Topographical Survey

29 June 2017

What can I do with a Topographical survey?

Introduction

There are a few misunderstanding on the importance and use of a Topographical Survey.

Like many homeowners, you might not see the importance of undertaking the topographical survey. You may think this is just:

another piece of paper to get your project going,
get approval or
just more money being spent on bureaucracy.

However, the topographical survey is used in a couple of ways:

For planning application
For your architect to produce plans
To help in the construction phase of your project

For Planning Application

Most councils will require an accurate and scaled topographical survey. A Topographical Survey is not a site plan or location plan. This is completely different.

The topographical survey will need to have the ridge height and outline of the neighbouring properties. Sometimes additional details such as window/sill height of your neighbours can be requested.

Here is how a topographical plan looks like:

An Example of a Topographical Plan

and this is a site plan:

Example of a Site Plan

and this is a location plan:

An Example of a Location Plan

For your Architect

To enable your architect, builder or designer to produce proposed plans they need to have the dimensions, measurement and position of the current features of your land before they can do anything.

With the existing plans of your land, they will be able to draw up the proposals to fit within your land without affecting your neighbours.

This also informs them what features will conflict with your proposal as well as buildability issues such as working space, access, drains, etc…

For your Builders

Lastly, the topographical survey will be used for your builder’s quote for the job and to know where to position the works on your property.

Without the topographical survey, they wouldn’t know where the extent of the works is or where to start digging.

You would not want to start getting into a land dispute at an early phase of your project.

The Topographical survey would include a survey grid or control points. These enable a land surveyor or a setting-out engineer to help your builders position the works in the future.

You’ll notice that the land surveyor works in two ways; they help your team to give them information about what is on your land and as well as take the information from the drawings your architect produce to position it on the land.

It might sound easy, but it is not.

As the original topographical survey is usually produced 6-24 months before the construction works; The features and information on the land might have changed.

Hopefully, with some of the permanent features on your land, it will help your builders build. This is why your land surveyor must be skilled enough to survey the right information from land to drawing and extrapolate the right information from drawing to land.

27 May 2017

Types of Measured Surveys

Bhavesh Ramburn Measured Building Survey, Topographical Survey 3

What is Measured Surveys?

A Measured survey is a form of gathering information, measurements and positions of features of a property on 2D or 3D plan. Most importantly they include structural features, levels and dimensions.

There are 3 major types of measured surveys;

Buildings,
Land, and;
Utilities

You can take a look at this guidance note on Measured Surveys from the RICS here to get an idea of what’s included in the survey.

When you are planning on undertaking some kind of development on your property you will be dealing with surveyors of all type;

Building surveyors
Quantity Surveyors
Land Surveyors
Rights of light Surveyors
Party wall surveyors

of course there are many more professionals involved on your project.

The different types of Surveys

Measured Building Surveys

Measured Building Surveys ( Also known as: Measured Survey of Building, Architectural Surveys, As-Built Surveys, Existing Plan Survey)
- It includes the following types of plans: ( Plans are drawings that are represented in 2D or 3D, most of the time they are produced using AutoCAD)
  - Floor Plans
  - Elevation Plans
  - Section Plans
  - Roof Plans
  - Loft Plans
  - Ceiling Plans
  - Internal Elevation Plans
- Used for
  - Part of planning application submission
  - Architects to produce proposed plans
  - Other professionals to prepare reports (e.g. structural engineers)

Topographical Surveys

Topographical Surveys ( This can be combined with a Measured Building Survey )
- It includes the following types of plans
  - Topographical plan
  - Elevation Plans ( Yes this type of plan can be useful with topographical surveys for extensions, rights of light surveys, etc…)
  - Section Plan ( this plan can be used to represent vertical sections of the land or road)
- Used for
  - Part of planning application submission
  - Land development
  - Architects to produce proposed plans
  - Other professionals to produce reports, calculations (e.g. rights of lights surveyors)

Utility Surveys

Utility Surveys (usually combined with Topographical surveys)
- It includes the following types of plans
  - Underground Utility Plan
  - Topographical Plan (The utility plan is combined with the topographical plan)
- Used for
  - Part of planning application submission
  - Architects to produce proposed plans

How does it look like?

You can take a look at some of sample files below to get an idea of what to look out for in a measured building survey or a topographical survey.

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26 December 2016

What is a provisional sum?

Bhavesh Ramburn Drawings, Measured Building Survey, Topographical Survey, Planning Permission drawings, measured building survey, topographical survey, planning application, provisional sum 1

A provisional sum is a sum of money allocated for a particular activity that is not fully defined, but it needs to be considered for a construction project.

In the context of measured building survey and topographical survey an architect may request for a provisional sum quotation to propose to their client.

What this means is that the client or architect is not entirely aware of the extent of the construction proposal and would need a ball park figure to add in their budget. This happens because of a few reasons:

The client is not decided on the extension option of their property (i.e. roof extension or ground floor extension)
The planning application may be complicated and the outcome of the planning process may determine the option to go for
The client is just looking for a budget price to get a loan

The provisional sum on its own is not part of the scope for deliverable until the client instruct it to be included. When the client instructs the architect or surveyor they will then confirm the scope and price (if there are any changes) and it will proceed.

The client does not need to pay for the provisional sum in the contract as it is not defined as a deliverable.

Important:

Make sure the provisional sum is itemised in the quotation as it will make it easier to identify only the amount due to the contractor/surveyor/designer when they apply for their fees. It is quite common for poorly managed practices to ‘hide’ the provisional sum value within a lump sum but never deliver the item.

Remember:

The contractor/surveyor/designer will not need to deliver the provisional sum until it is instructed to proceed.

You can get a quote for a measured building or topographical survey from us by contacting us at info@icelabz.co.uk.

21 December 2016

How to get the best Prices for a Measured Building Survey or Topographical Survey?

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We get over 20+ enquiries in a week, some of the time the client has no clue what they are requesting as they have been directed by their architect or a friend. Sometimes it confuses the client, and he or she ends up paying for too much or ‘quite often’ too little.

Coming from a commercial background and looking after projects in the £millions, we have to take certain steps to ensure that we get the best value for money and that we are not underserved or over-served. This is one of the reasons you engage a quantity surveyor on your project – to ensure you are purchasing the right service for the right price and the right contract.

In this article I am going to show you a few things to consider when requesting for prices (quotes) for your measured building survey and topographical survey. This will ensure you get a comparable survey which will give you the most competitive and correct quote for your job.

#1 Prepare and send the same scope of work to all the surveyors

Most of the time you would be provided with a brief scope from your architect or nothing at all. You might just be asked to get a measured building survey or topographical survey of your property, and that is it. This can be difficult for the surveyor to price and quote the job properly and cause for back and forth communication until the scope is defined. This can happen with several other surveyors and they might each price something differently.

If the scope is correctly defined, all the tenderers (surveyors) will need to have the same & correct information to price on. Most surveyors will just need the minimum of the following information:

Full address of the property (with a site plan)
Rough area per floor
How many plans and type (floor plans, sections, elevations, etc…)

To help you, we have written this very simple scope sheet that you can use to send to the surveyors in your area to get a quote.

#2 Do your due-diligence – check their insurances

Most land surveyors that you will find online or in the yellow pages do not have insurance or the wrong type of insurance. This is a must if they are working on your property and delivering work for your architect and the rest of your project. If they provided the wrong information and your architect & builder relies on it and caused you financial loss for the mistake you need to ensure that the surveyor is covered for this and compensate for the mistake. Without insurance you cannot recover the losses you have incurred.

You need to ensure their insurance covers their service; i.e. land surveying or measured building survey. You also need to ensure that they have insurance to cover damages to your property while they are within your premises or to the public.

#3 Ask for samples (if they have not provided them)

Each surveyor or surveying company have their format of producing the plans for your property. Some are cumbersome, and some have too little details. This is also another way to check the skills of the surveying company – you get to see what they can produce.

If most of their plans look ‘squared up’ then the method they are using are not accurate. Most buildings are not straight and have certain deviations on the floors and walls. This may cause issues and additional costs when designing your property for construction. The materials for the internal parts of your building might not fit in.

Just to recap; If the plans are too ‘squared’ then it may not be wise to choose that particular surveyor for the survey as they may not measure the true angle of your property.

#4 Review everything with your architect

If you have an architect, it is best you run through the quotes in detail with your architect to ensure that what they are going to survey captures everything he needs for your planning application as well as for the construction. For example, some features such as sockets and lights are not standard features to measure in a measured building survey.

You can also ask your architect to review the scope that you have to produce to ensure that you are sending the right information to the surveyors.

To summarise, just make sure that you send as much and the same information to surveyors to get the right price. Use our Scope Sheet for Surveying to help you get started.