Clear height, as several numbers
Underside of roof deck, underside of the beams, and the underside of open steel web joists all sit at different elevations. Quoting one number is how disagreements start, so each is recorded separately.
Warehouse & Distribution · Metro Vancouver
Warehouse As-Built Drawings
A warehouse is bought, leased and fitted out on numbers that a floor plan alone does not carry — clear height under the structure, the spacing of the columns, how the dock doors sit against the slab. We capture the building in LiDAR and deliver a measured set that answers those questions without sending anyone back to site.
- Clear heights recorded separately
- Bay spacing & column grid
- Occupied or vacant
The information a warehouse turns on is mostly vertical
Ask what a tenant needs to know about an office suite and the answers are largely flat: how much area, where the walls run, how the floor divides. Ask the same question about a warehouse and almost every answer points upward. How high can racking go before it meets the structure. Whether a mezzanine will clear the door beneath it. Where the beams sit relative to the aisles somebody is about to lay out.
That is the part conventional documentation handles worst. A legacy drawing set will usually give a footprint and a room list, and then go quiet exactly where the money is. Heights get reduced to a single nominal figure or omitted altogether. Column positions get drawn on a nominal grid rather than measured where they actually stand. Dock doors appear as symbols with no dimension attached.
The other problem is distance. A distribution floor runs continuously for a long way, and a tape run over that distance accumulates error at every hand-off. On a 12,000 square foot clear-span floor, small repeated inaccuracies compound into a total area figure nobody can defend and a column grid that drifts as it crosses the building. LiDAR does not accumulate error the same way, because every point is measured against the same survey rather than against the last measurement taken.
An as-built survey of a warehouse is therefore less about redrawing the plan and more about recording the things the plan never held in the first place.
What has to be captured in an industrial building
These are the items that decide whether the drawing set survives contact with a real tenant enquiry.
The column grid, measured
Bay spacing governs racking layout, drive aisles and how a mezzanine can be framed. Columns get located where they actually stand, not on the nominal grid an old drawing assumed.
Dock and grade access
Door positions, widths and heights, dock versus grade-level access, and the ramp or apron in front of them. A tenant's fleet either fits this or it does not.
Mezzanines and intermediate levels
Area above, headroom below, stair and access positions. Mezzanines are frequently the least documented part of an industrial building and the most often altered.
Office and washroom areas
The finished front-of-house portion is measured to the same standard as the warehouse floor, with its own ceiling heights, so the two can be reported separately or together.
Structure and services overhead
Visible mechanical, electrical, lighting and sprinkler distribution are captured in the same pass, which is what makes the record useful to a fit-out rather than only to a listing.
A measured industrial building, from a delivered survey
Figures from our LiDAR survey of a single-storey office and warehouse building on Holt Road in Surrey, scanned for the Cushman & Wakefield listing team. Every number was measured, not taken from an existing drawing.
- Total finished area
- 13,329 sq ft
- Main warehouse floor
- 12,202 sq ft
- Height · roof deck27 ft (nominal)
- Height · I-beam25 ft (nominal)
- Height · steel web joists23 ft (nominal)
- Office ceiling9 ft (nominal)
Why one clear height is never enough
Racking, a crane, a mezzanine and an overhead sprinkler layout each answer to a different elevation in the same building. The roof deck sets the absolute limit, the beams and joists interrupt it at different levels, and the governing figure depends entirely on what a tenant intends to put underneath. Recording all of them separately costs nothing at the point of survey and settles a question that otherwise resurfaces at every stage of a deal. What any specific installation is required to clear is a matter for the tenant's fire protection consultant, engineer and the authority having jurisdiction — our part is making sure they are all working from the same measured elevations.
- Height · roof deck27 ft (nominal)
- Height · I-beam25 ft (nominal)
- Height · steel web joists23 ft (nominal)
- Office ceiling9 ft (nominal)
How a warehouse gets scanned
The site work is a single visit with one operator. Nothing needs to be powered down and operations do not have to stop.
Agree the scope and the access
Warehouse floor, office area, mezzanines, dock and yard as required — plus which areas need a safety escort, high-vis, or a time of day that avoids shipping and receiving.
Scan the floor position by position
The iGUIDE PLANIX is tripod-mounted and moves through the building one setup at a time, capturing LiDAR geometry and 360° imagery together. Large clear-span areas cover quickly; compartmented office and service space takes more positions per square foot.
Record the heights deliberately
Deck, beam and joist elevations are taken as separate measurements rather than inferred from a single ceiling reading, and mezzanine clearances are recorded above and below.
Draft against the measured data
Plans are drawn from the point cloud, not traced from an older set. Where a legacy drawing disagrees with what was measured, the measurement governs and the difference is flagged rather than quietly reconciled.
Deliver in the formats the team actually uses
PDF plans and a walkable 3D tour first, DWG for the drafting team, and a Revit model where the project runs in BIM.
Industrial capture in practice
Our own scanning work and delivered industrial photography.
Which package suits which industrial job
The right level of detail depends on what the drawings have to carry. Cost tracks floor area and scope, and the booking tool prices it instantly.
Base 360
- What it covers
- Measured floor plan and CAD — walls, columns, doors, overhead doors, stairs
- Typical use in a warehouse
- Listing and marketing plans, area verification, racking feasibility, a current record for the building file
Shell 360
- What it covers
- Base plus ceiling and structure heights, visible MEP, millwork elevations and finishes in the office area
- Typical use in a warehouse
- A fit-out heading toward permit, a mezzanine being added, or an office build-out at the front of the building
Full 360
- What it covers
- Shell plus a Revit model and freestanding fixtures
- Typical use in a warehouse
- BIM-based design teams, layout and process planning, ongoing facility documentation across a portfolio
Area calculation to a published standard is a separate deliverable, because which standard applies depends on the lease rather than on the scan.
Scanning a building that is still operating
Vacant space scans faster and produces a cleaner dataset, and where a building is between tenants that is the moment worth taking. Most industrial documentation, though, happens in a building that is still running, and that is a scheduling question rather than an obstacle.
The scanner is tripod-mounted and moved by a single operator on foot, so there is no cabling to run and nothing to power down. Racking, palletised stock and equipment are scanned around; what sits behind a full rack is recorded as far as it is visible, and anything obscured is flagged rather than guessed at. Where forklift traffic makes open-floor work awkward, we work around shipping and receiving or scan outside operating hours.
Site safety runs on the building's terms — high-vis, boots, escort, induction, whatever the operator or occupier requires. It is worth raising these constraints when the scope is agreed rather than on the morning of the visit, because access is almost always the thing that determines how long a warehouse takes, not floor area.
Who ends up using the warehouse set
Leasing agents and landlords use it to market the building with numbers that hold up under questioning. A prospective tenant asking about clear height, dock count or usable area gets an answer the same day instead of a site visit, and the floor plan they are sent matches the building they walk through.
Tenants and their consultants use it to plan what goes inside — racking runs and aisle widths against the real column grid, a mezzanine against the real headroom, process equipment against the real structure overhead.
General contractors use it to price and to establish the existing condition before work starts, particularly on office build-outs at the front of an industrial building where the finished area and the warehouse meet.
Property managers and asset teams use it as the current building record, and gain more from it across a portfolio than on any single building: consistent measurement across every property is what lets areas be compared and stacked without reconciling three different survey methods.
See a delivered industrial survey end to end
The Holt Road project is a real Surrey office and warehouse building we scanned and delivered — measured areas, three clear heights, floor plans and the data behind them.
Read the Surrey warehouse case study
Opens the project page on this site.
Common questions
Yes. The elevations are derived from the LiDAR capture taken from floor level, so no lift, ladder or fall protection is involved in getting them. Deck, beam and joist heights are recorded as separate figures rather than a single ceiling number, because in an industrial building those three elevations rarely agree and different installations answer to different ones.
No. An empty building scans faster and gives a cleaner dataset, so if the space is already vacant that is the ideal moment, but most industrial scans happen in a working building. Racking and stored goods are scanned around, and anything genuinely obscured is flagged rather than estimated. Where forklift traffic is heavy we work around shipping and receiving or scan outside operating hours.
Yes. Columns are located from the measured data where they actually stand rather than placed on a nominal grid, which is the point of the exercise for anyone laying out racking or aisles. Bay dimensions come off the same drawing, and the CAD file lets a tenant or consultant test a layout directly against it.
Yes, and it is worth asking for explicitly, because mezzanines are frequently the least documented part of an industrial building and the most often altered without any record. We capture the mezzanine area and the headroom both above it and beneath it, along with stair and access positions.
Usually a single visit. A large clear-span floor covers quickly, while the finished office, washrooms and service rooms at the front take more scan positions per square foot than the warehouse itself. Floor plans and the 3D tour follow in one to two business days, with CAD and BIM within about a week.
No, and you should be careful of anyone who does. Requirements depend on the occupancy, the commodity being stored, the fire protection system and the authority having jurisdiction, so that determination belongs with your fire protection consultant, engineer and the local authority. What we provide is the measured basis they all work from: accurate structure elevations, real column positions and a floor plan that matches the building.
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Get the building measured before the next enquiry
Book the scan online with an instant estimate. Plans and the 3D tour in one to two business days, CAD and BIM within the week.