Why is Surveying and Setting Out so Important?

The preparation stages of most projects aren’t what most folks would classify as “fun.” Despite this, there’s no real denying how critical they are to ensure successful completion. There are few places where this is more true than on a construction site.

While a lot of people haven’t even heard of setting out and surveying, it’s hard to say that they’re not important. In fact, there’s a pretty good chance that most of the buildings that you’ve gone in have had someone involved survey and/or set out. It’s an integral part of making sure that projects like this are completed successfully, after all.

What is it?

First, let’s start out with the “what,” here. Setting out is pretty simple, really. It’s just the process of marking out where the structure will be built. Obviously, this does involve a lot of other factors playing together at once, but on its own, that’s all it is. You can click for more info if you’re still feeling uncertain about it.

Surveying is fairly similar, of course. Again, it’s mostly about ensuring that the positioning for the start of construction is accurate. What might that involve, though? The main focus is often to ensure that there won’t be anything going outside of property lines. That would be a pretty big issue, after all.

Why It’s Such a Big Deal

While this was sort of touched upon above, there are a ton of reasons why surveying and setting out is such a critical part of construction projects. For one thing, there is the fact that if we aren’t careful, it can be surprisingly easy to accidentally build outside of property lines. However, when there are clear markers and boundaries established and visible for the workers before everything gets started, there’s a lot less risk of that happening.

This is probably why there are so many careers in this sort of thing like you can see here: https://wilkesbarre.psu.edu/academics/surveying/careers/construction. Additionally, there is the issue of figuring out the layout of the site as well as whether anything needs clearing out. Naturally, this sort of prep is handled by the survey and set out team.

Some examples of that might be if there is any terrain that could cause issues along the way, such as rocks or ponds or such. When they’re noted early on, it’s a lot easier to mitigate the problems that they cause. Along those lines, you can also sort out whether or not there are an adequate amount of access roads.

Basically, a survey team will be in charge of ironing out a lot of the little wrinkles that might crop up along the way. There’s enough stress going on for most construction sites and their managers, so bringing in outside help can make that process a lot simpler all around. Thankfully, there’s no need to deal with it all on your own anymore.

Plenty of research has been done on the topic too, as you can see in this article. What does that mean, though? Well, for the most part, it means that you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding professionals who are able to come to your site to do the surveying and setting out for you. There are tons of companies and organizations out there dedicated to this sort of thing, after all.

Site management shouldn’t have to worry about going out on their own to gather this data. It’s certainly valuable to have someone else that you can trust to do it for you so that you can keep focused on some of the other day-to-day operations at hand. Again, it can be a lot of stress off of your shoulders.

Instead, you’ll be able to look at the data that’s collected and share it with the workers that are brought onto the site. There won’t be a big concern of going over property lines that have been clearly marked, either. Reducing the workload for the individual might not be a top priority all of the time, but it is something that we should really start to think about more. Especially on a construction site, preventing fatigue can be a true lifesaver.