How long does a CCTV site survey take?

A small retail or office site is often 1-2 hours; a large campus or multi-building site can take a full day. Marking the plan as you walk (rather than writing it up afterward) is what keeps it fast and accurate.

What should I document for each camera?

Location on the plan, camera type, field of view (angle, range, direction), mounting height and surface, cable path back to the head end, and a photo of the mounting spot. That's everything needed to bid and install it.

Do I need the floor plan before the survey?

It helps, but it isn't required. If there's no plan, sketch the building footprint on a blank canvas on site and mark devices onto your sketch. The count and export work the same way.

How to Do a CCTV Site Survey (Step-by-Step Checklist)

What a site survey is actually for

A site survey turns a vague request ("we want cameras") into a specific, defensible plan: how many cameras, what type, where they mount, what they cover, and what it takes to install them. Done right, it's the document your bid is built on and the plan your install crew follows. Done sloppily, it's change orders, blind spots, and a customer who feels oversold.

Before you go: what to bring

The floor plan: a PDF from the GC if you have one. No plan? You'll sketch the footprint on site (a blank-canvas markup tool makes this quick).
A tablet: an iPad beats a clipboard. You can drop camera icons, draw coverage, and pin photos to each location as you walk, instead of re-creating it all back at the office.
A tape measure or laser: for ceiling heights and long runs; mounting height drives lens choice and coverage.
A flashlight: IDF closets and above-ceiling spaces are dark.

The walk-through, step by step

Start outside. Walk the perimeter. Note entrances, the parking lot, loading docks, and any blind corners. These are your highest-value camera positions.
Work the entrances. Every door a person uses is a candidate for a camera (and often access control). Note which way doors swing and where you'd get a clean face shot.
Cover the interior. Hallways, points of sale, cash rooms, stockrooms, server closets. For each camera, decide the type (dome, bullet, PTZ, multisensor) and the field of view it needs.
Find the head end. Where do the NVR, switches, and power live? Every camera is a cable run back to here, so note distances; runs over ~300 ft need a different plan.
Check power and pathways. Is there PoE budget? Conduit? Plenum space? The install cost lives in the pathways, not the cameras.

Mark it up as you go, not from memory

The single biggest mistake on a survey is trusting your memory and a few photos. By the time you're back at the desk, you can't remember whether camera 7 was a dome or a bullet, or which photo goes with which corner.

Instead, mark the plan while you're standing there: drop the camera icon at the real location, drag out its field-of-view cone so you can see coverage and gaps, set the mounting height, and snap a photo pinned to that exact device. When you leave the site, the survey is already done: annotated plan, photos tagged to locations, and a device count ready to price.

Turn the survey into a bid

A good survey is also your takeoff. Every camera you placed should already be counted into a bill of materials: cameras by type, plus the mounts, cable, switch ports, and licenses that come with them. Add your wire and labor, apply your margin, and the quote writes itself. Hand the customer the marked-up plan with field-of-view cones and they can see exactly what they're paying for.