how much does a survey normally run?

[adriana]

when do you know you have to get a new one? House was built in Aug 2001, so I have a survey from the builder and I'm the original owner...do I need a new one to do an addtion? Im in FL

[roger g]

Ah! surveys. Where I live you don't need a survey for an addition but it helps. You said you already have a survey so all you have to do is make o copy of it and draw your addition on the survey to scale and submit it for your building permit.
A number of years ago I owned some property which had an old survey but nothing had been added to change the survey. I had a bit of a boundary dispute with the neighbour and spent $900.00 for a survey.
A few years later I purchased some property in Texas and I wanted a survey to prove what I had paid for. The surveyor asked me what sort of survey I wanted. I couldn't understand what he meant. He asked me if I wanted it registered. I thought " aren't all surveys registered?" I learned a lot from this guy. You can get a survey that just puts in stakes where the corners are and I don't think you get a drawing and it is not registered. You can get a surveyor to locate your existing corner posts. You can get a surveyor to do all of the above and register it. Different prices for different jobs.
I went back to the $900.00 surveyor and asked him why he didn't mention that he could have just located existing stakes which all I really wanted. He said "you didn't ask!" though he knew the reason I wanted one.
Sometimes mortgage companies and banks want up to date surveys when you apply for a mortage. One big rip off especially when nothing has changed.

Roger

[Rich]

I've had more trouble with surveyors than I care to mention. I'm pretty proficient at using the Total Station - radial staking, 3 dimensional curved layout, resections, etc..etc. But I'm no registered surveyor. I've had them come out and survey primiary control on some major downtown projects - then I've gone and retraced them. Very rarely were they ever accurate. On one project alone I went through 3 surveyors - and eventually I did the survey for primary control and had another surveyor retrace it to verify.
Not to scare you - just be aware that not all surveys are created equal.

[jerseyjimmers]

I just had an acre surveyed for $295. He just set the corner stakes which was about 1/2 days work. Very reasonable I felt. He did work for me before so I didn't even ask what the charge would be. I was pleasantly surprised, having expected up to $600.

You may not be as lucky so it may be a good idea to shop around and get the cost up front. There are alot of varibles that could affect the price. Some properties don't have nearby existing points of reference to go by and that takes extra work.

Also keep in mind that some inspectors require an initial plot plan showing where on the property the house will be located and then a followup certification by the surveyor after the house is built to show that it was put where you said it was going to be. Where I'm at you don't generally need a surveyor for the initial plot plan. You just need to know the width and depth of the property and show where the house will be.

Good Luck,
Jerseyjimmers

[concretemasonry]

The accuracy of survey depend on what you want the surveyor to go through to get a good starting point.

If you want then to just use a couple of points in the development, they will be easy to find and the cost won't be much. The problem is that it is relying on what the developers surveyor did and what kind of references they used to start.

Everything goes back to the original survey. Originally, surveyors tied a rag on a wagon wheel and counted revolutions to set section corners. Right or wrong, this is where the corner is. If someone along the historical line "fudged" things a bit to get squres corners, the survey could be bad. The use of a compass also warped a lot of the maps, but the original point are what everything is based off.

My mother bought a lake lot from her brother, who bought it from the county, When survey was done for some road grading and drainage, they found out that her driveway was on her brothers lot (to the north) and her cabin was was on her sister's lot (to the south) and her sister's lot was on someone else's property. It turned out that everyone had to sign an agreements where the new property lines/corners were before the survey could file a new certified survey that over-rode the previous ones. This involved 2 miles of shoreline at a value of $500 per fot at that time. Some people lost a lot of shoreline because the angles and various points going out into the lake. My mother only lost 75' of shoreline, but everyone seemed to lose some, but they had it resolved.

There is nothing wrong going with the developers points, but there is always the possibility of it not being totally certified. At least everyone will be in the same boat unless your surveyor uses different reference points.

Survrying is always difficult because you are laying/describing out a property line for people on one side and the adjacent property may have been laid out using different points.

It all goes back to the original surveys (before computers). If you ever read an old property description referring to a 30" oak tree (100 years ago), you can imagine what possible problems can be out there. - Measuring distances and angles is easy, but it can be worthless if the survey does not start at the right point on a property.

For an addition, try to use the original survey that shows the house location. That way, you will be following what the neighbors have.

[Richard A Hetzel]

There is a classic old property description that starts out "BEGINNING at the point where the cow was standing..." Try to re-create that point after 100 years or more. We once did a property survey on a good-sized piece of acreage that had remained in one family since a king's grant...so the king's grant was all we had to start with. In a case like that, the surveyor often has to survey all surrounding properties and give his client what's left. But generally speaking, our surveys were checked and double-checked before they went out of the office, and I doubt that we made any mistakes, either on single lots or on 100-lot subdivisions.

[bkrahmer]

I don't think there is a 'normal' price. I've paid $300 for a survey in CO, and was quoted $2500 for a survey on a 1/2 acre lot here in ID. Fun, fun, fun.