What qualifications are required to be a tree surveyor

[Chris at eden]

1 hour ago, woody paul said:

Should of said one tree that had massive decay in limb could of been seen with small ladder even one of those telescopic ones, and that tree was inspected by a big company which sent parish council a 28 page report on it. 

Yeah, 27 pages of generic waffle and 1 page of pretty loose detail on the tree no doubt.  Thing is though if you can't see it from the ground then you probably wouldn't be found to be at fault as a surveyor as long as you have stated within the limitations that the inspection is from ground level.  If there is some visibility from the ground then you should be investigating.   

 

What you cant do though is put a ladder up every tree and check just to be on the safe side.  Well you can, but you will be very expensive and it would be disproportionate to the actual level of risk associated with trees in general.  Maybe you can with a single tree but larger surveys it would be mad.  You would also need to charge extra and most folk don't want to pay for it.  If they do want to pay though then i suppose it is their call.  

         

 

       

[Chris at eden]

1 hour ago, Khriss said:

Would push the tree climb one bit more , then Bat scoping add to yr PTI , they are not long courses anyway - plus climbing keeps yr fitness up   . K

If you want to keep your hand in with climbing then yeah why not, but I don't think CS 38 is going to generate huge amounts of work.  You would be better off training to do mortgage reports and BS5837, they are bread and butter for most consultants which is where you will be aiming to be as a tree surveyor in my opinion.  Most surveyors work alone which you cant do if you are doing aerial inspections or at least you shouldn't.  

 

[daltontrees]

1 hour ago, Chris at eden said:

Yeah, 27 pages of generic waffle and 1 page of pretty loose detail on the tree no doubt.  Thing is though if you can't see it from the ground then you probably wouldn't be found to be at fault as a surveyor as long as you have stated within the limitations that the inspection is from ground level.  If there is some visibility from the ground then you should be investigating.   

 

What you cant do though is put a ladder up every tree and check just to be on the safe side.  Well you can, but you will be very expensive and it would be disproportionate to the actual level of risk associated with trees in general.  Maybe you can with a single tree but larger surveys it would be mad.  You would also need to charge extra and most folk don't want to pay for it.  If they do want to pay though then i suppose it is their call.  

         

 

       

To that I'd add that the law wouldn't expect any more than a ground based inspection but it would expect a follow-up climbing inspection if a defect was suspected but couldn't be assessed from the ground.

[daltontrees]

Anyway the OP seems to have wandered off without reply, so I'm not going to contribute except to say that I consider the PIT qualification to be a borderline liability if would-be surveyors think it is all that is needed to do risk survey. I say this having just taken on 2 folk that did PTI and by their own admissions found that it left them woefully ill-equipped for competent tree risk assessments.

[Chris at eden]

6 minutes ago, daltontrees said:

Anyway the OP seems to have wandered off without reply, so I'm not going to contribute except to say that I consider the PIT qualification to be a borderline liability if would-be surveyors think it is all that is needed to do risk survey. I say this having just taken on 2 folk that did PTI and by their own admissions found that it left them woefully ill-equipped for competent tree risk assessments.

The problem is, if you speak with Dave Dowson who is a top training  provider, he will tell you the you need L4 Arb as a pre-requisite qualification as it is just applying and polishing the L4 knowledge.  Used in this way it is OK. 
 

But, I have met people with L2 forestry that have done PTI with other trainers and they just don’t have the underpinning knowledge. PTI is an add on, not an underpinning qualification.  The same thing happens with QTRA. 
 

[Steve Bullman]

4 hours ago, Chris at eden said:

I assume the old surveyor hadn’t looked around the back

I sometimes wonder if they even get out their car

[JonnyRFT]

I’ve had a keen interest in tree management for a number of years, but I already worked in the industry alongside consultants which is where I gained most of my experience. I then took my PTI along with my QTRA to make sure I was on the right track, as I don’t have the time to do a long course. Hopefully I can study for my level 6 and keep working at the same time, but it’s going to be hard going with full time employment. Until I gain my level 6, I will still rely on contracting surveyors in.

[Chris at eden]

35 minutes ago, Steve Bullman said:

I sometimes wonder if they even get out their car

I've seen reports with photos where you can see the windscreen wipers as they have took pics through the windscreen.  Not even joking.    

[Khriss]

1 hour ago, Chris at eden said:

I've seen reports with photos where you can see the windscreen wipers as they have took pics through the windscreen.  Not even joking.    

.. Were they  Series II wipers with tyre mounted on bonnet. K

[daltontrees]

21 hours ago, Chris at eden said:

The problem is, if you speak with Dave Dowson who is a top training  provider, he will tell you the you need L4 Arb as a pre-requisite qualification as it is just applying and polishing the L4 knowledge.  Used in this way it is OK. 
 

But, I have met people with L2 forestry that have done PTI with other trainers and they just don’t have the underpinning knowledge. PTI is an add on, not an underpinning qualification.  The same thing happens with QTRA. 
 

Agree. When I did PTI I don't think the training provider was too fussed what quals the candidates had except money.