As-Built Surveys in Kensington, CA

We produce laser-scanned as-built surveys for Kensington, the unincorporated hillside community in Contra Costa County — accurate floor plans, sections, and Revit models of homes that decades of slope movement have quietly pulled out of square.

As-Built Surveys in Kensington: Local Conditions

Kensington has no city hall: building permits and planning approvals run through Contra Costa County, and county plan checkers expect remodel drawings that reflect the house as it actually stands. That is a real problem here, because much of Kensington's mid-century housing stock sits on steep slopes, and the Blakemont slow-moving landslide area along the El Cerrito border is the canonical local hazard. A home that has ridden creeping ground for sixty years is rarely the rectangle its 1950s plans show — floors slope, wall corners drift off ninety degrees, and door heads rack. When an architect drafts a remodel from the original permit set, those distortions surface mid-construction as failed framing layouts and cabinet runs that will not close.

Our Trimble terrestrial laser scanner captures the true geometry in a single visit: millions of survey-grade points covering every room, facade, and roofline, without the return trips a tape-and-disto measure-up demands on a house with no square reference walls. From the point cloud we deliver dimensioned floor plans, building sections, and exterior elevations in CAD, or a Revit model at LOD 200 or 300 for teams designing in BIM. Owners who never received drawings for their home — common with Kensington's Berkeley-adjacent early stock — get a complete record. Where creep monitoring over time is the real question, our structural and slope monitoring surveys extend the same scan data into repeat-visit comparisons.

We also hand off the raw point cloud in E57 or RCP format so your architect or engineer can verify any dimension later without another site visit — valuable on Kensington's narrow streets, where parking a survey crew twice is its own project. As-built drawings are working documents rather than recorded maps, but if our fieldwork ties to property corners or replaces a monument, California B&P Code §8771 requires filing a Corner Record or Record of Survey with the Contra Costa County Surveyor, and we handle that filing.

Full service details, process, and deliverables: As-Built Surveys & Scan-to-CAD Documentation · All surveying in Kensington: Kensington land surveying

What's Included

  • Trimble laser scanning captures true existing conditions
  • Floor plans, sections, and elevations from one site visit
  • Revit/BIM models at LOD 200 or 300
  • Point cloud deliverables in E57 or RCP format
  • Catches out-of-square rooms and sloping floors tape measures miss
  • Ideal for buildings with no surviving original drawings

Our Process

1

Scope the Deliverable

We confirm what your design team needs — 2D plans, sections and elevations, a Revit model, or the point cloud itself — and the level of detail required.

2

Laser Scanning

We scan the building interior, exterior, and site with a Trimble terrestrial laser scanner, typically in a single visit, capturing every surface as millions of measured points.

3

Registration & QC

Individual scans are registered into one unified point cloud and checked against control for accuracy before any drafting begins.

4

Drafting & Modeling

We extract the deliverables from the point cloud — CAD plans, sections, elevations, or a Revit model — with the cloud available to your team for verification.

As-Built Surveys in Kensington: FAQ

Most Kensington homes are mid-century structures on sloping ground, and many have shifted measurably since construction — especially near the Blakemont landslide area. An as-built survey documents the real, current geometry: sloped floors, out-of-square rooms, racked openings. Your architect designs to what exists rather than to idealized original plans, which prevents expensive framing surprises during construction.
Kensington is unincorporated, so Contra Costa County handles planning review and building permits. County reviewers expect accurate existing-conditions drawings with remodel and addition applications, and hillside projects often require topographic and geotechnical support as well. Our scan-based as-builts give your design team documentation that stands up in county plan check.
Yes. From the point cloud we deliver Revit models at LOD 200 or LOD 300 depending on how your architect will use them, along with 2D floor plans, sections, and elevations in CAD. We also provide the point cloud itself in E57 or RCP format so dimensions can be checked later without a return visit.

Need As-Built Surveys in Kensington?

Call (510) 543-2220 or request a quote — we'll scope your Kensington project and give you a fixed price.

Meeting-first estimates • Response within 24 hours • Serious projects only