Irregardless of you are doing extensive renovation to your property or building from bottom up, the job of a surveyor for a construction work is almost similar.
Before you start a project, your engineer will ask you to appoint a Licensed Land Surveyor to draw up a demarcation, detail and spot level plan.
What is a demarcation, detail and spot level plan?
Demarcation survey is done to establish where your property is. This is also to make sure to confirm your neighbor did not accidentally encroach into your property and to make sure that the contractor rechecking and rebuilding your fence do not encroach into the neighbor's lot.
The detail survey is to establish what is in your property and outside your property. The other consultants such as the engineer and the architect as well as the construction team wants to know where the drains are, is there a slope, the location of the lamp posts outside the property, how big are the tree trunks on the property and so on. The location of these items do affect the construction.
Spot level survey will be done to establish the topography of the area. The survey will help answer some construction questions like; Is the property hilly? How steep is the slope? In which direction will the rain water flow out of the property?
Once the construction work is completed, the engineer would once again require the services of the Licensed Land Surveyor to do a As Built survey and to create an As Built plan.
The As built survey is done to check that the construction work was done correctly. That the building piles are built exactly at the correct location, that the drains are constructed in the right area, and that it slopes correctly (alignment of drain) so that the water can drain out well. The surveyor also checks to see if the building is built at the correct spot. If it's a large building, a verticality check on the floors in between the buildings are spaced correctly.
