What Do You Use When Measuring a House?

[mthd97]

Hi, lots of good methods above and it’s whatever will work for you on site.

 

Me, I have used a Leica Disto measuring device and a pen input windows tablet running Chief Architect.

 

If I was doing an as built now, I would probably take my Microsoft Surface Pro and use my fingers to input dimensions with Chief Architect and hope for the best lol !

 

I can run CA on my MS tablet now and just use my fingers for basic drawing functions but I would take my mouse on site just to make sure. You can usually find a table on site somewhere ? If not just take a fold out table with you and pretend that you are working lol.

 

I have had this app below on an android device before but I haven’t confirmed if I can export to Chief as a dwg just yet.

 

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by mthd97
Extra info

[keithhe]

4 hours ago, mthd97 said:

Me, I have used a Leica Disto measuring device and a pen input windows tablet running Chief Architect.

 

Early on i tried that too with my Leica but found it was too cumbersome for my tastes, although advantage is it already has the drawing done, i simply was trying to move around with too many devices and not always a convenient flat spot to set things down. After a few efforts, i decided the clipboard, pen, Leica and a tape measure was faster for me.. Also, not everything is a simple square room, and sometimes odd walls were too hard to figure out on the fly.  

[Doug_N]

I use the matterport system, a Leica Disto 920 laser, a 25' tape and a notebook.  The matterport is incredibly useful for creating the floor layouts, door locations, window sizes, and finding void spaces that a person might miss with just a tape and paper.  The matterport has saved me from making second visits when the tape and paper doesn't work out when making the CA model.  I have tried doing the laptop and creating CA drawings on site, but then I get asked so many questions from people at as built locations, that it becomes distracting and I end up missing things, or taking way too long.

[SHCanada2]

12 hours ago, mthd97 said:

I have had this app below on an android device before but I haven’t confirmed if I can export to Chief as a dwg just yet.

Bosch has a similar app (Maeasure on its called) for free that works with their bluetooth laser. I used to use the bosch app, but then went to just drawing onsite on my laptop in CA, and taking some additional measurements by hand

 

[HumbleChief]

Not recommending anyone else measure the way I do and this did not require extreme accuracy but this is what I brought home from the job walk to build the as built model. I take a pretty detailed video with my phone and note window sizes verbally as I know a 4040 slider when I see one or detail the windows when needed. I no longer measure the exterior. I tried graph paper and Rocket Book and a blue tooth laser and they just got in the way of my personal work flow. Looks pretty scary but really easy for me to interpret as all the squiggles mean something and translate pretty easily with the video for confirmation.

[SHCanada2]

i'd post mine, but I'd go deaf hearing all the laughter

[HumbleChief]

1 hour ago, SHCanada2 said:

i'd post mine, but I'd go deaf hearing all the laughter

What? I can't hear you!! 

[DRAWZILLA]

17 hours ago, HumbleChief said:

Not recommending anyone else measure the way I do and this did not require extreme accuracy but this is what I brought home from the job walk to build the as built model. I take a pretty detailed video with my phone and note window sizes verbally as I know a 4040 slider when I see one or detail the windows when needed. I no longer measure the exterior. I tried graph paper and Rocket Book and a blue tooth laser and they just got in the way of my personal work flow. Looks pretty scary but really easy for me to interpret as all the squiggles mean something and translate pretty easily with the video for confirmation.

Larry, my wife Penny does all my measurements and gathering up all the information along with about 200 pictures and I'm good to go. Sometimes I will have a question, but the photos will most of the time tell me what I need. She will also crawl into an attic and take photos. She is a lot more limber than I.

[HumbleChief]

9 minutes ago, DRAWZILLA said:

Larry, my wife Penny does all my measurements and gathering up all the information along with about 200 pictures and I'm good to go. Sometimes I will have a question, but the photos will most of the time tell me what I need. She will also crawl into an attic and take photos. She is a lot more limber than I.

THAT Sir, (Penny) is a thing of beauty.

[mthd97]

If it’s possible to have an on-site human assistant, then you can’t beat that.

 

What even happened to days when we had someone to hold the other end of the tape measure lol ?

[SHCanada2]

i just noticed this:

 

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-01846/using-a-leica-disto-device-with-chief-architect-software.html

 

seems to take the BT from disto and put it into the dim box

 

has anyone tried it? is it efficient?

 

[HumbleChief]

I was trying to sketch up an idea I had in my head in Chief the other day and was going in circles. By the time I got close in Chief the idea had morphed into something unusable. Then I picked up a pencil and paper and began sketching out an idea and voila, there it was. Not the best analogy but sometimes a pencil and paper is just more practical in the real world than all the latest technology.

 

I walked through, in my head, a house measure with a Disto Blue Tooth device that included a lap top opened to Chief on a stand that moved from room to room, and tried to imagine choosing a wall, taking the measurement, checking the wall in Chief to make sure the measurement was entered accurately, and/or checking to see if the correct wall was selected, then selecting another wall, going to that wall with the Disto, measuring, then back to Chief to select another wall, then to the next room, rinse and repeat, and so on. There is even a video out there somewhere showing the technique but after watching that it only confirmed that it's simply not for me.

 

I am not a Luddite when it comes to technology but technology for technology's sake leaves me wanting as compelling as it is. And sure someone will post a thread about a lidar enhanced room measuring device that gets real close and is compelling because technology simply is compelling but I can get most measure done in under an hour, miss features rarely (any more) and am no longer enthralled with the latest measuring techniques. Do you remember Chief's Room Planner? Me either.

[DRAWZILLA]

22 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

I was trying to sketch up an idea I had in my head in Chief the other day and was going in circles. By the time I got close in Chief the idea had morphed into something unusable. Then I picked up a pencil and paper and began sketching out an idea and voila, there it was. Not the best analogy but sometimes a pencil and paper is just more practical in the real world than all the latest technology.

 

I walked through, in my head, a house measure with a Disto Blue Tooth device that included a lap top opened to Chief on a stand that moved from room to room, and tried to imagine choosing a wall, taking the measurement, checking the wall in Chief to make sure the measurement was entered accurately, and/or checking to see if the correct wall was selected, then selecting another wall, going to that wall with the Disto, measuring, then back to Chief to select another wall, then to the next room, rinse and repeat, and so on. There is even a video out there somewhere showing the technique but after watching that it only confirmed that it's simply not for me.

 

I am not a Luddite when it comes to technology but technology for technology's sake leaves me wanting as compelling as it is. And sure someone will post a thread about a lidar enhanced room measuring device that gets real close and is compelling because technology simply is compelling but I can get most measure done in under an hour, miss features rarely (any more) and am no longer enthralled with the latest measuring techniques. Do you remember Chief's Room Planner? Me either.

I did try using a Disto and room planner several times, it took me 3 times as long to measure, not for me either. But it was good to transfer it directly into Chief. Room planner had no way to take the outside measurements also.

[SHCanada2]

1 hour ago, HumbleChief said:

Chief to make sure the measurement was entered accurately, and/or checking to see if the correct wall was selected, then selecting another wall, going to that wall with the Disto, measuring, then back to Chief to select another wall, then to the next room, rinse and repeat, and so on. There is even a video out there somewhere showing the technique but after watching that it only confirmed that it's simply not for me.

 

I did this with the bosch measure on app and a tablet, and it worked pretty good, because I walked around with it. and you tap to enter a window and then enter W, L, height off floor, distance to wall corner. it also locked the walls once you had a measurement so it was pretty easy to see that the measurement took the BT reading. But now (if I can) I go and take a few measurements *usually a room), put in CA in the laptop sitting in the middle of the house, go back, get some more, etc. Don;t get me wrong, it gets me excercise, but a bit of a PIA. I do this rather than draw it all out because, well i like to see how it comes together in case something does not make sense. 

 

So i thought maybe a surface pro and CA would be the ticket, but given CA does not lock the walls, that is probably a large limitation, as you would not know what you measured vs what you did not. But i wanted to know if someone tried and how it worked

 

1 hour ago, DRAWZILLA said:

I did try using a Disto and room planner several times,

the above link shows it working with regular walls and looks to show an outside dim being measured

 

[mthd97]

It wouldn’t take much to ask for locking of the walls and other onsite friendly methods to get Chief Architect to do an onsite as built survey.

 

Maybe they could develop an app specific for that purpose and with finger input along with input from a BT measuring device ?

 

They could also use the old room planner app and improve it to become the room planner as built app ? That way we can directly export to CA.

 

An as built app by CA is really a no brainer for them and us.

[glennw]

I am surprised that more users manually measuring existing buildings don't use Chiefs Space Planning tools.

You can use the Assistant to give you the appropriate room boxes - or you can place them manually.

You can then size the room boxes from your measurements and drag them into position.

You then Build House and Chief uses your interior and exterior wall definitions to build the floor plan.

It will build things like stairs and auto place doors - which will obviously need editing.

If you have any auto functions like auto roofs and auto framing toggled on, they will all build.

I am not saying it is the be all and end all, but it may prove helpful for some users   

[mthd97]

1 hour ago, glennw said:

I am surprised that more users manually measuring existing buildings don't use Chiefs Space Planning tools.

You can use the Assistant to give you the appropriate room boxes - or you can place them manually.

You can then size the room boxes from your measurements and drag them into position.

You then Build House and Chief uses your interior and exterior wall definitions to build the floor plan.

It will build things like stairs and auto place doors - which will obviously need editing.

If you have any auto functions like auto roofs and auto framing toggled on, they will all build.

I am not saying it is the be all and end all, but it may prove helpful for some users   

I never thought of doing it like that but it makes sense to use the space planning tools for each room because they remain static until you build the house model.

 

The problem is when you get odd shape rooms. So the space planner has to become more developed for that method to work properly.

 

Sadly Room Planner was discontinued mid 2019.

 

Shame it could have been developed further into an as built app for Chief Architect users or as an add on ?

 

[glennw]

Yes, at the absolute minimum we need a break tool and the ability to drag the box boundaries off ortho.

You can overlap room boxes and use the Drawing Order to determine how the rooms build.

[dshall]

Space planner works from the inside of house out.

I work from outside in.

I get the perimeter of the house drawn with a CAD box..  

I then draw all exterior walls and fenestrations.

I then draw interior walls  to create the rooms.  If the interior room sizes fit inside the perimeter,  I know I get a gold star.

 

A big key for me is I get a running count of the front wall (all dimensions from front left corner,  and if the total from those dimensions matches the running count of the back wall (all dimensions from back right corner,  I get a silver star.  I then do the same on the right side and compare to the left side.  This way,  my total lengths should not be off by more than an inch or two.

 

The downside of this method is an assistant is needed,  I stand at the corner and the assistant reads out dimensions in feet and inches at every door and window edge and always rounding down to nearest inch.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

[RodCole]

Interesting thread.  I did not read every comment in detail, but I would like to add that I use tape measures and the electronic version as well as custom grid paper for capturing measurements on paper.  I have found that having a good paper reference can be very helpful since measurements in Chief will change if anything is moved.

 

Nothing not mentioned above that I could see, but I would add that I find it very helpful to use a laser level to shoot elevations of the Floor and Ceilings as well as exterior site.  I have recently purchased a telescoping tripod to make it easier to adjust the elevation of the laser level line. This is very helpful when there is a need to transfer an elevation mark from one location in a building to another location.

 

I am also considering the idea of making a custom mounting base for the laser level that would allow for adjusting the line from side to side.  This would be very handy for referencing ceiling plane ridges.  I use this information to create construction lines in Chief on working layer sets and final drawings.

[DHerb2014]

I’ve ordered 11 x 17 grid paper (four squares per inch), a laptop table tripod (for placing and drawing on grid paper), and laser measuring device.
 

I know this is old school, but dimensions and accuracy are most important. Once LiDAR and apps improve, I’ll switch if accuracy is exceptional. This could be a timesaver but right now, it’s not there yet. 

[para-CAD]

I recently did an on-site measurement / survey of a home built in 1901.  

 

I agree with the horizontal laser comment.  It helped be locate the area where the floor sagged above and by how much.

 

 

[mthd97]

I can also do basic levels with my version of the Leica Disto on a tripod. 

 

Laser level is preferred for a more sloping site.

 

Yes definitely more work needs to be done with the space planning tools to be able to use them easily for an “as built survey” that is definitely the way to go.

 

I hope some makes a suggestion about this ?

[Kbird1]

On 10/26/2022 at 1:41 PM, SHCanada2 said:

i just noticed this:

 

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-01846/using-a-leica-disto-device-with-chief-architect-software.html

 

seems to take the BT from disto and put it into the dim box

 

has anyone tried it? is it efficient?

 

 

I'm not sure why Chief has 2 Videos on this process, both made from the same Video footage it appears, with Al Frey, a long time CA Consultant.

 

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/131/as-built-basement-project.html

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/10212/as-built-measurements-best-practices.html

 

M.

[HumbleChief]

3 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

 

I'm not sure why Chief has 2 Videos on this process, both made from the same Video footage it appears, with Al Frey, a long time CA Consultant.

 

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/131/as-built-basement-project.html

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/10212/as-built-measurements-best-practices.html

 

M.

I remember those 2 videos and remember thinking that that basement is about a 5 -10 minute measure using my stone age techniques, and that time would include talking to the client about the weather. Not saying there's anything wrong with noting that an interior wall is out by 3/16 of an inch but that's not information I've ever found useful. I did like the Leica though, might replace my Bosch when the time comes.