Overheard a foreman say his crew saved a full day using a drone for a site survey

I was grabbing coffee yesterday and the guy in line behind me was on the phone, talking about a grading job in Tempe. He said they used a drone to map the site instead of a traditional crew with rods and a total station. He said it cut the survey time from two days down to one. That got me thinking about how much time we might be wasting on my current project with old methods. Has anyone here switched to drone surveys for earthwork and actually seen the cost savings add up over a few jobs?

3 comments

3 Comments

kai_brown232mo ago

So what happens when the drone guy quits? My buddy's crew got a drone and the kid who ran it left for a better job. They had a whole site ready to go and nobody else knew the software well enough to trust it. They lost half a day just getting their regular surveyor out there.

alicec862mo ago

My uncle's grading company in Mesa tried the drone thing last year. They bought a fancy drone and the software, spent weeks training a guy. For that first site map it was fast, I'll give you that. But then you get the bill for processing the data and the guy's hourly rate to learn it all. Over three projects, their costs went up, not down. The drone sits in the office now. Sometimes the old way with a crew on the ground is slower, but you know the numbers are right the first time.

white.seth1mo ago

That Mesa story sounds familiar. If the software isn't dead simple, it's dead in the water.