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weeping for our profession (or: observations from the other side of the curtain)
a-harris replied 7 years, 9 months ago 21 Members · 75 Replies
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Nate The Surveyor, post: 404011, member: 291 wrote: Well, CCW vs CW, as I heard it, (so this is not necessarily FULLY fact), A long time ago, there was an old HP program, that had to run CW, to give you correct acreage. It did weird thing, when run CCW. I don’t remember what. It was before my time.
But, if that’s true, then this custom is antiquated.But, I thought you might know more than me about it.
Again, don’t let em pound you down!
N
It may have to do with case law in individual states. For example, California courts have held that the P.O.B. has no more dignity than any other point in a metes and bounds description and it is valid to retrace a metes and bounds description either way. This isn’t true everywhere.
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To be considered adequate a legal description must be specifically definable on the ground. (or something like that). Lot 7 block 5 might not have dimensions following ccw or cw. I guess I understand some people who have their own rules and their own styles, but is that something you want to use to judge others? I would prefer to look @ their north-arrow and see if it’s simple or over-flamboyant. 😉
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Dave Karoly, post: 404021, member: 94 wrote: It may have to do with case law in individual states. For example, California courts have held that the P.O.B. has no more dignity than any other point in a metes and bounds description and it is valid to retrace a metes and bounds description either way. This isn’t true everywhere.
Suppose I have a description with a 10 foot bust in the last call. No matter, the call to the POB overcomes it. Then someone decides to survey it in reverse because ‘the law says I can’. The neighborhood is now in turmoil for no good reason.
The manner in which Title is created and maintained is important, up to and including the order in which things are described… -
I have heard (at least once) the CW habit may have developed from early compass and transit courses with instruments that read 0 – 360, always utilizing an angle to the right so direct reading and recording could be completed without subtracting a reading from 360. I have no idea if this is the case or not. The HP hand held calculators use to display a correct acreage, but in a negative value, if traversed CCW.
From Brown’s Boundary Control and Legal Principles 6th. Edition (5.3 Metes Descriptions, Pg. 91)
“The boundaries of metes description are created by starting a point of commencement that may or may not be on the parcel that is being described, and proceeding by a single course or courses (bearing and distance) to a point of beginning (POB) or a true point of beginning (TPOB), a point on the parcel that is being described. It proceeds, either preferably clockwise or counterclockwise, preferably clockwise, by courses, in a systematic manner encompassing a closed figure, always calling for a corner point (monumented or unmonumented) at the termination of each course and returning to the point of beginning.”
It seems as thought the Lord High Grand Poobah Walt Robillard even admits there is nothing wrong with running CCW, except for some reason he states CW is preferred. I have ran into too many cases where CCW courses provide a better description either due to a poor or adjoining call. To me the choice is a just another tool we may utilize that better describes the boundary. The concept of CW being mathematically superior to CCW is simply ludicrous. -
walt says that on paper. what i’ve heard directly out of his mouth on more than one occasion is something different. CCW descriptions, as far as he’s concerned, are of roughly equivalent value to toilet paper.
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flyin solo, post: 404033, member: 8089 wrote: walt says that on paper. what i’ve heard directly out of his mouth on more than one occasion is something different. CCW descriptions, as far as he’s concerned, are of roughly equivalent value to toilet paper.
We all know what comes out of Walt’s mouth….
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paden cash, post: 404028, member: 20 wrote: I have heard (at least once) the CW habit may have developed from early compass and transit courses with instruments that read 0 – 360, always utilizing an angle to the right so direct reading and recording could be completed without subtracting a reading from 360. I have no idea if this is the case or not.
If you turned angles around a polygon turning the interior angles right, you would have to travel counter-clockwise. If you turned the exterior angles you would be going clockwise. So I don’t think that’s the answer.
I picture it as some meticulous guys who always have to do things in a certain order and neatness want to think in terms of always going clockwise for consistency’s sake. Or some plat-checker who has his rules for everything recorded in his county.
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and of course neither is mathematically superior. it’s force of custom. like if i come home and the dog’s leash is hanging on the wrong hook i start asking questions. because over time i know i’m the only one who’ll walk the dog (despite me being the single person in the house resistant to adopting him in the first place 5 years ago) and, consequently, the only one who hangs the leash back up on the same hook every single time. so i come home and the standard isn’t practiced i know either my wife or one of my kids did something out of the ordinary. maybe the older one was torturing the younger one and the dog’s leash was employed as a weapon. maybe my wife crossed furtive glances with some bohunk walking his dog while she drove the kids to school one day, and suddenly started taking morning sojourns with the pooch in some faint hope of re-crossing paths with her potential fabio.
or maybe i just have been super busy and forgot to walk sammy this morning and he took a leak on the rug and the wife was nice and cleaned it up and made the girls take him for a walk after school.
either way, i gotta ask.
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thebionicman, post: 404026, member: 8136 wrote: Suppose I have a description with a 10 foot bust in the last call. No matter, the call to the POB overcomes it. Then someone decides to survey it in reverse because ‘the law says I can’. The neighborhood is now in turmoil for no good reason.
The manner in which Title is created and maintained is important, up to and including the order in which things are described…Good reasons should be required and leaving a neighborhood in turmoil is usually an indication that the wrong answer was reached.
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Tom Adams, post: 404039, member: 7285 wrote: If you turned angles around a polygon turning the interior angles right, you would have to travel counter-clockwise. If you turned the exterior angles you would be going clockwise. So I don’t think that’s the answer.
I picture it as some meticulous guys who always have to do things in a certain order and neatness want to think in terms of always going clockwise for consistency’s sake. Or some plat-checker who has his rules for everything recorded in his county.
do you flag control one color and boundary another? is one always pink and the other always blue? why are ww lines always marked green? when was the last time you went to the supply store and said “give me a bundle of random 2′ long cylindrical ferrous objects i can drive into the dirt.”?
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thebionicman, post: 404026, member: 8136 wrote: Suppose I have a description with a 10 foot bust in the last call. No matter, the call to the POB overcomes it. Then someone decides to survey it in reverse because ‘the law says I can’. The neighborhood is now in turmoil for no good reason.
The manner in which Title is created and maintained is important, up to and including the order in which things are described…If they don’t find that there is a bust, they probably didn’t do a proper job of closing their own traverse and looking for evidence.
And suppose the bust is in the first call around the property. Then the reverse route will make it easier to find evidence.
Mathematically or practically, it doesn’t matter.
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Bill93, post: 404049, member: 87 wrote: If they don’t find that there is a bust, they probably didn’t do a proper job of closing their own traverse and looking for evidence.
And suppose the bust is in the first call around the property. Then the reverse route will make it easier to find evidence.
Mathematically or practically, it doesn’t matter.
I agree and, your are suppose to follow in the footsteps of the original survey, if they went Clockwise I go Clockwise, if they went counter-clockwise so do I. I can do the math so it doesnt bother me, or do I think less of a survey if it is counter-clockwise nor have I ever questioned a Surveyor who did a survey in counter clock wise
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David Livingstone, post: 403880, member: 431 wrote: Taking criticism is one of the hardest things to do in life, surveyors are no exception. If I truely have a mistake on my plat, I always thank the person for pointing it ou
We are in production housing and are usually the first to review a newly recorded subdivision plat that one of our clients has purchased from a developer. All, or mostly all, of the Surveyors that prepared the subdivision plat have no problem in providing us a .dwg file. We review all the geometry on each lot during plot plan preparation for all lots, and notify them if there are any discrepancies which they might like to review. We have a great rapport with all of them and they appreciate our suggestions. And when we screw up they notify us. We work with one another here in Central Florida so as to prevent an ant hill from becoming mountain. 😎
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flyin solo, post: 404044, member: 8089 wrote: do you flag control one color and boundary another? is one always pink and the other always blue? why are ww lines always marked green? when was the last time you went to the supply store and said “give me a bundle of random 2′ long cylindrical ferrous objects i can drive into the dirt.”?
I don’t understand your point. I was just pointing out that a lot of guys might have turned interior angles right which would actually be CCW in response to Paden’s post
Or are you talking about the meticulous surveyor comment. I was not putting that down. If you run an office, and you want your staff to always run calls Clockwise, I don’t have a problem with that. Consistency is good. But if you’re checking others work who aren’t on your staff, why would you suspect someone who usually (or sometimes) writes their descriptions Counter-Clockwise. What am I missing?
ps…maybe it’s statute law in your state. Is that it?
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Bill93, post: 404049, member: 87 wrote: If they don’t find that there is a bust, they probably didn’t do a proper job of closing their own traverse and looking for evidence.
And suppose the bust is in the first call around the property. Then the reverse route will make it easier to find evidence.
Mathematically or practically, it doesn’t matter.
If reading a document in reverse changes its meaning, it matters very much. Absent other evidence you can create an ambiguity where none existed before. Moving a parcel 10 feet by reading the written intent backwards is asking for trouble.
One of my favorite sayings in research is, ‘If you don’t know the order things happened, you don’t know what happened.’. .. -
Tom Adams, post: 404054, member: 7285 wrote: I don’t understand your point. I was just pointing out that a lot of guys might have turned interior angles right which would actually be CCW in response to Paden’s post
Or are you talking about the meticulous surveyor comment. I was not putting that down. If you run an office, and you want your staff to always run calls Clockwise, I don’t have a problem with that. Consistency is good. But if you’re checking others work who aren’t on your staff, why would you suspect someone who usually (or sometimes) writes their descriptions Counter-Clockwise. What am I missing?
no worries, no offense taken. just… i don’t think it really qualifies as particularly meticulous. i know i wouldn’t call myself that. so if i’m surveying anywhere in the local vicinity- say 100 mile radius- probably 90% of the time if i see a lath flagged with blue and orange that means control. and probably 99% or more of boundary corners around here are flagged up with pink or orange. likewise, there are certain inferences that can be made from found monumentation: an iron pipe is likely from pre 1970. around that time 3/8-inch rods started becoming de rigeur for boundary corners. at some point (probably within a decade or so) the 3/8 disappeared and everything went to 1/2-inch rods. you might find some caps around here that are older than, say, 1995ish, but generally if you find a capped rod in these parts it’s been set in the past two decades. these aren’t rules, they’re generalities. they are points from which you can start making assumptions based upon local custom and practice.
and so it’s the same for descriptions. i don’t hold one invalid because it’s CCW, but it makes me wonder why this particular guy chose to do it, and maybe wonder if there are other things i should look for that wouldn’t fit my normal set of assumptions. just like if i walked up on an iron pipe flagged green.
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So, you have figured out that if a desc is CCW, that there are often other issues?
I can see that.
Often, if I see a guy with huge jangles hanging off his ears, or if his hair is purple, he often has other issues…..
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Nate The Surveyor, post: 404061, member: 291 wrote: So, you have figured out that if a desc is CCW, that there are often other issues?
I can see that.
Often, if I see a guy with huge jangles hanging off his ears, or if his hair is purple, he often has other issues…..
🙂sort of- if i see that kind of description, AROUND HERE, it’s often a good indicator to take a closer look.
the guys you describe, though, are pretty standard around here. even in field crews.
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Check out those guys that write their descriptions Counter Clockwise…..I bet they’re left-handed.
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Tom Adams, post: 404065, member: 7285 wrote: Check out those guys that write their descriptions Counter Clockwise…..I bet they’re left-handed.
How’d you guess?
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