Activity Feed › Discussion Forums › Strictly Surveying › breaking down sections over and over
-
breaking down sections over and over
Posted by Norm on November 9, 2021 at 9:55 pmThe survey named first survey is 30 + years old. The survey named sec 10 is 5 years old and is for a new parcel below the first survey. The first survey found a monument on the section line and noted an bearing break in the section line at that point. The 5 year old survey uses the same W 1/4 and NW cor but bypasses the angle putting the W line of the first survey in section 9. Also I find it odd that the 5 year old survey notes the fence corner post at the SW corner of the survey as the aliquot corner but bypasses it with the section line from the “calculated” SW cor to the W quarter corner. Have we lost our way?
Norm replied 2 years, 9 months ago 14 Members · 33 Replies -
33 Replies
-
We have plenty of spikes in the top of corner posts. However, those are reference nails to tie back to the true corner that is probably a 1/2″ iron bar or larger, possibly with a surveyor’s cap on it. Found one like that yesterday in a road fence (curving road) but the true east quarter corner monument is 67.0 feet further west on the west side of a creek.
-
Around here the older reference points I see are crossed nails on the side of a post, and newer ones are shiner disks. I haven’t seen any nails in the top of posts. Of course I haven’t seen a lot of corners by the count of professional standards.
. -
Those providing corner ties for PLSS corners or any other kind of corner where long term security of perpetuating the corner monument use a little bit of everything as references in my corner of the world. Any number from two to ten items may be identified for a single corner. Some are more likely than others to be lost. For example, the distance to a “+” chiseled into the surface of a concrete box culvert seems like a long term reference point, and frequently is, but, if in poor condition, it may be ripped out within the next few months and replaced with something different or similar. The top/center of a telephone pedestal or box may disappear next week or be there, slightly leaning in some direction, for many years. The southeast corner of a house foundation may be obliterated by an addition onto the house.
-
Posted by: @holy-cow
The southeast corner of a house foundation may be obliterated by an addition onto the house.
Yup. It was the SW corner in one case I saw.
I was out looking for a bench mark once when I saw a crew scratching their heads about the location of a quarter corner that should have been marked in the middle of the pavement. They had taped ties from a corner post and the SW corner of a house, and the intersection didn’t lead to any evidence.
After some scratching around, one asked if that looked like an addition on the house. Taping from another place on the house got them to the desired point.
. -
The new survey sure is confusing. It looks like it is accepting the “spike nail” as the 1/64th corner. If so by definition it’s on the section line, but then why show a different section line? Especially one that is calculated. What use is that information besides confusion?
Is the point the survey is trying to communicate that the corner of the parcel by local acceptance and use is not the true 1/64th corner? This is extremely common, but it’s ridiculous to make this claim based on a calculated line, and the corner should be labeled to recognize that fact so others don’t use it to establish the section line or other aliqout divisions.
Whatever the story is here some more care and/or education is called for.
-
@aliquot Those comments are mostly what I’m thinking as well. The new survey is indicating that the section line can only have a bearing break at the quarter corner. At the same time the new survey is retracing the established property lines whose deeds and plats indicate those lines as section lines. It is an example of the public calamity Justice Cooley warned of re. visitation of the surveyor. As for the need for education I wonder. Some of the continuing education speakers we have had for the past 50 years promote theories such as improper location which is a driving force behind independent resurveys of interior and exterior section lines. This is the result.
-
After the semi chaos of the Eastern seaboard the founders thought, SQUARES, how could we possibly screw that up?
We donƒ??t even need to survey all the Patents, save money and time!
Almost any half horrible surveyor canƒ??t possibly screw up squares, right?
nyuk nyuk nyuk
-
The office of the description is to help find the monuments. Does either map fail in that regard?
-
Where have you been hiding out lately, Bub? Good to see you posting, but not nearly enough.
-
Posted by: @holy-cow
Where have you been hiding out lately, Bub? Good to see you posting, but not nearly enough.
I’ve been on the road a lot commuting between work and school. Trying to get set up in Klamath Falls for the ten year plan. Thinking about applying for licenses in Oregon and California. Designed an RV park. Bought a ’72 Winnebago barn find with an industrial 413 and some kind of Spicer truck transmission yet to be identified. Might winter it in the Winnebago. Working on a volunteer project retracing an old cemetery and just figured out they probably slope chained everything radially from one or two points. The shortages on the ground point back to the places they chained from. Ideally we could calculate all the remaining pin locations from the slope distances and dig them up with minimal turf disturbance.
This week has been taken up with calculating a 1990s short plat with all non-tangent curves.
-
Here are the descriptions. You decide. General location data has been removed as that is irrelevant to the thread. The new description identifies the ancient fence as the section line and the fence corner as the aliquot corner so I have no idea what the plat is attempting to show in bypassing it. The inset on the plat shows the west property line of the old survey in section 9. Neither description does.
-
@norm he says he found a spike in top of a fence post which is the corner of an aliquot which by definition is on the section line but his version of the true section line goes to a point calculated from some DOT information. North of the quarter corner he stretches a straight line to the section corner. So Carr goes to the monumented line but this survey holds back to the straight line.
The California Court said in the last decade that 19th century lines are not necessarily perfectly straight and to use whatever evidence is available to locate the line, meaning prior but not original surveys.
-
We know lots of courts all over have said similar things and yet it still seems to fall on deaf ears. This was Survey 101 for rules of retracement the way I was taught. I will give the new survey credit for retracing the established lines but not for showing calculated original section lines AND established section lines where there has to be one. This very similar to showing new section breakdown along with occupation except the survey uses the occupation as the boundary.
-
The purpose of a survey is to locate the boundaries and provide enough information to support that decision to provide certainty and stability to all interested parties.
-
@dave-karoly I am happy to be a colonial surveyor. you all out west make it too complicated. Give me calls for abutters over sections any day of the week.
-
I shake my head when I see things like this. I don’t think “we” have lost our way, but many of the either uneducated surveyors or sometimes newer surveyors have not been mentored enough or take the time to research legal principles and court decisions prior to “doing their own thing”. Place that stamp on it, particularly if you record the survey, and your decisions become out in the open permanently, and can start the “trail of chaos” in a section or township. And licensure is in place to protect the public, not damage the property fabric and create conflict for landowners by actions of the licensee where conflict does not actually exist.
-
Sectionalized lands, and the surveying there of, is actually pretty basic, as long as you are surveying and following the footsteps of the original surveyors, not being an expert measurer that disregards the history of the original survey. I was once told that an original corner wasn’t acceptable because the lines it was tied to were 4.5′ short of the platted dimensions. The surveyor that told me that had no clue what the allowable tolerances were when the original survey was commissioned. That surveyor hadn’t bothered to get a copy of the field notes, or even the GLO Plat, he just assumed the lines were 80 chains.
Jumping off of my soap box now….
Log in to reply.