Last month, we calculated that the cost of wet weather due to lost productivity, repeat visits and wasted trips could be in the region of £20,000 per year for the ‘average’ land surveying practice*.

Not all brands of surveying equipment work well in the rain, and with the UK averaging 161 days of wet weather a year, that’s a lot of wasted journeys and repeat visits. And if there’s one thing we hate at KOREC, it’s waste and inefficiency.

So, with this is mind, we decided to do something rather bold. We teamed up with ATR Shield to give away 50 total station shields, free of charge, to the 50 surveyors who gave us their most convincing reason for needing one.

And boy did you deliver! We received over 150 requests from across the nations. From the tip of Cornwall to the top of Ireland, from the Welsh valleys to Brixton – and your reasons made for fascinating reading. Here’s just a selection of your comments for why you desperately need a shield for your soggy total station;

Trimble to the Rescue!

At KOREC, we’re all about empowering our customers with the solutions they need to get the job done, with the minimum of fuss. After all, the slogan ‘Do It Once, Do It Right, Do It Now’ was a former company motto of ours!

That’s why we are so proud to provide solutions that are built for all weather conditions – come rain, shine – or even sleet and snow!

Trimble S Series total stations are world renowned for their reliability, their accuracy, and their robust nature in all weather conditions – no shields needed for this one!

Right now, we are offering over 20% off the Trimble S5, along with all the kit you need;

Winterproof-Bundle-2022_UKDownload

If you’d like to find out more about this bundle, contact your local KOREC consultant, or use the details below;

info@korecgroup.com

Call UK Sales: 0345 603 1214

Call Ireland Sales: 01 456 4702

For anything else, view our contact page.

*See previous blog ‘Don’t Let Rain Stop Play’ for full breakdown of the numbers

We’ve all heard of the saying ‘a little bit of rain won’t hurt’, but when it comes to your land survey kit, is it true?

Being the stats nerds that we are, we decided to run the numbers to see how much your soggy survey kit is really costing you.

Picture the scene. You’re out on a land survey or set out job with your total station, when the skies darken, the wind picks up, and the heavens open. You’ve got two choices – you fashion a DIY cover out of spare bits and bobs, or, if you’re like us, you make a dash for the van, grab a coffee to keep warm and dry, and wait for the rains to subside.

If we lived in the Med this may not be such an issue, but here in the UK it rains an average of 161 days of the year – that’s almost half of the time!

That’s a lot of days wasted sitting waiting for the skies to clear – or risking damaging kit that you know isn’t too fond of water ingress. We’ve even heard tales of folk desperately drying off their kit with hair dryers in the back of the van!

Running the Numbers

So, we decided to run the numbers to see exactly how much all of this wasted time could be costing you.

Over the last two decades, the UK has averaged 161 rainy days each year, 44% of the days. When it comes to working days (assuming you’re not a workaholic and enjoy the odd weekend and holiday each year) there’s roughly 240 days of working per year, which means a potential for 106 ‘rainy’ working days.

With the average land surveyor costing around £120 a day*, and assuming that on the rainiest of days you’re losing around 3 hours of productive time packing away kit, returning to the van, sitting in the van (not to mention getting the hair dryer out) we reckon the daily loss is around £48 per rainy day.

But, it gets worse. That ‘lost’ 3 hours of work still needs to be completed on a dry day, meaning another trip to site, another mileage expense, and another £48 gone. This second trip to site also means that other survey work, for other clients, has to either be rearranged, pushed back – or worst of all, lost.

All in all, we reckon that ‘bit of rain’ could be costing you the best part of £10,000 per surveyor over the course of a year!

Of course, the financial cost is just one element.

Every time rain stops survey, it shortens the timescale for getting the job done. Not only does this add time pressure to the job, it cause severe reputational damage to your business, straining relations with your client, as well as threatening your competitive edge when it comes to bidding for other work.

Dry your Eyes

If those figures brought a tear to your eye, don’t be concerned – there is another way!

We’ve put together the #WinterReady land survey package which has everything you need to get your survey work completed – come rain or shine.

Featuring the robust Trimble S5 with active tracking, the new TSC5 controller, a license for Trimble Access (General Survey) and more, our #WinterReady bundle gives you all you need to keep on working thru’ the wind and rain.

If you’d like to find out more about this bundle, contact your local KOREC consultant, or use the details below;

info@korecgroup.com

Call UK Sales: 0345 603 1214

Call Ireland Sales: 01 456 4702

For anything else, view our contact page.

*Based on figures from Reed.co.uk, assuming an annual salary of £30,518 and a working week of 37.5 hours, we obtained a figure of approximately £117 per day for a land surveyor, or £16 per hour.

Get in touch today
Save £4000 (4500 EURO) when you trade-in on the S5 bundle

Can it really be over 4 years since Trimble launched the SX10 Scanning Total Station? We can’t believe it either, but if there’s one thing we are sure about, it’s that the Trimble development team never stands still!

…which is why we’re delighted to announce the launch of the SX12 which brings several new features based on both customer feedback and the Trimble desire to create an instrument that combines unrivalled versatility and ease of use.

Trimble describe the SX12 as ‘engineered for every day’ and there’s no doubt that the additional functionality creates new workflows and new opportunities, especially in tunnelling, internal surveys and construction.

So what have we got that’s new?

Vivid, eye-safe laser pointer

Green and focusable, the SX12’s laser pointer yields the smallest spot size in the industry, just 3mm at 50m. This useful feature has had tremendous feedback from early testers, including KOREC customers, who report that it is exceptionally bright making it ideal for internal buildings, tunnels, mines and construction sites.

Improved camera system

The SX12 now offers an 8.1 MP resolution camera (compared to the SX10’s 5 MP) and a 107x zoom (compared to the SX10’s 84x). This means clearer, more detailed pictures of far away objects resulting in improved aiming, more vivid colours and of course, less image noise in low-light situations.

The SX12 retains all the other stand out features of the SX10 and that includes ease of use, a short learning curve and versatility which means it could easily become the hardest working instrument on your fleet.

To celebrate the release of the SX12, we’re running a little promotion to allow a lucky winner of our prize draw to meet the new kid on the block before anyone else! Just follow the link here to enter your contact details and you could benefit from a week’s FREE hire of the SX12 and get your hands on it before anyone else!

Closing date – 19th March 2021.

info@korecgroup.com

Call UK Sales: 0345 603 1214

Call Ireland Sales: 01 456 4702

For anything else, view our contact page.

Setting out is a laborious, time-consuming yet vital stage of the construction process.

With our February trade-up offer, you can ensure you have the most robust, most productive and most cost-effect setting out workflow available.

To make things better, we’ll give you £4000 / €4500 to upgrade your old survey kit for a brand-new, setting out solution built for the digital construction site.

For more details of this limited time setting out offer, download our handy 1-page PDF.

Prefer to speak to an expert? Get in touch via our Contact page.

Find Out More

Total Station. It’s not likely to be the most exciting piece of kit in your toolbox – but as these happy customers attest, your Trimble total station might just be your most faithful survey sidekick.

The name may not set your pulse racing, but when everything else seems so uncertain at the moment, isn’t it reassuring to just have a piece of kit that performs, day in, day out, in all weathers?

“We’ve put our Trimble S7 through a lot, from surveying to scanning to setting out, and it’s always lived up to our expectations even in torrential rain, to put things into a better perspective, we would be broken by the cold and rain but the S7 would still be going!”

Ionut Pascuta, Civil Engineer, Lay of Land

Lay of Land put their Trimble total station to the test on a daily basis, in all weathers

The Reliability you Need – projects large & small

“Our Trimble S5 is used for surveying and setting out on both small and large scale projects. It has yet to let us down yet even in the unpredictable Irish weather”

Gary O’Hare, Mourne Air Surveys

“Robust, reliable and consistent, hail or shine, our Trimble S8 brings the reliability we need for reducing risk for our clients on complex engineering projects”

John McGoey, CEO, ECC Group

Total Security with Locate 2 Protect

As well as delivering robust & reliable performance on the daily, all Trimble S-Series total stations are available with Locate to Protect (L2P) tracking technology – so in the worst case scenario, if your kit is lost or stolen, you can track and locate it, in real time, to aid a speedy recovery – sometimes as fast as 30 minutes.

PBH Surveys utilise their S-Series in all weathers – day & night!

And this month, we’re including L2P cover, alongside a ream of other benefits, for 3 years, when you buy your own Trimble total station from us.

That’s 3 years peace of mind, including no calibration fees, no repair or update costs*, no support costs, and 5% off total station hire costs if you need a replacement unit – until 2023.

We call it, the Peace of Mind package.

Find out More

Give us a call;

UK 0345 603 1214

Ireland +353 (0) 1 456 4702

or download our PDF with the offer details?

Download the Offer

*refers to non-damage related repairs

With another lockdown upon us, political uncertainty at home and abroad and winter fast approaching there are many aspects of the future over which we have little or no control…and we’ve certainly not been short of media advice on how to deal with the unexpected gracefully – keep calm, be patient, develop acceptance, adapt to the new conditions.

These are wise words indeed, but here at KOREC we’d like to offer something a little more concrete.

When you buy any Trimble S-Series Total Station (S5, S7 or S9) before the end of November, we will give you a 3 Year KOREC Total Care Package (KTCP) FREE. In short, peace of mind for 3 years with your Trimble S-Series instrument.

Our free KTCP package includes 6 key benefits:

  1. Annual Calibration on unit for 3 years.

For those that collect the data and those that use the data, it’s vital that 100% confidence exists in the quality of all information collected. Regular calibration checks not only ensure that instrument error – a possible source of inaccuracy – is avoided but can also prolong the life of your instrument by flagging up any maintenance issues. The Survey Association has an excellent Briefing Note on calibration that you can read here.

 

  1. FREE Non-Damage related repairs.

Our KOREC service technicians are fully trained to the highest standards, offering you complete confidence and peace of mind that your kit is in the best hands.

We have two service & support centres – located in Huntingdon (UK) and Dublin (Ireland). Both of these sites are Trimble certified, holding Service Level 3 – the highest level of certification available for a Trimble dealer.

 

  1. L2P (Locate to Protect) included

There’s nothing we like more than hearing about technology delivering exactly what it’s designed for, and that’s why we’ve heard many times over that Trimble’s L2P tracking and AllTrak software has provided KOREC customers with the means to track and recover stolen survey instruments. A recovered instrument reduces insurance claims and site down time as well as enabling our industry to track and prosecute thieves. Read just one example of how L2P has done just that here.

  1. Software and Firmware updates for Trimble Access and Robotic for 3 years

Updates contain important changes that enable your on-board and office software to run with stability and maximum efficiency. The KOREC Total Care Package ensures that you will have free access to all related software and firmware updates for 3 years along with clear instructions on where to find them and how to install them.

 

  1. 5% off a hire replacement unit

If site damage does occur to your S-Series Total Station, then we will offer a 5% discount on a hire replacement to keep you productive in the field whilst your own instrument is being turned around in our workshop.

 

  1. Dedicated specialist technical phone support

A fast solution to your problems when you are under pressure or working within tight time scales on site is something all our KOREC customers tell us they value highly. Trimble and KOREC trained, our technical support team has a high level of specialised knowledge on S-Series instruments and software enabling them to solve problems quickly, often on a single call.

Find out more about why the Trimble S-Series is rated so highly, visit our Total Station page.

Furloughs. Lockdowns. Travel Restrictions. We’re well aware that 2020 has been rather…unpredictable.

And while your business doesn’t like uncertainty, we also know that in order to remain competitive and productive, you want access to the best survey equipment there is.

That’s why we decided to build a total station package that gives you reassurance and certainly for the coming years, whilst providing you with the most reliable & rugged total stations on the market today.

We call it, the Total Peace of Mind package.

What’s the deal?

Here’s our offer;

Purchase any of the Trimble S-Series total stations (that’s the S5, S7, or S9) before the end of November, and we’ll give you a 3-year subscription to the KOREC Total Care Package, at no extra cost.

KOREC Total Care Package

All included, for 3 years.

Just a little something from us, to make the future a little less uncertain.

To find out more, why not Contact Us today?

Or find out more about the kit, by visiting our Total Station page.

How would you like to complete five times the amount of work, with just 1 operative?

More construction contractors are realising the value of visual setting out with robotic total stations. They’re seeing firsthand the gains in speed, efficiency, and accuracy. These benefits translate to reductions in rework, schedule delays, and other costly problems, all of which contribute to a robotic total station’s ability to pay for itself many times over.

What is Visual Setting Out?

But not all robotic total stations are made the same. While prism pole layout is the norm, some robotic total stations also offer a laser pointer. Using a laser is referred to as visual setting out, and it works especially well in structures and buildings that are already erected. When you use a robotic total station that allows you to do both prism pole layout and visual layout, you get the ultimate in flexibility and versatility. Here are five reasons to take a closer look at visual setting out.

Reason 1 – SPEED

When conditions permit the use of a laser, you’re able to speed up the setting out process considerably. You can turn on the laser and stand back as it automatically points and measures, reducing the time needed to position and locate the prism pole. Integrated software in the robotic total station, like Trimble FieldLink, guides you to each point and allows you to switch between surfaces, such as from the floor to the ceiling. You can eliminate extra steps, which cuts the time needed to complete set out significantly, while also gaining greater precision. 

Reason 2 – ACCURACY

To get an accurate measurement with a prism pole, the pole needs to be perfectly plumb. Even a slight misplacement could produce a measurement that’s a few cm off. This type of human error is difficult to avoid when you’re relying on manual processes. But when you rely on Trimble’s patented visual set out technology to let the robotic total station do the adjustments and calculations for you, you can achieve much greater accuracy.

The precision of visual set out is especially beneficial for MEP contractors. Pipes and floor drains, for example, have to be accurately placed to drain correctly and pass inspection. Electrical work, HVAC, and sprinkler systems have to be placed accurately at the right elevations to clear other systems and avoid clashes. With the accuracy the laser provides, you can have greater confidence that your work will be set out and installed correctly.

Reason 3 – EFFICIENCY + REDUCTION OF PERSONNEL

Manual setting out is a time-consuming process that can take weeks or longer depending on the size of the project. It also requires that you have enough pros available to complete the work—a challenge given the construction skills shortage. With a robotic total station, though, only a single operative is needed to operate the instrument, whether using the prism pole or the laser. And because of the automated capabilities of the laser, fewer steps are needed to set out points, which significantly reduces the amount of time needed.

In fact, in many cases, you can complete 5 times the amount of work with one person. You’re able to deploy the setting out resources you have more efficiently and across more projects.

Reason 4 – SAFETY

Busy jobsites tend to be full of potential hazards, and performing set out in the midst of these hazards can be risky. With the visual setting component of a robotic total station, you can shoot the laser over 100 meters, which means you don’t have to physically make your way across the jobsite to measure a location. You’re able to avoid trip hazards or other potentially dangerous areas. You can also reduce the use of ladders, which pose one of the greatest safety risks to construction workers. 

Reason 5 – COST & ACCOUNTABILITY

Because you can perform setting out more quickly with the laser, you’re more likely to meet the project schedule. And any time you can stay on schedule, you’re improving your likelihood of staying on budget. In addition to performing set out, a robotic total station also allows you to create a record of work performed. Should you receive an RFI or have to resolve a dispute over charges, you can reference this documentation to show what you did and why. This same feature lets you quality check your work as you go so you can identify and resolve problems before they turn into profit-robbing rework. 

See our full range of Robotic Total Stations for Construction, and other BIM tools.