A useful design base map combines the property boundaries with measured elevations and the site features that affect your plans. The right scope depends on what your architect and civil engineer need to design, calculate, and submit.

Before we begin fieldwork, send us your current concept, permit requirements, and design team’s standards. We’ll shape the boundary and topographic survey around the decisions ahead.

Start with the property framework

Boundary work establishes the parcel’s limits. Topographic work locates selected natural and built features, including their elevations. Design often needs both: where you can build and what is already there.

Depending on the project, we may need to show property lines, dimensions, monuments, fences, walls, apparent encroachments, rights-of-way, and recorded easements. Send us the title report and supporting documents so we can confirm which title matters belong in the scope.

An assessor map, fence, or old site plan can help us understand your starting point. It does not replace a professional boundary determination. If you’re unsure which survey you need, tell us what the work must support.

Tell us which elevations matter

Contours give your team an overview of the terrain. Spot elevations and grade changes provide the detail needed for drainage, building height, access, and grading decisions.

Tell us whether the design needs:

• Contours at a particular interval.
• Spot elevations at structures, pavement, drainage features, and other controlling points.
• Tops and bottoms of slopes, walls, curbs, steps, and rockeries.
• Finished-floor, threshold, eave, ridge, or roof-peak elevations.
• A stated vertical datum and project benchmark.
• Surface models, breaklines, or point data for civil design.

A steep site, a drainage redesign, and a height-sensitive addition need different detail. Washington’s topographic map requirements require the map to state its purpose or intended use. That purpose should guide the fieldwork.

Capture the improvements that affect your design

Buildings are only part of the picture. Eaves, decks, balconies, stairs, porches, foundations, and other projections can affect setbacks, lot coverage, demolition, and construction clearances.

We may also need to locate garages, sheds, retaining walls, fences, gates, driveways, walkways, parking, and surface materials. Mark the features and heights your architect needs. A footprint alone may leave an important design question unanswered.

If neighboring buildings or improvements affect your plans, identify the side of the site, the features, and how far the survey should extend. Access rights and visibility may limit what we can observe.

Include the frontage and access

Your project may depend on conditions beyond the property line. Street improvements, utility connections, driveway grades, and drainage can require a wider survey area.

Tell us whether you need curbs, gutters, sidewalks, ramps, alleys, roadway crowns, pavement edges, street trees, poles, hydrants, or drainage structures. If a Street Improvement Permit or public utility work is anticipated, include that in the request.

Seattle’s site-plan guidance and public utility survey requirements are useful scoping inputs. Your design team should confirm which requirements apply to the current project.

Be specific about utilities and drainage

A base map can combine visible utility features, agency records, locator markings, and observed pipe information. Those sources offer different levels of certainty. A line on the drawing does not mean the buried utility has been physically verified.

Ask us to distinguish what was measured, supplied by others, or taken from records. If the design requires private utility locating, potholing, camera work, or another investigation, we’ll identify it as a separate scope item.

For drainage, your engineer may need catch basins, maintenance holes, swales, culverts, flow lines, pipe sizes, rim elevations, and accessible inverts. Confirm the required features and off-site limits before fieldwork.

Coordinate trees and environmental information

We can locate trees, specialist flagging, and delineation points within the agreed scope. An arborist, wetland professional, geologist, or other qualified specialist makes determinations within their discipline.

Tell us who will identify regulated features, what they will mark in the field, and when their information will be available. Tree measurements, wetland boundaries, and slope information need clear sources and responsibilities.

For sites with critical areas or shorelines, bring the reviewing agency’s requirements into the scope discussion early.

Agree on the digital handoff

A PDF may be enough for review. Your architect or civil engineer may also need CAD files, a surface model, or point data to begin design.

Confirm the file format, CAD version, layers, units, drawing scale, coordinate system, datum, and benchmark. Include naming and revision conventions if the project team uses them. An accurate survey is most useful when the receiving team can use it immediately.

Because we provide surveying and civil engineering, we can coordinate those requirements within one team. If another engineer will use the base, connect with us before fieldwork so we can confirm their needs.

A base-map request you can use

Send us what you know. We’ll help you identify the gaps.

• Property: address, parcel numbers, title material, and prior surveys.
• Project: current concept, area of work, and the decisions the survey must support.
• Permitting: jurisdiction, permit path, checklists, and reviewer requests.
• Features: boundaries, elevations, structures, frontage, utilities, trees, and other adjacent conditions.
• Deliverables: PDF, CAD, surface or point data, and design-team standards.
• Specialists: field markings, reports, and contacts we need to coordinate.
• Access: restrictions, occupied areas, and the person who can authorize entry.
• Schedule: need-by date and the next design or permit milestone.

Have the architect and civil engineer review the relevant scope before you authorize it. That is the best time to catch a missing feature or a file requirement.

Common questions

Does every project need both boundary and topographic work? No. The scope depends on the intended use. Design and permitting often need both, but we’ll confirm that with your team.

Can we use an old survey or GIS contours? They may help with early feasibility. We’ll need to evaluate their age, accuracy, coverage, and suitability before using them as the design base.

Are underground utilities included? Only to the extent defined in the proposal. Visible features, record information, locator markings, and verified underground locations are different deliverables.

Who approves the scope? The owner or project manager authorizes the work. The architect, civil engineer, and any specialist with downstream requirements should review their part before fieldwork.

Ready for a scope?

Just punch the pulsing green button, fill out a few questions, and we’ll get right to work on your estimate. Because time is the measure.