I just joined this forum to ask one question.?ÿ I am under contract to purchase a 10 acre tract of land in TN.?ÿ The property does not have any clear indication as to where to property lines are.?ÿ I have a copy of a survey that was done about 5 years ago and it indicates that all the corners have been set with rebar and a cap.?ÿ Professional survey crews in my area are booked out for 6 months right now, so if I am going to verify where my property line is, I am going to have to do it myself.?ÿ I have never really looked at a survey before, but being a computer network engineer, it wasn't very difficult for me to get the just of all the data.?ÿ I quickly figured out the format of the headings with degrees, minutes, and seconds, and of course the distances.?ÿ The problem is that all of the bearings and headings originate off of what is referred to on the survey as a steel post.?ÿ Below the words "steel post" are numbers, what I assume is some sort of gps coordinates but for the life of me I cannot figure out what the numbers mean.?ÿ I have researched online and discovered that there are a great number of gps delineating systems, but when I plug these numbers in they are nowhere near my property.?ÿ Someone please help me.?ÿ Attached is a snip of that "steel post" annotation on the survey.
Those look like State Plane Coordinates, although I haven't checked that interpretation.
I would think you would be better off ignoring those coordinates and working from the features like what appears to be a road or driveway.
If you are using a compass, be aware that it points to magnetic north, and the survey could use a number of different reference orientations, such as SPC grid, geodetic, older magnetic (it drifts over decades), or assumed to match one line to an older abutting survey. So you may need to add or subtract some constant to adjust the survey bearings to compass readings.
Using Tennessee State Plane Coordinates (Zone 4100), US Survey Feet I get N 35?ø 25' 33.71" W 84?ø 55' 17.23" and I would assume that is some realization of NAD83.?ÿ That does seem to fall near Lower River Road, Decatur, Tenn.
You probably don't have anything to read out coordinates with an accuracy better than 10's of feet, and most likely would be reading WGS84 (despite what a sports GPS unit may label it) which is 3 or 4 ft different than NAD83, so those values won't do much more than get you within sight of the post if it is still there.
Those are probably State Plane Coordinates for Tennessee.?ÿ Ignore those.?ÿ Go with the relative relationships and lengths of each line around the boundary.?ÿ Surely you can find one corner monument.?ÿ That will greatly tie down when the next should be found.?ÿ Once you have that, it gets much easier.?ÿ But, then, nothing is easy in impenetrable and vertically-challenging terrain.
?ÿI'd insist that the seller (who I assume paid for the real survey 5 years ago) provide some actual help to you in the field.?ÿ ?ÿIf they refuse to answer my questions, I would assume they didn't want me to know something.?ÿ?ÿ
Maybe all the local surveyors are busy trying to solve problems caused by people buying land without getting a survey first.?ÿ ?ÿ?ÿ
It appears that the steel post is SW of the drive to the SE from Lower River Road.?ÿ L31, L32, L33, L40, & L41 appear to be an ingressegress easement to the property being purchased.?ÿ Google Earth Street View shows heavy vegetation at the approximate location of this this steel post, so you may have to get a k-blade to cut your way to it.?ÿ
Gentlemen,?ÿ Thank you for being so generous with your knowledge and wisdom.
The property owner is a man and woman, the man of which has moved several states away for work and coincidentally has endured some injury and I have not be able to speak with him.?ÿ Naturally this raises suspicion, but I assure you I am closer to cynical than na??ve yet given the totality of information and circumstances, I do not suspect foul play, but I also cannot rule it out either, which is why I am on this forum.?ÿ My situation is further complicated by the fact that I am away for work myself, and the due diligence period is closing faster than I am able to get back and walk the property again.?ÿ I was really hoping to be able to overlay the points on this survey on Google Earth, but time is pretty much up and I am just going to have to hope that this survey is accurate and my 10 acres are there somewhere.
Nate the surveyor, I guess I was hoping that someone could interpret the numbers below "steel post" for me, but I am starting to believe that they are rather arbitrary as you pointed out.
Geoff Ashworth, the image you provided is interesting.?ÿ I am curious where your aerial imagery comes from.?ÿ It shows features that the latest Google imagery does not.?ÿ I should mention that I have an FPV drone that I put up and captured imagery with only a weeks ago.?ÿ The photo below is from my drone.
Kevin Hines, you are right about the proximity to Lower River Road, but a driveway has been installed there since that street view photo was taken.
I am attaching the whole survey and a drone shot.?ÿ For anyone curious.
Thanks again.
Note that up on the drone pic is almost perfectly NE.
I was hoping that someone could interpret the numbers below "steel post" for me, but I am starting to believe that they are rather arbitrary as you pointed out.
I tried to explain that in my posts above, and translated them to lat-lon.?ÿ What further question do you have about that?
12. BEARINGS FOR THIS SURVEY ARE BASED ON THE STATE GRID AND WAS OBTAINED USING SATELLITE OBSERVATION.
I've seen worse basis of bearing statements, I guess, but I can't remember when.?ÿ 1 monument found and 15 set. I wonder what a survey of the adjoiners property would think of all these monuments? Maybe that is what works in Meigs County, TN. Certainly I saw similar products in Oklahoma. Such a survey would get my license pulled in Oregon.?ÿ ?ÿ
Gentlemen,?ÿ Thank you for being so generous with your knowledge and wisdom.
The property owner is a man and woman, the man of which has moved several states away for work and coincidentally has endured some injury and I have not be able to speak with him.?ÿ Naturally this raises suspicion, but I assure you I am closer to cynical than na??ve yet given the totality of information and circumstances, I do not suspect foul play, but I also cannot rule it out either, which is why I am on this forum.?ÿ My situation is further complicated by the fact that I am away for work myself, and the due diligence period is closing faster than I am able to get back and walk the property again.?ÿ I was really hoping to be able to overlay the points on this survey on Google Earth, but time is pretty much up and I am just going to have to hope that this survey is accurate and my 10 acres are there somewhere.
Nate the surveyor, I guess I was hoping that someone could interpret the numbers below "steel post" for me, but I am starting to believe that they are rather arbitrary as you pointed out.
Geoff Ashworth, the image you provided is interesting.?ÿ I am curious where your aerial imagery comes from.?ÿ It shows features that the latest Google imagery does not.?ÿ I should mention that I have an FPV drone that I put up and captured imagery with only a weeks ago.?ÿ The photo below is from my drone.
Kevin Hines, you are right about the proximity to Lower River Road, but a driveway has been installed there since that street view photo was taken.
I am attaching the whole survey and a drone shot.?ÿ For anyone curious.
Thanks again.
Note that up on the drone pic is almost perfectly NE.
The bearings are relative to Tennessee State Plane grid north. The notes on the map are insufficient in my opinion. The distances are probably grid but they could be ground. State Plane systems are a map projection of the spherical earth onto a flat map. There is a difference between grid north and geodetic north plus grid distances are usually shorter than true distances over the ground.
The survey could be easily plotted in Google Earth.
