Spent five hours today getting (re-)educated on how to fill out an Elevation Certificate. The lunch was very good and the fellow attendees were a lot of fun.
The frustrating thing about these type of programs is that the presenter always tries to make the attendees feel incompetent. Not about everything, of course, but here and there. I will admit that I have not read every helpful pamphlet and website available from FEMA. However, surely not all FEMA employees are as silly as some of the instructions they generate. For example, on this form provide lat/long to four decimal places. Then use that form to support a second form where it wants the lat/long to five decimal places. My comment was that my fifth digit is always zero, you just can't see it.
fun!Fun with FEMA...yeah, sure
Fun
4 And/Or 5 Decimal Places For What?
Degrees, Minutes or Seconds?
Degrees.1234 is close to a 0.36 second difference or about +/- 36'.
Degrees.12345 is about +/- 4'.
Paul in PA
4 And/Or 5 Decimal Places For What?
Sort of, maybe. Rounding to 4 places means looking at the fifth place. For example, 0.0003 is between 0.00025 and 0.00035. So the maximum error created by rounding to four places is 0.00005.
A degree has 3600 seconds, so the maximum error is 0.00005 times 3600, or 0.18 seconds. At 101 feet for each second of arc, that's a distance error of +/-18 feet.
The FEMA form that I looked at says that lat/lon must be accurate within 66 feet, so even a grossly rounded result would appear to be ok. But you really can't extract an accurate five-place result from a four-place input.
4 And/Or 5 Decimal Places For What?
As has been suggested, add a zero to the end.
4 And/Or 5 Decimal Places For What?
Precisely!!
4 And/Or 5 Decimal Places For What?
All they really need is to be able to pull up an aerial view from some source and home in close enough to know that it is THIS building, not some other building.
4 And/Or 5 Decimal Places For What?
I was looking at a quarry on Google Earth the other day. The depth perception was amazing. And the elevation numbers at the bottom of the screen changed as I panned over the hole.
Maybe FEMA could do flood maps and such from Google Earth. Inarguable public results.
4 And/Or 5 Decimal Places For What?
The National Flood Hazard Layer is available in Google Earth. There are businesses the 'determine' flood risk from this information. Unfortunately the quality of the information varies widely and the knowledge of the limitations is almost nonexistent.
It's one of those great ideas that turns into a nightmare for those too close for the Google - jockey clearinghouse folks to say 'out'. I've had clients lose thousands over this.
Rant over...
4 And/Or 5 Decimal Places For What?
Oh, I'm a believer in the value of a professional surveyor and the inadequacy of amateur work in the field. That suggestion was in jest, I assure you.
I see Google Earth and Street View as a great technological achievement and an enormously helpful tool for all of us, but I realize that relying on it for much beyond general guidance is ill-advised.
4 And/Or 5 Decimal Places For What?
I should have caught that. Your posts are generally on the sharp side... Happy Easter.. Tom
4 And/Or 5 Decimal Places For What?
Another surveyor and I thought it was interesting at the last FEMA seminar we were informed to map all the services to the building. She said that included the electric meter, transformer at the street, if available, and the water meter. When I asked why the public services needed to be included in the EC, or aren't the water meters waterproof, she didn't have an answer but referred me to an email address to send those questions. The other surveyor and I agreed that any of those services, since you don't own them, should be covered by the electric company or water district if they needed insurance. Others thoughts?
4 And/Or 5 Decimal Places For What?
That's crazier than a pet coon!!!!!
The water meter spends half the year under water in my area because the vault fills up as the adjacent water table rises.
The transformer is normally higher than the roof of the structure in residential areas and many commercial areas.
If the water is up to the electric meter next to my house, I'm calling Noah to see if I can hitch a ride to Mount Ararat. There would be one narrow ridge running northeasterly from here that would be dry but the entire remainder of my home county would be under water.
