Pad Certification Survey

The trigger is almost always a condition of approval or a building department checklist rather than the owner's idea. In practice a pad certification is required after rough grading and before vertical construction is released, which is why it lands between the grading contractor leaving and the framing crew arriving. On subdivision and larger commercial work the conditions frequently call for a rough grade certification earlier and a final grade certification at the end as well, each a separate submittal.

Civil engineers of record also ask for it independently, because the grading plan they stamped is the document being certified against, and a pad built two tenths high changes drainage, finish floor, and in some jurisdictions the permitted height envelope. Geotechnical engineers on fill sites want the same numbers for their own compaction and settlement records.

Which certifications apply to your job depends on the jurisdiction and the conditions of approval, so send the approved plan and the form with the request. We read both before quoting rather than after.

You receive the jurisdiction's certification form completed and stamped by a California Professional Land Surveyor, plus an exhibit showing the observed spot elevations, the design elevations they are compared against, the differences, the benchmark and control basis, and the date of observation. Where the job needs it, the same visit produces a DWG of the observed surface.

Turnaround is part of the deliverable on this service, because the schedule is the whole point. Field observation on a single pad is a short visit, and we confirm the turnaround in writing when the job is scoped rather than after mobilizing. If the pad is out of tolerance you hear it the same day, before anything is stamped, because a surveyor cannot certify a pad to a plan it does not match and nobody benefits from finding that out at the inspection.

Often ordered with this: a setback certification and foundation location survey at the form and foundation stage, and construction staking to put the design on the ground in the first place. See all construction certification surveys.

We certify pads across Northern California, roughly within three hours of Sacramento: the Sacramento region, Placer and El Dorado counties and the Sierra foothills, the northern Central Valley through Stockton and Modesto, and the San Francisco Bay Area. On tract and phased work we set the control once and certify pads as they come ready, which keeps every lot on the same benchmark.