The Surveyor’s Bag by Mike Wall BSc, MSc, FIMarEST, FRINA, CEng, QDR


Some surveyors use a backpack, some a holdall, some a document case with wheels, I’ve even seen just a plastic bag, but they all have the same thing in common. They must be like Doctor Who’s proverbial Tardis, i.e., externally small and compact but internally voluminous to take the plethora of equipment required to do the job.


First to be packed is the boiler suit or overalls, together with the working shoes or boots. The former can range from a sparkling new white boiler suit to a tatty stained and torn shadow of its former self. (The more experienced surveyor prefers the latter so as not to look like a beginner.) The latter can range from a pair of trainers to steel capped leather boots.


As some may not choose to launder their boiler suit on a regular basis with the boots rarely disinfected, it is advisable to stand well clear with no naked lights when a surveyor is opening his bag back at base.


After the above two essentials, comes the flashlight. Some surveyors clearly trying to prove something with a phallic multiple cell torch, others being more modest with a smaller, but just as powerful, single cell AA LED model. Whichever is used, it will need to have batteries that last forever, be watertight, intrinsically safe and sturdy enough to survive being regularly dropped from great heights.


116 | The Report • September 2022 • Issue 101


Then we have the compulsory notebook, pen and often a file containing case documents. The notebook is usually of A6 size, ie, small enough to fit into the boiler suit breast pocket, but large enough to contain what pretends to be authoritative scribbling. Since this book may, on occasion, be a legal document, many surveyors have taken a leaf out of the lawyers’ book, writing illegibly and in gobbledygook so that nobody can understand or interpret the hieroglyphics. In this way the surveyor avoids any legal consequences. The pen, of course, must last forever without any refills and again must be sturdy enough to suffer the same fate as the flashlight.


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