Measured Surveys and Existing Plans

At Smith Marston LLP, we now have the latest in mobile surveying equipment. This is a revolutionary system utilising a hand held Samsung Q1 Ultra tablet, coupled with a hand held laser measures. Our lasers are different from the ‘norm’ as they are linked by ‘Bluetooth’ technology to our tablet microcomputers, and thus automatically transfer measured distances direct into a CAD program, which effectively draws the rooms as we measure them.

The technology of the laser allows us to measure with great accuracy any property, and allows us to take diagonal triangulation measurements far more accurately than by traditional measuring methods to help us plot ‘out of square’ buildings. Precision of +/- 5mm over a 100m is achievable with our equipment. The benefits of our methodology are:

Benefits

  • On most buildings, only one operative is required. (unless the scale of the building/instruction demands extra resources)The measuring function creates an AutoCAD drawing immediately. This enables any discrepancies to be spotted onsite, thus allowing any checking to be done straightaway.
  • The drawings are effectively complete once the measured survey has been completed on site.
  • No drawing time in the office is required.
  • No risk of human errors or return visits, thus no potential for further disruption to the building occupier.
  • Faster turnaround of drawings, enabling the client to put the existing drawings to use immediately, whether this be to passed on to their design team, or in the case of lease plans, to be passed on to legal team, to eliminate delays.
  • Less resource required, less time required, more accuracy and cost savings to the client.

This equipment is ideal for any time or size of building.

The old fashioned way to measure and draw floor plans was to use pens, paper and tape measures to record data, and then physically draw the plans in the office on a drawing board. Things have obviously moved on over the last 10 – 15 years, with tape measures having been replaced with ‘disto’ lasers to measure distances, and the drawing board being replaced by computers and AutoCAD or similar software.

This still is how existing floor plans are largely drawn today by surveyors, architects and other professionals.

The result is that usually two people are required to visit site. On arriving at site, a hand drawn sketch on paper of the floor layout has to be done, which on large buildings can be time consuming in itself. Once this sketch is complete, the surveyors can then measure each room, one measuring, the other recording the measurements on the plan. Once done, a trip back to the office is required to then translate the data, into plans, using AutoCAD. Typically, for every day spent on site, it will take another day in the office to then draw the building. This methodology has been used for years and years, and is not without flaws. The negatives in using such traditional methods are:

  • Usually two staff required for onsite measuring and data recording.
  • Potential for human error either in reading out incorrect measurements, or, in writing them down.
  • Delay / extra time required in office for ‘drawing’ on AutoCAD.
  • Possibility of errors being found only when back in the office, possibly resulting in a revisit to site. This causes delay, inconvenience to occupier/business, and makes the instruction less profitable for the surveying organisation.
  • More resource required, more time required, and thus ultimately more expense to the client.

We have just measured and drawn a fully occupied five storey, out of square building extending to 63,500 sq ft in North Shields, in ONE week. The client was over the moon, and enabled him to bring forward his design period by some 3 weeks than if we had used ‘traditional’ methods. So, it is great for large buildings, or for clients with portfolios who might require plans for licensing purposes, EPCs, estate management, rent reviews, etc.

On the opposite side of the scale, to produce lease plans of residential flats or small commercial properties for example, to resource such a survey traditionally, i.e. two people, measuring time on site, and then drawing up time in the office, the fees became disproportionate to the plan itself, but, to do a Land Registry compliant lease plan, the building still needs to be measured and drawn to scale. We can now do such plans at a more cost effective price, and produce them quickly, thus keeping the conveyance transaction moving along without delay.

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