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You can’t build on undeveloped land without preparing it for construction, which involves running utilities to the site or accounting for private utilities like wells and septic systems and grading and compacting the soil for safe construction. Once you prepare the land, you can build on it as long as the project abides by local zoning regulations.

A land survey includes the layout of a single property, including precise measurements and to-scale drawings of boundary lines, land improvements, and sometimes other features, like topography and drainage information. A plat map includes the layouts and boundary lines of several adjacent plots and basic structure measurements. Surveys are normally more valuable for homeowners and buyers, and plat maps are for governmental use.

If you’re planning to dig on your property, you’ll need to check for underground utility lines. Call the national call-before-you-dig 811 number. Once connected to an operator, you can schedule a site visit to mark underground lines. This way, you won’t accidentally dig into pipes and can cause major (read: costly) issues.

The small lines on the tape measure either indicate inches, fractions of an inch, or centimeters and millimeters. On the imperial unit side (aka the inches side), the longest lines indicate inches, followed by the next shortest lines that indicate a half-inch, and then the quarter, eighth, and sixteenth-inch. On the metric side, the lines break down meters, centimeters, and millimeters.