Once you have done the initial boundary survey for $400 (seems low to me, unless all corners are in and tight) the building envelope staking is done with a rag tap and only lath are set. 90 minutes on site, including calcs.
Foundation staking should consist of ray-ing in 4 hubs from the control you previously resolved. More than 4 is extra. 30 minutes on site.
Final survey is checking to see that the form work is built over the hubs you set. 10 minutes on site. 1 hour to draft sketch.
Every 8hrs of field work generates an hour and even days of time in the office.
A Harris, post: 344128, member: 81 wrote: Every 8hrs of field work generates an hour and even days of time in the office.
I know this just because I have an accounting code for "clerical" (general bookkeeping, billing and file management, NOT survey related): approximately 7 hours are generated for a 40 hour crew week. I guess that's about 1.4 hours for every field day. There is some office time in there, but very little.
Now PLS office time for what I call "screen time" or calcs and document production are all over the place. One day of field time CAN generate 40 hours in the office. That's an extreme, however, and doesn't happen often.
Just looking over most of the jobs 'field v. office' time is about a 1 to 1. So around here if the crew spends 8 hours in the field on a project, there's about that much time charged to office also.
So what can you get done for $200?
To be honest, it takes $200 billable time to give a decent report to a client as to the specifics of what is necessary to survey their property apart from pulling a number from out of the air.
That is two hours prime time hustling and probably more like 15min actual time remembering what I have before I print out anything.
That includes finding the property on Tax maps and spending enough time online to get any possible deed references and pulling any pertinent data in house that is near or usable on that project, printing out any usable maps and printing out any digital deeds from office sources and possible online descriptions of Headright and other data that can be used.
Then I can give an number that I can stick with rather than arriving at a fixed amount of lesser money that may have worked for last week's projects and can not get by with today.
It is kinda like I found out today. A seemingly easy job just got complicated because the deed info does not match what is on the ground and what is on the ground has been there longer than the last survey was done. Apparently somebody made a 10ft mistake between two rods along the ROW and preparing descriptions.........
It also costs $200 for asking the crew to show up without leaving the office because even if they don't get to do any work, they will not show back without getting paid for a full day.
I've followed many low ballers and they are the ones that drive 2hrs to do a lot and do not return to set monuments until down the road, perhaps months, if they can remember to do so.
I call them up and say, "did not find your monuments", they say "I 'll get there and set them in a day or so".
My reply," that is ok, all is good, I found the original monuments two feet away from where you said you set yours".
You get my unofficial opinion for a 5min quote and I do not promise anything, if you want to know the actual costs, it takes longer and costs what it costs and comes with a guarantee.
Dan Patterson, post: 344161, member: 1179 wrote: So what can you get done for $200?
I did a quick look back over last month and found a $200 charge. I rewrote a legal description to make two separate descriptions.
What goes into a finished survey?
Bow Tie Surveyor, post: 343947, member: 6939 wrote: Just went though an email exchange with a local residential builder asking for price quotes for 3 phase residential construction services. They usually build in fairly recently platted cookie cutter subdivisions that have lots that are less than 1/2 acre.
She wanted prices for: 1) Initial boundary survey with building envelope staking; 2) Foundation location and 3) Final Survey.
So I give her some numbers and she says I'm higher than they are used to seeing. So, I asked what she is used to seeing (I might as well get some market research out of the deal). She told me $400 for the initial boundary survey and envelope staking (which didn't sound too bad and was slightly higher than what I quoted), but the foundation location was like $90-$100 and the final was $125. I'm not sure if this is normal for my area, but I was thinking, how can you put out a crew for much less than $200?
I could, but I won't.
Bow Tie Surveyor, post: 343947, member: 6939 wrote: Just went though an email exchange with a local residential builder asking for price quotes for 3 phase residential construction services. They usually build in fairly recently platted cookie cutter subdivisions that have lots that are less than 1/2 acre.
She wanted prices for: 1) Initial boundary survey with building envelope staking; 2) Foundation location and 3) Final Survey.
So I give her some numbers and she says I'm higher than they are used to seeing. So, I asked what she is used to seeing (I might as well get some market research out of the deal). She told me $400 for the initial boundary survey and envelope staking (which didn't sound too bad and was slightly higher than what I quoted), but the foundation location was like $90-$100 and the final was $125. I'm not sure if this is normal for my area, but I was thinking, how can you put out a crew for much less than $200?
Here in Asheville we would not do the initial survey for all of the money you mentioned. We typically charge around $750 for an acre or less then around $350 a trip for staking then maybe $400 for the final plat.
When I was a pre-schooler I heard my mother complaining one day about the old house we had. She related many years later that I looked up at her that day and said, "Mom, when I get big and get a hundred dollars, I'm going to build you a new house."
Too many people today still think a hundred dollars is a huge amount of money. We do not need to perpetuate that myth.
Holy Cow, post: 344526, member: 50 wrote: "Mom, when I get big and get a hundred dollars, I'm going to build you a new house."
I remember sitting in our 1954 Chevy - I was maybe 3 years old - and asking my dad if $100 was a lot of money. He responded - reasonably - along the lines of "a lot" being a relative thing. I don't recall whether or not that made sense to me at the time.
I'm doing one right now for a client who wants to build. The lots are 30-50K for vacant .65 acres. The boundary invoice is $680 with map included. The builder should have his own crew for staking the house. If I stake it out, it'll cost you at least another $500 with mapping included. (I'm not staking the house.) Then I have to do the as-built: That's another minimum charge of $400.
Without the gravy, I won't eat it!
So I am guessing you are locating the boundary corners to stake the building envelope and producing something like an Improvement Location Certificate, one for the foundation and one for the finished structure. I am assuming they don't actually expect a survey plat and if so, is Florida a recording state?
I have done many ILCs for contractors, my time is usually about 1-2 hours driving, 1 hour locating corners, 1 hour locating or staking the structure, 2 hours drafting, and 1 checking the ILC. If you repeat this process 3 times except for locating corners again and I guess you wouldn't need any drafting for the building envelope. I always encourage the contractor to call me for the initial location of the structure, there have been many times when I had to be the bearer of bad news. Most of these subdivisions are in the mountains in a rural county where there is no building envelope but setbacks are still required.
