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Photo guide

Photos we can draw from

We draw your house from your photos and a few tape measurements, so the photos need to be taken straight on, with a tape measure in the picture. It takes about half an hour with a phone and a 5 m tape. You don't need a ladder, and please don't climb anything.

  1. 1 · Front, straight on

    From across the road, opposite the middle of the house

    • Stand on the pavement opposite, facing the house square on. Don't stand in the road.
    • Get the whole front in: ground, roof and chimney, with a little sky and pavement around it.
    • Hold the phone upright and level, at chest height. Don't tilt it up to fit the roof in; step back instead.
    • Use the normal 1× camera, not wide-angle (0.5×) or zoom.
    • Take one in landscape and one in portrait. Daylight without hard shadows is best.

  2. 2 · A tape measure on the wall

    The same front photo, with a tape measure stretched along the wall

    • Hold or tape the tape measure flat against the front wall at about waist height, hooked on the corner of the house. Stretch it as far as it goes along the wall.
    • Go back across the road and take the straight-on photo again with the tape in it. If you can, take a close-up of the tape as well, so the numbers can be read.
    • Then measure the full width of the front wall, corner to corner (or corner to the middle of the shared wall if your house is a semi or terrace), and write it down.
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    3 · One window, taped

    The width and height of one front window, measured and photographed

    • Pick a ground-floor front window you can reach safely.
    • Measure its width and its height across the outside of the frame, and photograph the tape held across it each time.
    • Also measure the front door (frame width and height) and how high the window sill is above the ground.
    • We use these known sizes to check the scale of every other part of the photo.

  4. 4 · Sides and rear

    Each side you can get to, then the back

    • Photograph each side wall straight on, standing as far back as you can. A narrow side passage is fine: take two or three overlapping photos along it.
    • Photograph the back of the house straight on from the garden, including the roof.
    • Measure the depth of the house along one side wall if you can reach it, and the gap to the boundary or the next house.

  5. 5 · Inside, roof and floorplan

    The rooms that will change, and your floorplan if you have one

    • Photograph each room that will change, from a corner, and measure its length and width.
    • For a loft conversion: photos of the loft space from the hatch, and the height from the loft floor joists to the underside of the ridge if you can reach it safely.
    • If you have the floorplan from when you bought the house (from the estate agent's listing or sale brochure), send it. It saves you measuring every room.

Before you send

Check that each front, side and rear photo is straight on and shows the whole wall from the ground to the roof, and that the tape measure can be seen in at least one front photo. If something can't be reached, tell us; we'll work with what you have, and if we can't draw it accurately we'll say so before we start.

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