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Can you hire a person to review a parcel of land to determine what options are available for building sites, and to recommend where you would best site a house on a parcel?
Typically these are skills that a professional architect that has experience with new home construction would possess, especially if they are training in aligning a home for maximal solar heat gain in winter / minimum solar load in summer.
Of course most such architects would very much expect to be hired to custom design a home for the site and be paid either as a percentage of the whole project OR at an hourly rate that is reflective of their typical compensation... Architect Salary Information | Best Jobs | US News Careers
OMG, have you any idea why no such beast exists? Let's start with the fact that surveyors are not trained AT ALL in any of the things that would be needed to assess the suitability for any parcel to be used for any purpose. The training they do complete is all geared to accurately translating data from a real world site to a legal description of the parcel in text/numbers/2d images. They can operate computerized transits and GPS devices, do the work that the ensures a parcel complies with its legal description, even validate the benchmarks for a major project but beyond that you are frankly showing your utter lack of experience... I suspect any real estate agent that has actually talked with a property surveyor would instant understand why they are not capable of answering any of the questions the OP has anymore than the nice optician that fits me for eyeglasses would be helpful if I wanted advice on what kind of camera I should buy, though they both are about looking through something one device is nothing like the other.
Secondly there is no reason for any engineer to be have the skills needed to really determine the aesthetic or even future value of a particular siting. Think this through, a civil engineer is trained to basically determine how some built thing, often infrastructure, could be placed almost anywhere. Side of hill, down in a valley, middle of river, they can design the reinforcements to make it stand through anything. Do they ever receive any training in how make something "homey"? They literally would laugh if you tried to hire them for the task the OP wants to accomplish. Ditto for construction engineers and folks that make their living assessing the structural soundness of building.
There is no way anybody is going to bother combine a relatively low paying endeavor like surveyor with something that pays about double -- Land Surveyor Salary (United States)
It would be like seeing a physician when you want to buy a bandaid or having some guy from a Indy Car pit crew work at Jiffy Lube...
Architects study the ins and outs of site selection and proper orientation of homes -- Courses | The Illinois School of Architecture That is who the OP should contact and their own reluctance is probably a real good indication that their project is never really going to end up being as smart a use of their funds as it could be...
Architects and designers cost money … but they can also save you money. In the short term, the savings may be reflected in more informed purchasing of materials and labor, as designers or architects may be familiar with economical solutions. ... In the long term, good design work is as important to the resale value of your house as structural matters
Sounds EXACTLY what the OP wants to accomplish...
Last edited by chet everett; 08-19-2015 at 07:34 PM..
OMG, have you any idea why no such beast exists? Let's start with the fact that surveyors are not trained AT ALL in any of the things that would be needed to assess the suitability for any parcel to be used for any purpose. The training they do complete is all geared to accurately translating data from a real world site to a legal description of the parcel in text/numbers/2d images. They can operate computerized transits and GPS devices, do the work that the ensures a parcel complies with its legal description, even validate the benchmarks for a major project but beyond that you are frankly showing your utter lack of experience... I suspect any real estate agent that has actually talked with a property surveyor would instant understand why they are not capable of answering any of the questions the OP has anymore than the nice optician that fits me for eyeglasses would be helpful if I wanted advice on what kind of camera I should buy, though they both looking through something one device is nothing like the other.
Secondly there is no reason for any engineer to be have the skills needed to really determine the aesthetic or even future value of a particular siting. Think this through, a civil engineer is trained to basically determine how some built thing, often infrastructure, could be placed almost anywhere. Side of hill, down in a valley, middle of river, they can design the reinforcements to make it stand through anything. Do they ever receive any training in how make something "homey"? They literally would laugh if you tried to hire them for the task the OP wants to accomplish. Ditto for construction engineers and folks that make their living assessing the structural soundness of building.
There is no way anybody is going to bother combine a relatively low paying endeavor like surveyor with something that pays about double -- Land Surveyor Salary (United States)
It would be like seeing a physician when you want to buy a bandaid or having some guy from a Indy Car pit crew work at Jiffy Lube...
Architects study the ins and outs of site selection and proper orientation of homes -- Courses | The Illinois School of Architecture That is who the OP should contact and their own reluctance is probably a real good indication that their project is never really going to end up being as smart a use of their funds as it could be...
You know, chet, I've been here a long time and am used to your brusque attitude, but your response here is so far off the rails that it is just ... alarming.
What, were you traumatized by a surveyor once or something? Time to step away from this thread.
Yeah Chet, I need to buy you a drink or something to mellow out a bit. Let's get right down to it, there is no "perfect" siting on any property, only siting that best suit the needs of the user. Even "Falling Water" has siting issues.
Some sites need to have core samples of the soil taken, some need to have access issues addressed, some don't need much of anything.
I would no more hire an architect to lay out siting for a farm than I would a cow. However, I would take the advice of an experienced farmer and couple that with the recommendations of a GC or architect. In siting theatres there are only a handful of people that theatre owners trust. In China, it is somewhat common for an expert in feng shui to be consulted on projects.
For a single family dwelling, no comprehensive siting determination would even begin without an interview with husband and wife, finding out what the requirements and desires are. Outside factors can play a part, but all of the competing needs have to be balanced.
So to answer the original question, yes you can hire people to assist in the decision. What are they called? Gluttons for punishment, perhaps. The problem is in finding someone who knows to ask the right questions and then can communicate why certain things work better than others. The best person might be an architect, or a GC, or a surveyor, or even the old grandma living two doors down, who knows the land structure from before it was developed and where farmer Jones buried his trash to fill in a gully.
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Well if not then who the heck would be?
