Benefits of Having a Local Professional Land Surveyor

Some advantages of hiring a local vendor or service provider are immediately clear. Whether you’re choosing a dentist, a dog sitter, or pizza delivery, closer is frequently better. Shorter drive times translate to reduced cost and increased convenience. Some portion of the savings can be converted in to a better work product. Keeping your dollars close to home is a direct injection to the local economy. Working with your neighbors can help you build a network for both personal and business relationships that really lasts. Of course, distance is not the only criteria.

Land surveying is geographically specific data. A painter, electrician, roofer, or plumber won’t really care if they have ever worked in your neighborhood or not. If it’s convenient to the shop, it will probably be a better job than if it’s a two hour drive. A survey is a study of the location itself. Professional surveyors know the advantages of working near a property they have already surveyed.

Each survey begins with research and field investigation phases. The data that was assembled and reconciled for 12 Maple Street in 1996 is directly relevant to new work required for a two week delivery in 18 Maple Street. Re-deploying the 12 Maple file may allow your local surveyor to expedite the completion date, increase the quality, and control the cost. In some cases, finding the licensed surveyor with file data in your area can add unique value to your project. Suppose a bulldozer annihilated survey monuments or other features in 1999. The surveyors who have files for the specific area are best prepared to report the location of those obliterated features. GPS and Google Earth won’t help. There are numerous legal applications for this resource.

The retained value of survey files and records is not a new discovery. Nearly every surveyor retains all the old information. Second- and third-generation surveying firms may have thousands of files dating back 150 years or more. Before the computer, survey records were geographically catalogued in various ways. Index cards by street were the preferred method for many decades. When the phone would ring in a surveying office, the first stop was frequently the card index. If there was a file close to the new job, a cheer might have been heard throughout the office. In the past, citizens in other professions may have known more about the value of local survey data. Engineers, architects, lawyers, town officers and others may have had some experience with the value added by a surveyor with experience in the immediate location. Highways, sprawling communities, and electronic surveying technology may have obscured the benefit to a certain extent.

For a while, communities were becoming larger and larger. The internet, however, is helping to make our communities smaller again. SurveySearch.net is a free Internet database to help you discover which professional land surveyor has survey data at or near your residence or commercial site. Visit www.SurveySearch.net and key in the site address or cross street, city, and state. Click "search" and a Google Map is revealed showing pushpins for the target site and files in the database. On the left the contact information for the licensed surveyors who have data in the immediate area is displayed with the closest listed first. If there are no sites within 2000 feet of the query, subscribing professionals are listed by business address.