What existing conditions drawings cost in Pennsylvania

The example above is a design set for a house of the calculator’s default size: the capture package, CAD floor plans, a plotted drawing set, and exterior elevations. Every figure comes from the published rate card, and the total is what the calculator returns for the same inputs. Change the square footage there and the number follows. What a set of existing conditions drawings is, beyond the price, is covered in the guide.

What is in the number

The site visit pays for the day: setup and the time on site. It steps up once for large buildings, where the visit takes longer. Every project has one.

The capture is priced per square foot and is in every project. It produces the measurable 3D walkthrough, the ANSI Z765-2021 floor plans as PDF, the DWG export, the room and opening report, and 360 imagery at every scan position. If all you need is a measured plan and a walkthrough, this plus the site visit is the whole price. That is the basic package.

The registered point cloud is included at no charge, because it is the raw output of the scan and costs nothing extra to hand over.

The drafted deliverables are each priced per square foot and ordered one at a time: CAD floor plans at LOD 200 with AIA standard layers, the plotted set, exterior elevations, reflected ceiling plans, a roof plan, and a 3D model in Revit or DWG. What is in a set of existing conditions drawings describes each one.

What changes the number in Pennsylvania

Travel. Pennsylvania is outside the five boroughs, so travel is added to the fixed quote by distance, inside the published band on the pricing page. It is the furthest regular trip on the schedule, which makes batching worth more here than anywhere else: two or three properties in the same town on the same day share one travel charge.

Square footage, on every floor. A rowhouse is narrow and tall. A plan that looks small on one floor can be three or four floors of it, and every floor in scope counts toward the square footage. Price the whole building, not the footprint.

Elevations on attached houses. The elevation rate is per square foot of the building, like every other deliverable, not per facade. On a rowhouse or a twin only some faces are exposed, usually the front and the rear, and those are the ones drawn. Interior only work can leave elevations out entirely.

Historic districts. Exterior changes to a property on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places go through the Philadelphia Historical Commission, and many boroughs across the state review exterior work through a Historical Architectural Review Board. Either one wants to see the existing facade drawn next to the proposed one. Order exterior elevations at booking and the existing facade is drafted from the scan rather than traced from photographs.

What the scan cannot price in

A scan measures the surfaces it can reach. A party wall with no opening in it is measured on your side only; its full thickness is not visible from one house. Old stone walls are measured inside and out wherever a window or door cuts through them, and between openings the plan shows the faces the scanner saw. Anything inside a wall, above a plaster ceiling, or under a slab still comes from probe openings or record drawings.

What does not change it

The quote is fixed before the visit and it is what gets invoiced, unless you add deliverables afterwards. Revisions are included. A return visit caused by capture conditions, such as tree cover blocking a clean exterior, is not billed.

For the rest of the state, including the building stock, historic review, and where the drawings sit in a permit set, see existing conditions drawings in Pennsylvania.