Activity Feed › Discussion Forums › Strictly Surveying › Today’s Pincushion…
I find the virtual pincushion just as despicable. I have a couple of clients in Atlanta that for whatever reason want me to do their ALTA work. As bad as I hate the drive from Athens, the client always pays and doesn??t complain at my price.
I often find the survey of record showing the ??true corner? being .07 north and .03 west of 5/8 RR found. What the hell?
We don??t see that nonsense where I work day to day.
I had a recent one we tried to retrace that 5 of the 7 corners had a similar description.
Thankfully the deal fell through before we had to draw the plat with our conclusions.
I think that is much more preferable, especially when you sign a survey saying it represents your measurements. For example:
I, _______, a professional land surveyor registered in the state of Alaska, do hereby certify this plat to be a true and correct representation of lands actually surveyed by me or under my direct supervision, according to the standards of FNSBC Title 17, Subdivisions, and the distances and bearings are shown correctly and that all monuments required have been set.
How do you sign that without reporting your true measurements?
Note: In Alaska any boundary change is a subdivision.
Sooo, they held the 5/8 or they set a pin?
I still don’t understand. I’m assuming this mathematical point is the record. Did they accept the 5/8 as the corner or not?
Well hopefully you have some redundancy.
A “true” measurement isn’t absolute. It is your honest best estimate. Reporting anything else as measured is a little dishonest. But more importantly, reporting a number you didn’t measure doesn’t provide any benefit to anyone. It is our job to educate any one who is worried about the descrepency.
I don’t understand the habit many have of reporting their distances to the nearest 1/100th. Except in extremely rare cases, no one cares about a few hundredths in a boundary, and very few of us routinely measure precisely enough to justify that many significant digits. I only report hundredths when I am forced to by regulation, and then I include a note explaining that those measurments are not an indication of the precision of the survey.
I see. Yet they chose not to monument this “true” corner. If I paid for this worthless survey I’d be mad.
>I don’t understand the habit many have of reporting their distances to the nearest 1/100th. Except in extremely rare cases, no one cares about a few hundredths in a boundary,
You should be able to repeat a measurement to very few hundredths on lot surveys. Why not report what you measured?
Where’s Kent McMillimeter when you need him? ????
.When I have surveyed a property, many times I will find that my numbers are within the tolerance of error for the location which would not be enough to report that they have been previously reported wrong.
While it is correct in stating that everyone will have different numbers than the other surveyor is factual, is it enough to change what is of record.
When I come up with an additional 0.05ft different today, would a new survey in the next 10yrs could give me 0.05ft less.
These minor differences do not affect anything on most boundary surveys unless that 0.05ft is worth major money or is inside a city, metro area or place that it is expected to be as exact as possible.
That location would require a higher order of surveying to be expected in the surveyor’s reporting.
0.02
Generally, positional tolerance can be between 1:5,000 in remote and very rural areas and 1:100,000 in metro areas or more depending upon the location of the property.
One would need to factor in the material the monument was set in and what is happening to that site as in equipment that runs over or around it and other things that may alter its location and if I had to rehabilitate (straighten the rod pipe or simply stand it up straight again and that the difference could be at a point somewhere within 0.05ft between the monuments.
Trivial variations in measurement are less of a concern than the marks left on the ground. I am in the ‘report what I measured’ camp, but take no issue with those who use record when they deem it appropriate.
The more important part of the record is the pedigree and condition of the monuments. Landowners, fence builders and foundation crews won’t care when a 100′ line is shown as 100.04′ on a aurvey. They want marks for a stringline.
Some title companies and assessors get wrapped around the axle over insignificant differences on surveys, but the ones that do are looking for a reason to complain anyway.
Great stuff, well written. Thanks for posting it. I should point out that the decision was not unanimous. There was a dissenting opinion.
- Posted by: @andrew-clark
Three surveyor’s with good reputations. One is a notorious pincushioner…
Notorius pincushioners have good reputations in your area?
@mark-mayer
I had forgotten about that. Blakeman had been paid for the strip on his east then claimed to the established boundary on his west. Young contends that Blakeman is estopped from claiming to the established line on his west and the dissent agrees. Justice Shaw explains his opinion against this contention in the majority opinion.
i found the San Francisco County Surveyor’s map on-line at one point (the case is near Union Square).
Saying you measured 0.05′ different is not saying the previous surveyor os wrong though, and that’s were we need to educate the users of our products. A good way to often avoid this is to report distances to the nearest 0.1′ and angles to the nearest 10″.
I think the importance of our measurments are overrated. We should decouple the expert measurer and professional boundary expert.
I don’t like the way you do it, but I don’t think it causes any harm, so I think we can happily disagree on this.
http://bsm.sfdpw.org/subdmap/subd/Block%20Diagrams/0/0310a.TIF
The 20′ vacant lot is Young.
The 19’4-3/4″ lot with 3 story brick building is Blakeman.
RE: courts opinion…the corner is a physical location not a theoretical measurement. That’s my opinion also. That’s the rub in surveying. theoretical measurement vs physical location.
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