Measured survey

A measured survey (as-built plan) is a drawing of the real space based on measurements taken on site: walls, openings, heights, utility points. It shows not how it "should be according to the passport", but how it actually is. Every project starts here: all other drawings, from demolition to elevations, are built on top of it.

What goes into it. The size of each room by walls and diagonals (walls are rarely exactly perpendicular); ceiling height at several points; position, width and height of doors and windows, and sill heights; niches, columns, pylons and projections; water and sewer risers, ventilation shafts and ducts; radiators and their connections; the electrical panel, existing sockets and switches, water and low-voltage entries; meters. We also mark the structural elements, so you can see at once what must not be touched.

What is used. The classic tools are a laser distance meter and a tape measure. Many meters calculate a diagonal using the Pythagorean theorem: you measure the hypotenuse and the device works out the legs. For complex rooms with uneven walls and level changes a 3D scanner is used: it produces a point cloud from which a plan and a model can be built. For a standard apartment a laser meter and a careful surveyor are enough.

Why a technical passport is not a survey. The passport shows design or averaged dimensions, and the real ones differ. A few centimetres of discrepancy in a room becomes a problem wherever materials and furniture are made to size: kitchens, built-in wardrobes, glass partitions, shower screens. A measuring error is the one project error that is repeated in every drawing, so we check dimensions with diagonals and take heights at several points in every room.

Typical mistakes: measuring among furniture without seeing the corner; taking only length and width without diagonals; forgetting the height of openings and sills; not marking risers and shafts that later turn up "unexpectedly" in the middle of the kitchen; using someone else's plan without checking. You need to know about uneven walls and floor level changes in advance: they affect screed thickness, the geometry of furniture and junction details.

How we do it. The measured plan is the first sheet of our 14-sheet working project. The questionnaire and measurement usually take 1–3 days; the measurement is done by a specialist on site, and the studio works in Almaty, Astana and online across Kazakhstan. If you take a rough measurement yourself for discussion, mark windows, doors, risers and ducts and send us photos and the plan on WhatsApp. An exact drawing is still better made from an on-site survey.