To property owners and developers who inquire, "how do I describe a site plan?," this guide answers with, "let usa count the ways!"

At that place are a handful of DIY site plan options, and ane of them is certain to be a good fit for you. If not, we've got alternative suggestions for letting an experienced drafter do the work for yous.

This guide does four things:

  1. We suggest where you might detect an existing site plan for your property.
  2. The postal service explains what information is needed on a site plan and where yous can notice it.
  3. It discusses the most common DIY plot plan drawing options.
  4. If y'all make up one's mind a DIY site plan isn't for you, nosotros'll tell yous where to detect a professional site plan at an affordable cost.

What nosotros don't respond, hither are the basics, such as what is a site plan is and why yous need one, explained hither: https://www.24hplans.com/what-is-a-site-plan-plus-12-elements-of-plot-program/

Does a Site Plan Already Exist?

There's no reason to reinvent the bicycle, and so to speak, if a site plan was made for the belongings during an earlier stage – perhaps the initial building of the home.

In our guide called Where Can I Get a Site Plan of My Belongings, nosotros list the five near common places to locate one, if information technology already exists. https://world wide web.24hplans.com/where-can-i-go-site-plan-for-my-belongings/

Here are the places you may want to cheque to come across if the site plan for the property in question already exists:

  • In the closing documents provided when you purchased the property.
  • From the title company or bank that handled the closing or provided a loan.
  • Your canton: Endeavor the Registrar of Deeds and the Building Section.
  • The builder: If the home was recently congenital and the structure visitor is still around, it might accept a site plan on file.
  • The seller or realtor involved in the sale.

A Site Plan Checklist

What is included in a site program? Here's an overview.  For example, the City of Fairbanks, Alaska is representative of nigh cities in what the officials there require of a site plan/plot programme.

Contact your local city or canton office for a site plan checklist. We'll add a brief caption where needed.

Post-obit the list are a few items that other cities and counties want to run into on a site plan.

  1. Scale at which site plan is fatigued (for case one"= 20'). The scale can be adapted per the size of the lot and local requirements.
  2. Northward arrow. A north arrow shows the directional orientation of the property.
  3. All property lines and their dimensions. These items tin can exist found on earlier site plans, a survey and other places discussed below. They are readily bachelor, so no worries are necessary.
  4. Location, type and dimensions of existing structures or a driveway including a business firm and garage, detached garage, shed, inground pool, retaining wall or other permanent structure.
  5. Location, type and dimensions for proposed permanent structures, whether attached to the original home or discrete, or driveways.
  6. Setback distances (distance off the property line) of all proposed structures, since each community has required setback distances.
  7. Buildable area of the lot inside required setbacks to testify how much space is available for new evolution.
  8. Names of adjacent road(s).
  9. Well or water chief location.
  10. Septic tank and field or sewer line location.

Items not included in the Fairbanks listing merely required by some cities and counties include topography (topo – not often required) elevation and slope, wetland areas (rare), large trees and utility easements.

Where to Find Information Required for a Site Programme

Dimensions: Dimensions and possibly the location of utility easements, if they exist, can be found on several documents:

  • Holding Survey
  • Belongings Tax Assessor's Map located where your taxes are nerveless or in the city/county offices
  • Revenue enhancement Nib (In written form rather than fatigued)
  • Subdivision Plat (bachelor at the city/county office or from the programmer)
  • Hiring a Surveyor (starting at about $300 and unremarkably not necessary)

Structures: A previous plot plan will show the location of permanent structures. The Google Maps satellite role and services like Google Earth and InstantStreetView.com are useful, as well, providing aeriform satellite views and a 360% street view of the holding.

Utilities: Free locating and marking of underground utilities including electrical, fresh water, sewer, phone and cable is available in nearly areas. This prevents costly damage during construction. Calling 811 should connect yous to the free service.

Setbacks: If you don't take a previous program and they are non shown on the survey, you might need to measure and determine setbacks and building dimensions, when required.

DIY Site Plan Options

Drawing your own site programme ranges from literal mitt-drawing to using sophisticated software. Of the latter, there are free and paid options, online and downloadable versions for many.

How to Draw a Site Plan by Hand

Graph newspaper makes mitt drawing a site plan like shooting fish in a barrel. The Fairbanks, AK document gives this encouraging word, "A site plan need not exist professionally prepared and tin can be manus fatigued. With a piddling work, you tin draw an acceptable site plan for your project."

Beware that not all local offices will take a hand drawn programme, but information technology's worth finding out, if you lot're inclined to DIY.

The City of New Smyrna Beach, Florida lists iv like shooting fish in a barrel steps to cartoon a site plan. To summarize:

  1. The nuts. Choose a calibration for the graph paper such as 1 square equals xx or 25 anxiety, and note the calibration in a prominent place on the drawing. The squares are ordinarily a quarter inch, so your calibration might be ¼"=20'.

Then depict the lot lines and identify the house, driveway, sidewalk and other permanent structures as accurately as y'all tin can. Measure and write in feet the closest distance from the house to the nearest lot line to testify the construction (existing or proposed) meets local setbacks rules. Draw your Northward arrow.

  1. Well and septic. Locate and draw in, if applicable, a well location and the location of a septic tank and bleed field, aka leach field, existing or proposed. Annotation: The distance between the wellhead and drain field must be 75 feet or more than in well-nigh counties.
  2. Sensitive areas and trees. Locate and mark wetlands, sinkholes, alluvion plans and bodies of water, if any of these exist on the property. In New Smyrna Beach, similar in many cities, large trees (6" in diameter or larger in NSB) must be noted. Measure the circumference at 54" off the ground and divide by pi, or 3.xiv, to go diameter.
  3. Changes. Show where construction activity will occur – new dwelling edifice, an addition, inground puddle, driveway, etc.

If at that place is pregnant gradient to your land and yous have nearby neighbors, you might also need to show gradient and the pattern of h2o runoff. This might be the largest challenge to DIY site plan drawing.

The Fairbanks guide shows a skilful case of a DIY site plan.

Using Software to Create a Site Plan

If you lot savor making utilise of technology and/or hand drawn site plans aren't accepted where you alive, free and fee software is available for the purpose.

A search will produce a listing of results to explore, but a few we institute most useful are these:

RoomSketcher Site Plans (Free)

This site allows you to create 2D and 3D printable site plans on a PC, Mac or tablet. Information technology starts with inputting measurements for property line dimensions to create the "framework" for the drawing. Measurements can too exist supplied to space objects on the DIY site plan and to show setbacks, zone/construction sizes and total area calculations.

Click, drag and drib elements like structures, landscape items and other necessary elements. Text, labels and symbols can be added likewise. When the site plan is complete, generate and impress it from the RoomSketcher software.

The 3D name, whether with the RoomSketcher or other services, tin can sometimes be somewhat misleading, since the plans are obviously are two-dimensional. However, using avant-garde technology, the drawings tin have photorealistic depth like the 3D renders from 24H Plans.

  1. Create a Free account
  2. Await for the RoomSketcher electronic mail to confirm your account
  3. Download the RoomSketcher App
  4. Start the App
  5. Choose second or 3D Site Plans, and explore

The Free account allows you lot to create five projects.

SmartDraw (Free)

SmartDraw site program software gets a v-star rating from CNET. You have the option of using the online edition of SmartDraw, an advantage over RoomSketcher, or downloading an app or desktop edition.

SmarDraw offers integration with Microsoft Office and G Suite, and drawings tin be saved to Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox.

A disadvantage is that instead of existence allowed 5 free projects, you're given a 10-day free trial period. If you don't complete your projection during the trial, the toll is $9.95 per month.

  1. Gear up up your free business relationship
  2. Download the software and/or work online
  3. Generate your drawing
  4. Impress the drawing or export it to some other supported format to Visio VSD or VSDX, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc.

Microsoft Visio

This isn't a free service, and plans aren't cheap, starting at $5 per month merely with an annual commitment, and then $sixty minimum.

Even so, many individuals and companies already take access to Visio, and you can make site plans with Visio. See the lengthy stride-by-step procedure here.

To summarize:

  1. Choose File > New and search Site Plan. Find Site Plan in the results, and choose Create.
  2. Utilize Tools to describe structures or insert a CAD cartoon or copy and paste an existing Visio drawing.
  3. Enter roads, landscape, symbols, text and other features.

Autodesk AutoCAD

A 1-year subscription to AutoCAD is virtually $ane,700. But again, many companies and professionals already accept AutoCAD, and a site plan feature is included.

The cosmos of a site plan with AutoCAD is a lilliputian more complex than with the other options listed above. This nine-minute tutorial on YouTube walks you lot through the process.

Getting an Affordable Professionally Drawn Site Programme

If none of the options higher up meet your needs, so having a plan drawn professionally is easier and more affordable than you might think.

An address is all it takes: You accept to supply nothing more than than the address of the holding – or if it is vacant land, it's survey coordinates. Companies like 24H Plans take if from there using the most advanced technologies.

24H Plans Team: They are CGI artists and draftsmen specializing in site plans and similar drawings. The specialists use AutoCAD and other leading software options to create site plans of the highest particular, clarity and quality.

They Find the Information for You: Where does 24H Plans get the information needed? From county parcel maps, tax information, GIS and updated satellite images, along with other public records. There is no need for visiting your site.

Your Adjacent Step to an Affordable Site Plan

Now that yous know how to draw a site plan and empathize your options, which works all-time for you?

If you're a natural DIYer, then trying one of the free options makes sense – SmartDraw or RoomSketcher. If you have access to Visio, see the folio on how to draw a site plan on Visio, and give information technology a try. AutoCAD is a more circuitous tool that takes some experience to successfully piece of work with. However, it is a highly accurate and robust tool. It'southward what the pros at 24H Plans apply, just they've mastered AutoCAD and know how to get fantastic results.

While surveyors charge upwards of $1,000 for a professional person site program, the drawings commencement at less than $100 from 24H Plans – and the results are equal to or superior to what surveyors and ceremonious engineers produce. Contact 24H Plans today, and requite them your address. Yous'll take a professional person site program of premium accuracy and quality in less than one business twenty-four hour period.

Note: Here's how nosotros can assist:24hplans has team of highly-trained, professional architects and drafters who can fix any kind of site plan in the shortest corporeality of time possible, and so that you can easily obtain that building let and get on with your projection. Utilise the promotion code:24hplans-20off to become axx% disbelieve off whatsoever parcel. — Please note this is a limited time offering, exclusive to the readers of our blog. This offer is not beingness advertised anywhere else.