What's the going rate for a topographical survey?

[Andrew]

Just looking around for someone to produce a topographical survey on our site. I've had back some quotes and before I go ahead, I though I would ask what you would expect to pay for a survey of this nature? The site is in Cheshire.  

 

For background this is the specification (I expect this is pretty std) :-

 

Standard survey specification includes (where applicable):

• Minimum 10m grid of levels depending on ground conditions

• Permanent Building/Structures including eaves and ridge heights

• Temporary/Mobile Buildings

• Visible boundary Features: Walls, Fences, Hedges

• Roads, Tracks, Footways, Paths

• Street furniture

• Statutory authorities' plant & service covers where visible

• Changes of surface

• Isolated Trees/wooded areas/limits of vegetation

• Pitches/recreation

• Water features

• Earth works

• Industrial features

• Railway features with arranged access 

 

These are the deliverables :-

 

Drawings in 2d dxf/dwg

Drawings in PDF format

 

Thanks.

[Jeremy Harris]

Anything between about £500 and £1000, depending on how far the surveyor has to travel and how easy it is to access the whole of the site, I would have thought.

[Barney12]

We paid just shy of £700 for ours which included 45mins each way travel time.

We're in Devon.

[Ian]

@Andrew

Just in case it applies to you?: on any site which is in a Conservation Area or where you have trees covered by a TPO you will also need the survey company to pick up the line of any tree canopies.

[ToughButterCup]

Site size?

10 hectares? 100 m square? 

Ian

[Cambs]

We paid £625+VAT for ours about a year ago.  Local firm, plot only about 20 mins from their office in Cambridgeshire.  The plot is in a conservation area.

[Andrew]

Thanks for the replies - we've been quoted £450 + VAT which seems reasonable. 

 

@recoveringacademic good point about the size - the plot is about 0.25 Acre. Not in a conservation area and no TPOs (thank goodness!). 

[ToughButterCup]

Ok @Andrew, that's about what we were charged.

Ask for the PDF to be unlocked and NOT flattened, or to put it another way, for all layers to enabled and the document to be editable.

I suggest that because there will be times when you want to illustrate an idea based on the pdf. If it is cluttered with irrelevant information, it makes that job hard. A locked, flattened document will prevent you from showing only relevant information (or conversely switching irrelevant stuff off)

 

Making sure you can switch layers on and off at will will simplify and clarify the message you want to give. And God knows the building sector needs to learn how to give clear, accurate information to those who need it.

[Roundtuit]

I paid £330 inc vat three years ago, after being quoted over £800 through the architects 'preferred' surveyor ( shortly before parting company with architect through loss of confidence..). Seemed to me that a) the bigger surveyors had carved up the region between them and priced accordingly, and b) a lot of the cost was office overheads, so If you can a smaller outfit there are savings to be made.

[Ferdinand]

@Andrew

 

1 - Go beyond the PDFs. Ask for a copy of the CAD data files and raw data files themselves as well as the PDF so you can give them to your architect / designer to load straight in.

2 - Consider whether you want the survey to be restricted to your personal use only, or whether you want the right to "Assign" it to a third party eg if you have to to sell - they may include that anyway, may add a small charge for that right, or may identify a reasonable price should you need to do that later (eg £25 admin fee). If you do not discuss, the fee might be £100 or £200 when you are over a barrel asking for a favour later.

3 - Make sure that they go far enough into the surroundings for anything you will need for your project .. eg the highway boundary, kerb lines, lane boundaries, and street furniture for your entrance design / splays.

 

Ferdinand

 

[Jeremy Harris]

+1 to @Ferdinand. 

 

The dxf files are invaluable, as they should use the layered OS base dxf, with the topo and boundary features from the survey over-laid as additional layers.  I used mine as the master template for every site drawing, as it was a true record of the actual site on the ground, not the inaccurate representation on either the OS base map or, even worse, the very inaccurate Land Registry Title plan.

 

Being able to very accurately tie everything on site to a common base survey was extremely useful - I could plan drain runs, the layout of the drive and landscaping, take accurate measurements of volumes of stuff to be removed etc, all from one set of data.

[Piers]

How important is it to have the survey linked to GPS/OS datum?

 

I've had the topographical survey done and I spec'd that it should be linked to GPS datum. However the guys said that they couldn't get a GPS signal and they've just presented us with unlinked files (.dwg and PDF versions).

 

I fully believe that they struggled to find a signal as we're in a valley with dreadful EVERYTHING when it comes to communications (and my dog's GPS tracker thingy is useless out here).

 

 

[PeterW]

It’s useful if the plans for the house have a datum from sea level as a ridge for example, but if you agree with the planners that the ridge is above an agreed fixed datum point on site then you don’t need to worry about that. 

 

Out of interest, if they used a total station for the survey have they also sent you the data file as you can reload it into a total station in the future assuming you know where they started their survey from. 

[Hecateh]

Mine was £500 inc VAT last September.