A measured building survey is an accurate representation of a building showing structural elements and architectural features. These surveys are presented as floor plans, elevations and cross-sections.
They are specified to an agreed level of detail, acceptable accuracy tolerances, scale, delivery times and costs.
Floor plans can range from low detail to calculate gross & net internal areas to a high specification survey which may include detail such as electrical and plumbing locations.
A standard specification floor plan will include:
- Walls – typically, measured at floor-level
- Door and window openings, with cill and head heights, and door swings shown
- Steps in floors and ceilings, with floor to ceiling heights shown
- Beams over, bulkheads, trusses, etc. with heights to underside shown
- Staircases, with steps shown
- Floor-levels, relative to site datum
Elevations are an orthographic projection of the exterior or interior faces of a building. It is a two-dimensional drawing of the buildings fades generally produced for four directional views, North, South, East and West.
Typical elevation drawings will include:
- The outline of a building.
- Openings such as doors and windows.
- Architectural detail.
- Roofing.
- Projections such as eves and pipes.
- Level datums such as ridge, eaves, finished ground level and floor positions.
- Key dimensions such as wall lengths and heights.
- Exterior features such as decks, porches and steps.
- Any portion of the foundation that may be visible.
- Exterior wall and roof finishes.
Floor plans, elevations and cross-sections are usually presented in Autocad DWG format using a layering system to depict the different types of detail. They can also be presented in PDF format or plotted at suitable scale on paper or film if required.