A comprehensive site survey – combined with a detailed client brief – is an essential cog in the wheel of an efficient and effective design process.
While many won’t admit it, there are few designers who haven’t experienced the distress caused by a missing dimension or overlooked detail: hours of design time can be lost scouring through photos, analysing scribble and playing the detective in an attempt to work out what was missed in the measure up.
In this feature, we’ll share some tips and tricks for avoiding this dilemma, and a seventeen-step checklist that will ensure your site surveys are complete.
Top Tips for a Sweat-free Site Survey
Click like crazy
Ask your client for permission to take a stack of photos. They may feel a little insecure about exposing their cabinet innards, but assure them you’ve seen worse (because you probably have!), and take photos of all the information you know will be handy down the track. Remember to take a good photo of the overall space so you’ll have an excellent before and after to share in your folio when the job’s done.
Give your client a time-out
You’ve probably spent the last hour discussing your clients wish list, and you may have even mediated some marital conflicts, too. When it comes time to measure, though, it’s a good idea to suggest your clients feel free to get on with their day while you do your thing. When the tape measure is out, you won’t want to be talking: concentration is key to catching all the details. If your client insists on helping, make sure you’re at the heavy end of the tape, and don’t trust them to read you the correct dimensions.
Love your list
Checklists are fantastic tools for foggy minds. Develop a checklist template to take to every project. Highlight the items you’re most likely to forget, and run through the list before you leave the property. The following checklist will be a good start, but you may find you need to adjust it to suit your measure up methods.
Seventeen Steps to a Comprehensive Site Survey
- Take photographs: overall shot + each individual wall + waste pipes/exits + cornice detail + reminders as required.
- Check orientation (which way is North?).
- Measure the overall length and width of space.
- Record the length of each wall.
- Record ceiling height and cornice detail.
- Note the width and height of each entry/door (recording door swing direction + adjoining rooms/spaces).
- Record width and height of each window (noting distance from floor to bottom of architrave and/or bottom of opening + opening type/direction + outlook/aspect from each window).
- Note architrave detail (width of frames + profile).
- Record fixed architectural elements (fireplaces, built-in shelving etc.)
- Note the location of electrical power outlets.
- Note position of light switches and existing switching pattern.
- Note plumbing outlets.
- Note heating/cooling fixtures.
- Document and photograph existing furniture to be retained in the space (note dimensions, door swings etc.)
- Document and photograph existing appliances/fixtures to be used (note dimensions, door swings etc.).
- Note existing flooring details.
- Document existing paint colours (if relevant).
By following the above, you’ll be sure to have all you need to get to work as soon as you’re back in the studio.
Surveys and Existing Floor Plans
If you’ve already read through this year’s KBDi Designer Awards Entry Pack (kudos to you!), you’ll know that we’ve added a new requirement for entries in 2019.
When reviewing your kitchens and bathrooms, judges have often noted that an ‘existing plan’ would give them a greater perspective on the challenges set out for the designer, along with their resolutions of such challenges and improvements of an existing space.
If your project is a new build, this entry requirement will be satisfied with a copy of the plan originally issued to you by the builder/building designer/architect.
If your entry is a renovated space, a comprehensive site survey (covering the elements above) will do the trick.
Learn more about the KBDi Designer Awards here.
Spot on article – thank you can always do with refinement and reminders
Hi Salina
very useful article. A checklist is a great idea. Create a word doc with tables or excel sheet is also useful that you can keep on the tablet or print off for the site visit.
a few other points
– find out when the house was built, how it is built – stud wall, brick ( double wall with cavity or brick veneer etc. are the floors a concrete slab or timber…. ) The specs of the build will affect costing especially if there is asbestos which has a major impact. ( health & safety !!)
– consider & assess access to the property.
– I use a laser to measure – they are brilliant – tip- make sure you have spare batteries and have the tape measure as a backup – the laser saves a lot of time.
– ask permission & take a video and do a walk thru, photos are always very useful.
– be systematic – start at one end and work in a circular pattern and finish where you started. Break the area into segments if you need to .
– take a peak at the appliances – see if they can be reused or replaced
– look out for damp or signs of water leaks.
– ask about hidden services behind cupboards etc.
– ask where the electrical box is and where the water mains run/turn on&off.
Great tips, Mark. Thank you!
Great article Selina. Creating your check list is super important and those 17 points are a great starting place. One of the things I love about the digital camera is it doesn’t matter how many pictures you take (so much better than when we used film). After more than 30 years doing site measurements with check lists it is still a working document and when I don’t use it I miss things. My suggestion to the trueness of rooms being plumb and square is “it is very unlikely to be and take it as a given it’s not”. When I had new staff I would challenge them to find any room in the office that was and kept a 1.8 M level at office for this.
Thanks for sharing your perspective, Royston (but what is this ‘film’ that you speak of? Haha!). It’s great for those new to the industry to learn that decades of experience don’t discount on-site distractions – even the best of the best will miss dimensions or details without a checklist to keep them on track. Thanks again for contributing to this discussion – much appreciated.
Two very important factors have been left out from you ’17 steps’
1. No mention of checking wall or floors are plumb or square and or how to check this.
2. If walls or ceilings have curves or angles, how to measure or check.
I can help if required
Regards
Kevin
Thanks so much for your feedback, Kevin. You’re right: these are important issues that shouldn’t be overlooked. Checking the ‘plumb and square’ attributes of the space is critical prior to manufacture and installation, and designers should certainly make note to prompt their following trades to check anomalies at the appropriate time. As indicated in the article, this list serves as a starting point and should be modified to suit the measure up methods of each designer and/or manufacturing company.
With respect to measuring curves: we’d love your tips. Please email me directly and we’ll put together a tech sheet for our Members. Selina Z.