Typical situation
A feed mill, grain facility, or processing tower where equipment runs through several floors. Spouting drops between levels, bucket elevators and conveyors pass through floor openings, and many floors are grating. Stairs and ladders are often the only way between levels, and existing drawings, where they exist, rarely match what’s installed.
How the area is counted
- Billable area counts each floor or platform that needs separate capture. Six levels of about 2,500 sq. ft. each come to about 15,000 sq. ft.
- Being multilevel doesn’t on its own change the rate. Counted level by level, a tower is priced at the dense-process rate like any other congested area.
- Field time still depends on the number of levels and the access between them as much as on floor area, which is why the scope is agreed from a plan marking each level before quoting.
- What does defer a price is restricted access: areas under permit or escort, reachable only by lift, confined spaces, or a pipe rack too congested to rate by area. None of those apply to this example.
- Site safety requirements, including any permit or classified-area procedures, are reviewed before scheduling.
What this scope includes
- Tier 1, scan. Accessible areas of each agreed level. Scans are aligned on site as the scanner moves between setups and tied together through stairwells and floor openings, so alignment and coverage between levels can be checked before leaving. Areas that can’t be safely reached are documented as coverage limitations.
- Tier 2, building. Floors, walls, ceilings, stairs, doors, and ladders on each level, plus roof geometry where safely captured.
- Tier 3, process. External geometry and major visible connections of the agreed equipment, the agreed spouting and piping systems down to an agreed minimum size, and platforms, ladders, and guardrails.
- Tier 4, drawings. A plan of each level, equipment layouts, elevations through the tower showing how the spouting and elevators run between floors, sections at the mills and bins, equipment tags, and agreed layout dimensions, with one consolidated review round. Delivered as a PDF set plus editable DWG.
What’s excluded
- Equipment internals, including the inside of bins, legs, and spouting
- Dense multilevel pipe racks, unless specifically included in the quote
- Structural analysis and code certification
Fabrication-critical tie-ins, flange locations, anchor bolts, and tight-clearance dimensions need separate verification before fabrication or installation, quoted separately. Verification rule