Guest post by David from David Moor Chartered Surveyors
(This information is for the UK not the United States)
Getting a surveyor on-board for your tiny house project can seem like a relatively daunting step. It can be the moment where your tiny house makes its first real steps into becoming a reality. That said, it can also bump up the expense of the project, so it is not a decision that will be taken lightly by those with grandeur objectives for their tiny home.
It should go without saying that it won’t be necessary to bring the technical expertise of surveyors into smaller micro-house projects. There are circumstances, however, where you will bring in the expertise of builders, architects, and indeed, surveyors.
With this in mind we’ll look at the value a surveyor will bring to your project and the circumstances that would predicate this decision.
This article will provide an overview of the role a surveyor plays in the construction of buildings and look at why they may add value to your projects.
There are three factors that will determine whether you will consider using a surveyor:
- The size and complexity of your project
- The budget for the project
- Your prior experience building
Of these three factors, the size and complexity of the project is ultimately the most important. (These however, are often defined by the project’s budget.)
In any new building project, the design is likely to chop and change as the structure begins to take shape. Let’s have a look the responsibilities of a surveyor in a construction project.
Cost Management
The role of a surveyor from your point of view boils down to two words: cost management. On smaller projects, this task can straight forward to manage yourself, but with any job of a significant cost, it’s not recommended you go it alone.
Why?
At the start of any project, you’ll have an approximate idea as to what it is going to cost. There are always (always) unforeseen changes to the project that can cause its costs to escalate.
Whilst this deviation may not be a major problem in small projects, in larger ones they can add up and jeopardize the projects chance of completion.
An architect may have an idea about cost, but they are not qualified to account for the management of building costs as they change over time. The surveyor’s cost management role continues throughout the project,
particularly in accounting for the value of a builder’s work on a month-by-month (or week-by-week) basis.
This isn’t to imply your builders will pull the wool over your eyes, it’s simply a means of giving you confidence that the project is being completed on-time, on-cost, and to sufficient quality.
For example…
As the home begins to take shape, you decide to make a change to the home’s design; for the sake of argument, adding a window, which the builder quotes at $3,000.
A surveyor will audit this quote to ensure the cost is right. You may be adding a window, but you’ll be losing cladding, so money could be saved here.
Your surveyor will be involved in material procurement as well as the negotiation of the builder’s contract, ensuring a fair price as well as the completion of the work to a high standard.
By employing the services of a surveyor for help with the construction of your tiny home, you will introduce a series of checks and balances to the project, helping to fix the cost.
Anyway, that’s my overview of the value a surveyor could bring to your tiny house build. If you’ve any questions, leave them as a comment and I’ll do my best to try answer them.
I have never heard of a surveyor having anything to do with cost management. On any project I have ever worked with the surveyor just surveyed.
Me either… Surveyors here research the deed records, and then go out and physically survey the tract… I had to go back and re-read the article to make sure I wasn’t reading some new kind of surveyor (such as a cost surveyor).
Hmmm….In the northeastern US, so far as I know, surveyors do not provide such services. Must be that their function varies from place to place.
Great story! I would also suggest talking to a professional archaeologist. Land with known archaeology sites is notoriously difficult to develop, but a tiny house on a trailer would be a great fit: both preserving the resource and light on the land living.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…. I might rely on my own intuition for this project.
Reference: Thinking, Fast and Slow [Hardcover] Daniel Kahneman (Author), this author is correct in saying this takes effort and hard work, which most people do not like it—slow thinking. “Most of the time we think fast, and most of all we need to check. People do not take the time to check anything for truth.”
PART THREE – OVERCONFIDENCE
12. The Illusion of Understanding
13. The Illusion of Vanity
14. Intuitions Vs. Formulas
15. Expert Intuition: When Can We Trust It?
rural Arkansas
The company that provides this service is located in the U.K. They do things differently in the states.
So this article is useless to the vast majority of those who wasted their time reading it… Good thing it was a quick read.
This article does not reflect my experience with land surveyors (I am a civil engineer). Surveyors are tasked with the preparation of boundary surveys (where is my property line?) and topographic surveys (like a USGS map, but at higher resolution for tour property). During construction, a surveyor will stake out location of building corners and mark any excavation/cut/fill that may be needed to fit your building on your site (the design of e cut and fill is the purview of the civil engineer).
No surveyor I have ever worked with got involved in building design or verification of cost. Their professional development does not involve anything relating to architectual details. If someone has a question relating to cost, the architect is best suited to address it. In larger jobs, there will be a third-party construction manager to double-check numbers. However, at the scale of tiny house development (one building on a lot), this is overkill.
This article is confusing because the text talks about UK surveyors, who apparently do something related to cost management (something a general contractor might do in the US?), while the photos are of US surveyors, who survey land.
This should be clarified for readers in the states. I am not familiar with education/technical licensure/liability in the UK, but in my 20 years as an architect in the states it is not the understood role of a surveyor to oversee the relationship between Owner/Architect/General Contractor. It is also not the understood role of a surveyor in the states to be involved in cost management or the procurement of materials.
no offense…but someone is talking out there #$%^#…a surveyer is not at all qualified to ever get involved in the building process….where a structure is allowed or septic system…is dictated by local laws…the surveyor only confirms the lot bounderies and the relation of the structures to them….never allow an unqualified person to interfer with the building process…
In the UK a quantity surveyor does indeed do those things. This article is written about that job.
This article is about quantity surveyors as far as I can see. In which case they will be involved with cost management, design and development of a building. Somebody decided throw in a bunch of random pictures of someone surveying a site.
From the Author’s Website above comes this ‘Mission Statement’:
‘Why You Should Have A Building Survey
Buying a house is probably the single biggest financial commitment most people make in their lifetime. It is a widely held conviction that an approved mortgage following a Building Society valuation means that there is nothing wrong with the property. IT DOES NOT! A mortgage valuation is an assessment of the property as a security for loan purposes IT IS NOT A SURVEY. Building surveys by a Chartered Surveyor may cost a home buyer a few hundred pounds but they will draw attention to any defects within the property which in many cases could save much more. It will also provide reassurance to buyers about their new properties.’
I’ve been to the U.K. on Biz often, and kinda figured this Article was going to go South quickly. It’s really not applicable to us Stateside, as noted above.
In a like manner, it’s ‘more’ typical for someone closer to our version of a Lawyer to represent Buyers/Sellers in ordinary House Listings. At the end of the day, House transactions are Legal Transactions, so I’ve used a Lawyer on our recent House deals.
I caught some very significant errors on our current House Acreage, and got them corrected. So, yes, Due Diligence of the ‘usual’ Surveyor category is a good idea. Fortunately, a movable House bypasses some of these issues.
I think that the photos should be adjusted too just to clarify. Those are US surveyors like the ones described by Verplanck. The text in the article for the quantity surveyor says nothing about assessing the land or using total stations as seen in the photos.
Terminology..
Building Inspector might be more appropriate in the USA. or
General Contractor
I’ve been a Real Estate Appraiser in New Jersey for 27 years, I think I’m more qaulified to do something like this than a surveyor or building inspector.
In the UK they speak English. In English “surveyor” means “One who inspects something officially for the purpose of ascertaining condition, value, etc”. In American it means “A customs officer”. What the article described was what Americans call a project manager/contractor.
Living in the uk anrd working as a quantity surveyor i can see how people in the Usa have made the comments they have as you dont really get quantity surveyors over there. I work on railway civil engineering projects and the while aim of a QS role is to keep the budget of a project on track and make savings if possible. A Qs tends to be a jack of all trades with building surveyor knowledge, procurement skills and legal skills in case dispute arise with your builder the Qs will have read the contract back to front and be in a position to advise.
On big projects they are vital on smaller ones they can still bring alot to the table. As someone who loves micro building id love to assist in this sort of thing but the whole point of building yourself and on aal smaller budget means you often have to manage the costs yourself.
The surveyor here is just that, a surveyor. I always recommend a title company. They do true research into a property. The cost well is well worth the knowing who and what the land is what it says. Once in Los Angeles I was about to sign on two lots. The Realtors very rarely sell more than houses and are in my opinion glorified waiters.
I looked at the plat and the plot. You should know what these are. I was walking around. The plot was good, but not jiving with my platt. I was walking around. My gut was bothering me. My partner was not worried. I was. I was not used to buying land in L.A. Being from the Midwest.
A lady came to her drive and asked us what was happening. Giving the realtor a look, and looking at my paperwork, she walked me to the edge of her property. She pointed to her cars. That is my property. That over there next to my mailbox is the property you are looking for. This I did confirm with a title company latter.
I did not mention her property was next to a 50ft cliff. The property they were selling was not the one with the view. It was land that had settled during a rainy season years before. Trapping homes below that were now condemned. The pretty realtor had no idea. I almost dropped a very large sum of money into land I could not realistically build on. Or was safe.
Water rights, mineral rights, Native American rights, easements, flood zones and wash outs, power company easements, wildlife refuges and septic laws and all sorts of thing a well intentioned and educated person may not be aware of. There is a lot of “dead land” that can NEVER be used for human habitation.
A surveyor is a good start. A title company also. Often you can get a package deal. The local township and county also. Never trust a realtor or “local”. You must verify fact from fiction. It is worth the time and small amount of money. Most of you have never bought property. It is very different than buying a house in a urban setting. Good Luck and buyer beware.
The writer of the story needs to go to school.
I think this is drumming up work, Every time you move your tiny house you will need a surveyor? Bunkum.The government will love this one with the GST or VAT or what you have in your country. My motto is watch out for experts.