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Architect wanting to gather and stake own information
vectormechanic replied 1 year, 9 months ago 20 Members · 30 Replies
No, this wasn’t about a legal surveying principle, this was about setting a building that violated the HOA restrictions.
Point being that it’s one thing to get some building plans together, it’s another thing to put them on the ground from the plan set.
There is no rule/law stopping a builder or owner from doing it all themselves.
And I don’t think there should be, but if you’re asking questions how it all works,,,,,,,,,,,,,,maybe you need more help than a chat room can give.
thanks for the feedback, I figured it was something like that, and I always tell people when I’m laying out the points, I am only here for your attorneys’ grace in the event I screw it up.
????
I know several contractors who have or are adjusting their toolsets to include being able to gather and set this kind of info on the fly. On your own, without a solid understanding of land surveying processes and procedures, even if you have an ability to avoid the potential legal consequences, I would recommend on every site you want to have this access, that you have a licensed surveyor set your “control” or “baseline”. This will typically be several points on the ground (monumented) and given to you in CAD or as a text file, on a coordinate system (standard or locally generated) that have tight correlation to the configuration of the legal boundary of the property. It sounds like for your work you’d also want vertical control, where one or more of those points have been given a standard or locally generated site elevation (benchmark).
Once you have that one time on any sized site, gathering and setting stuff with a total station or GPS is pretty straightforward and can save you time and money (not having to call them out again) and, better, give you more flexibility and control over your design even as it develops. As you move about you can easily use this set control to generate new control points for your use throughout the site.
As others have said, a very accurate robotic total station (need line of site between points and takes a little longer to set up) in good used condition is around $15K plus rods, prisms n such. A ‘pretty accurate’ or ‘usually-plenty-good-enough-for-that-kind-of-thing” GPS system (depending on your access to CORS/VRS) in good used condition will be $8-$10K (no base station) / $20K+/- (with base station).
But I would definitely always have a PLS set your control for every site. In time, that will probably save you from any # of very expensive build errors. I do see contractors cutting that corner and usually getting away with it, but when it goes south, it goes south hard.
ddI think it sure says a lot about how we’ve become kinder and gentler…. I can imagine how a post like this would have been shredded in years past. Maybe it’s because we are all so dang busy, we wouldn’t mind someone helping out, no matter how potentially short sighted.
Perhaps I have a few loose screws but I think it’s f’ing fantastic that a professional from another discipline is interested in the profession. When it comes to building construction, the more you know the better you are at it. This applies to Architects, Structural Engineers, Surveyors, and pretty much everything else. The catch is that few are neither smart enough nor have the capacity to learn everything. It really becomes a team effort.
Same as mentioned with CA, here in Canada (and in every province I’ve ever been), we don’t require a professional surveyor to lay out an actual building. We’ll start with the benchmarks created by a professional surveyor. A professional surveyor will sometimes come to check/verify locations. Sometimes they do such to “land surveying” tolerances which leads to a lot of disputes. I think that you’d only have full time “professional” surveyors on a larger civil project. Construction Layout and Land/Civil Surveying share similar principles/techniques/equipment, but they end up being quite a bit different. Anyone jumping from one to the other without adjusting the way they do things will fail. And therefore, I think it’s common practice NOT to have a professional land surveyor do construction layout. I’m certain many are good at both but they are different jobs really.
We are currently working on a project where the architect didn’t understand how to set out a building nor bridge the gap between the benchmarks and the building itself. An architect whom understood even just the basic fundamentals of surveying would have been worth their weight in gold.
I personally think that there is plenty of potential value for an architect to learn about surveying. Especially if they go on to work in construction management or start their own small architecture firm.
@keithscadservices I’m all for cross-training, and an architect that’s interested in the survey world is a rare bird, indeed.
- Posted by: @keithscadservices
… here in Canada we don’t require a professional surveyor to lay out an actual building.
That is largely true in the US as well. Any contractor can place his formwork without the benefit of an LS, and they often do. But he cannot certify to the location of said forms relative to the property boundaries. So… like in the old Fram commercials … you can pay me now, or pay me later.
- Posted by: @tylertmoore
but is there a base set of equipment and processes for this?
Yes, many.
Posted by: @tylertmooreWhat are the terms and processes I should start learning?
Many of them as well.
Posted by: @tylertmooreWhat type of equipment will get me where I am going?
A lot of them, some will be cheaper, others will be expensive, sometimes for us surveyors it takes a while to come up with the right package/formula for equipment/specific job ratio. You can find used equipment and data collectors and play with those in the field, given you know some basic field survey procedures to set up your equipment. You can also play with the stakeout functions of the data collector to see how data points are stakeout in the field (though I believe point staking is an art by itself due to the many different ways and tools used to ‘present’ a stakeout point…).
Now for the long answer: I agree with what has been suggested, either consider taking a technical course in field surveying process at a local learning institution, or consider visiting the job sites when the surveyors are present. You can learn a lot watching them and occasionally asking questions about the process and equipment. If I were an Architect, I wouldn’t mind being the rodman for a day or two and the instrument man for a week or so, as you’ll learn a lot hands on by doing this and appreciate the hard work it takes to perform field surveying.
Next, when it comes to data processing, data adjustment, dissemination and CAD processes to come up with a DTM file, it involves (duh) a lot of knowledge, both for field and office procedures as well as software knowledge and procedures. All with different degrees of learning curves to ultimately come up with a CAD file certifying that is in tolerance to the objective of the project (nothing is absolutely error free, not even by the most experienced licensed surveyor) so it can be THEN used for design purposes. I believe with this part, it will take you quite a while to fully grasp and employ the processes (months, years?). Many people dedicate their lifetime to these tasks and even so are prone to make errors, costly errors, as in lawyers involved. This is the part where I think your question is open-ended and would be the equivalent of me asking if you in a public forum if you can teach me how to practice Architecture so as to use it on my design surveys.
But without going on a tangent, field wise, I believe you should tag along with the surveyor on the site, learn as much as you can, and finally give out clear instructions of what you want for your design needs. Office wise, I suggest you join a surveying firm and work there for a while before going solo to collect basic field points and data processing to have a good CAD file for design. Otherwise you’ll incur in a lot of time, budget and errors to get a working survey CAD file for design purposes.
The first thing that comes to my mind is utilizing swing ties. Your project will already have control set since you say you are planning to supplement survey info rather than replace it, so there will be several points on your project with known coordinates. These could be project control, topo features, or stakes already set by your survey contractor. Now just take a 150?? tape measure and measure and record the distances from two points with known coordinates to the point you are trying to record. In Revit you then draw circles around the known points with radii equal to the recorded distances. Those circles will intersect at two locations, and context will tell you which location is the correct position of your target point. Or, a measurement to a third known point will exclude the wrong one. If you want to stake out something from Revit, just reverse the process.
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