2025

I can't believe this is my first post of 2025 - apologies for radio silence, it's been a busy month of surveying, karate and harmonica playing! Anyway, time for a quick surveying update.

It's been a pleasant surveying period (Beverley, North Ferriby, Raywell, Howden, North Newbald to name a few), with hospitable vendors, who have often fuelled me with good coffee and occasionally biscuits, which has been very welcome in this cold weather, and is often not offered (vendors don't want me there, of course, it's the buyer who is paying me to be there), which is absolutely fine and fair to be honest!

Several HUGE nests in lofts recently, a mixture of wasps and honey bees I think, beautiful to behold, and fortunately abandoned!

One property advertised nice and clearly its crazy canine occupant, which was most kind, although there was no dog to be seen, so probably no longer with us. Note to self - buy one of these plaques for our house, as our Coco is a raving lunatic.

This enormous stunning old tree was in Howden - great to see that it has been honoured, preserved and protected, and it adds so much character to the new build development surrounding it.

Some attractive tumbled-in brickwork within the upper stonework gable wall of a house built around 1720 - fabulous to see!

A couple of active woodworm infestations to loft timbers over the last few weeks (Common Furniture Beetle), as evidenced by the 'frass' (yellowish powder) around the beetle flight holes. As I may have mentioned before, frass is actually woodworm poo!

As I was surveying a property in North Newbald, this aircraft suddenly appeared in the sky. I wondered if it was Donald and Elon heading into space for a long romantic weekend...

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