Land surveying can give you a better idea of where a property and its resources are. You might wonder if you ought to spend money on land surveying services. Folks can tell if land surveying is worth the investment by looking at four aspects of a situation.

Need for Precision

Precise measurements are critical to a wide range of projects. If you're planning to pour a foundation for a house, you likely want its walls to be as straight as possible. Even something as simple as a square foundation can get surprisingly cock-eyed if a measurement is off by a degree or two on one of the angles. By the time you get around to pouring the foundation and erecting a building on top, you might end up with a slightly funky-looking wall.

A surveyor can help you to line things up before you start the project. When the excavator digs the hole, they'll provide clean lines. The concrete contractors will then have a precisely dug hole, too. Everything that goes on top after that will line up.

Safety

You also may need to conduct a survey to make sure everything you're doing is safe. For example, you should never dig holes or trenches without knowing if there are any underground utility lines in the area. Digging recklessly could damage utility lines or even get someone killed if they hit something electrified, pressurized, or volatile. Fortunately, a land surveying company can use data from utility companies to mark where all the potentially dangerous features are in the ground.

Legal Issues

Plenty of surveys start because someone had a legal concern. Notably, your legal issues don't need to rise to the level of a full-on dispute. Even if you're sub-dividing a property without dispute, you'll still want to measure the lots as precisely as possible.

Unsurprisingly, there are often compliance issues attached to land surveying, too. For example, local building codes might prevent you from constructing a fence a certain distance from the property line. To avoid trouble, a land surveying services firm can measure the area.

Risk Assessment

Finally, you might also need to assess the various risks on a property. For example, someone building in the country may need to know if a wooden building is far enough from the tree line to be safe during a wildfire. Similarly, you may need to survey the terrain to determine if run-off from a hill could damage your property or even adjoining ones.