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Another Survey BUST by our PLS company
Posted by jmason702 on March 15, 2024 at 1:58 pm170003 was the point of original control along with two others that are not in line of site. The survey company came out and set secondary control close to the site. 4 points. There was a bust of 0.15′ on the secondary control Horizontal that I called them out on. If you remember my first post. Now we have an elevation bust in the hole, the surveyors said I was shooting in the wrong elevations and the site was too high by 0.14′
So, after being told I was wrong etc… I sat on 170003 and backsighted secondary control point 70048 and the error was 0.067′ horizontal and -0.139′ vertical. from original control to secondary control. So they did not carry over (shoot over) or take into consideration the original control. they just used RTK and blow and go. and the supervisor believed them and started shaving the site down without consulting me whatsoever. please see the attached sketch
Norman_Oklahoma replied 1 month, 2 weeks ago 6 Members · 11 Replies- 11 Replies
I have several questions. 100,000 yards removed? At whose expense? When you presented your findings, what was the result?
It seems to me that the site being 0.15′ higher would not be a huge issue, it could be a problem if it was lower, depending on the circumstance and drainage issues, that could be an issue. The cost of importing and grading 100,000 yards, and then removing it, makes absolutely no sense at all when only minor regrading could easily be accomplished for an extremely lower cost.
I got burned one time on a major roadway complete reconstruction plan where the town engineer, also the design engineer, gave me the control from their survey department. Before even starting the layout, I had my crew run between the control points given to me and they were pretty much balls on, so I rolled with them, laid out centerline grades, curbing (based on the cross-section details given to me) and laid out about 2,000 LF of curbing, all being constructed with an Inspector of site. Everything was going fine until one day, the Inspector went on vacation and another filled in and played surveyor, he found that the top of constructed curb was 0.2′ higher than the sidewalk, and everything hit the fan. Let the blame game begin!
While the cause of the problem proved to be their engineers lowering their surveyors elevations by 0.25′, for unknown reasons, they did not include their surveyor in that to make the appropriate control point elevations adjustment. The engineer and town ordered that the curb be removed and reconstructed and the legal game kicked in. I ended up being able to prove my work was in accordance with the information given to me by the town engineer but the contractor still had to battle the town for a significant amount of money.
Moral of the story (for me), If I don’t do the job from cradle to final acceptance, or, being paid to recreate the base H & V, I’ll take a hard pass and let the next poor guy fight the battle.
The problem is, I am being blamed for the 0.14′ BUST and shaving they did.
But, I have all the evidence there is to bust the fact that I am not wrong
While the cause of the problem proved to be their engineers lowering
their surveyors elevations by 0.25′, for unknown reasons, they did not
include their surveyor in that to make the appropriate control point
elevations adjustment.So what you’re saying is you would have caught this immediately if you had checked into some existing hardscape, fire hydrant, etc? 😏
Sorry to the OP, I don’t have any suggestions for your problem. 😎
100,000 yards was the contract plan, remove ad build
The biggest issue here is that the supervisor just believed the PLS, and said I was wrong, he didn’t know the difference between a total station and GNSS/GPS. Has zero clue on layout or state plane coords
The mere fact that control points are being numbered 170003 & 70048 suggests something to me. I’m smelling a shortage of proper professional supervision.
What’s the point here?
Last thread, we went round and round because you said you “weren’t a PLS” and (commendably) admitting that you weren’t up to speed on several key aspects of surveying. In the end it appeared that there was indeed a problem due to lack of oversight on the part of the contracted surveyor.
It looks like there are additional issues. Which is no surprise given the information shared in the other thread. But it’s always going to be an uphill battle if you can’t explain exactly what the problem is.
“The newly set control does not check within tolerance. Here are the results of my checks, along with the raw data: xxxxx….” is all you need to say. Make ’em fix it or fire ’em.
But doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different results…well we all know what that is.
“…people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” -Neil PostmanIt could be far worse.
Some joker called me one day to report he was doing topo work on a site that I had worked on a few years prior. He pompously told me that my elevations were off by some screwy number near three feet. I suggested he check with the City and the State DOT because my numbers agreed very tight with their benchmarks. This was not a 27 to 88 adjustment as that delta was on the order of 0.43 feet not three feet.
He kept telling me I didn’t know what I was doing. I eventually hung up. Somehow, the project got built correctly.
It seems to me that there is some shared culpability here. The PLS may not have propagated the control in a manner consistent with the needs of the project, and the OP didn’t perform some simple checks before proceeding. Assuming that the blanks fill in the way I imagine they would, I’d put it about 75% on the PLS and 25% on the OP.
- This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Norman_Oklahoma.
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