Nate The Surveyor, post: 383701, member: 291 wrote: STILL TAKES TIME.
Yes, and in rural Arkansas land, remember that if you get a result closer than 0.75 ft. you are just wasting your client's money because a better level of accuracy is not required, right?
No Kent. You are now insulting all the Professional Surveyors in Arkansas.
You have done wandered off into the land of imagination, where Texans who love the Dallas Cowboys, think they are still winning the super bowl. It was some 20 yrs since they won the super bowl. And, I don't even watch sports.
Nate The Surveyor, post: 383705, member: 291 wrote: You are now insulting all the Professional Surveyors in Arkansas.
Your argument may be with your licensing board unless these actually aren't the Arkansas standards of practice :
http://www.pels.arkansas.gov/rulesRegsStandards/Documents/standardsPractice.pdf
What are the standards in Texas?
Shawn Billings, post: 383708, member: 6521 wrote: What are the standards in Texas?
You're licensed in Texas and are asking me what the standards are?
Yes. Please share them.
A good one to review is 663.10(5).
http://txls.texas.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ADOPTED-Rules.05282015.pdf
I'm guessing if this board had been around when total stations became popular, Kent would have been making the same comparisons with the chain.
Shawn Billings, post: 383713, member: 6521 wrote: Yes. Please share them.
The prior standard for Rule 663.15, in force since at least 1995, read:
"(a) the actual relative location of corner monuments found or set within the corporate limits of any cities in Texas shall be reported within a positional tolerance of 1:10,000 + 0.10 feet."
and provided lesser tolerances of 1:7,500 + 0.10 feet and 1:5,000 + 0.10 feet inside and outside the ETJs of Texas cities, respectively.
The Rule defined "positional tolerance" as "the distance that any monument may be mislocated in relation to any other monument cited in the survey"
In August, 2013, this rule that few RTK surveys were meeting was rewritten to urge the RTK surveyors to, in effect, "try your best and if it isn't any good, no problema". The rule as published states:
"Survey measurements shall be made with equipment and methods of practice capable of attaining the accuracy and tolerances required by the professional land surveying services being performed. Areas, if reported, shall be produced, recited, and/or shown only to the least significant number compatible with the precision of closure."
This is an excellent example of how the widespread use of RTK has reduced surveying practice to the most minimal standard of quality. However, the following provisions of Rule 663.18 are still on the books to catch the unwary:
"(b) If the land surveyor certifies, or otherwise indicates, that his/her product or service meets a standard of practice in addition to that promulgated by the Texas Board of Professional Land Surveying, then the failure to so meet both standards may be considered by the Board, for disciplinary purposes, to be misleading the public."
So, if one is doing RTK surveys, he ought to be careful to steer away from any survey such as one to the ALTA/NSPS standards that has an actual accuracy standard attached to the contract to override the "do a good job" standard as adopted.
Kent McMillan, post: 383720, member: 3 wrote: The prior standard for Rule 663.15, in force since at least 1995, read:
"(a) the actual relative location of corner monuments found or set within the corporate limits of any cities in Texas shall be reported within a positional tolerance of 1:10,000 + 0.10 feet."
and provided lesser tolerances of 1:7,500 + 0.10 feet and 1:5,000 + 0.10 feet inside and outside the ETJs of Texas cities, respectively.
The Rule defined "positional tolerance" as "the distance that any monument may be mislocated in relation to any other monument cited in the survey"
In August, 2013, this rule that few RTK surveys were meeting was rewritten to urge the RTK surveyors to, in effect, "try your best and if it isn't any good, no problema". The rule as published states:
"Survey measurements shall be made with equipment and methods of practice capable of attaining the accuracy and tolerances required by the professional land surveying services being performed. Areas, if reported, shall be produced, recited, and/or shown only to the least significant number compatible with the precision of closure."
This is an excellent example of how the widespread use of RTK has reduced surveying practice to the most minimal standard of quality. However, the following provisions of Rule 663.18 are still on the books to catch the unwary:
"(b) If the land surveyor certifies, or otherwise indicates, that his/her product or service meets a standard of practice in addition to that promulgated by the Texas Board of Professional Land Surveying, then the failure to so meet both standards may be considered by the Board, for disciplinary purposes, to be misleading the public."
So, if one is doing RTK surveys, he ought to be careful to steer away from any survey such as one to the ALTA/NSPS standards that has an actual accuracy standard attached to the contract to override the "do a good job" standard as adopted.
If I understand it correctly, it is perfectly acceptable to set a normal lot corner in Texas with a rag tape that is know to be within 0.02 of true.? Assuming a normal block and lot layout. Would this be an acceptable practice to you Kent?
jpb, post: 383721, member: 9284 wrote: If I understand it correctly, it is perfectly acceptable to set a normal lot corner in Texas with a rag tape that is know to be within 0.02 of true.? Assuming a normal block and lot layout. Would this be an acceptable practice to you Kent.
The minimum standard as adopted says:
"Survey measurements shall be made with equipment and methods of practice capable of attaining the accuracy and tolerances required by the professional land surveying services being performed. Areas, if reported, shall be produced, recited, and/or shown only to the least significant number compatible with the precision of closure."
A fiberglass tape would not have met that specification. However, (by apparent oversight) the TBPLS neglected to adopt any statement of accuracy and tolerances required for various professional land surveying services when Rule 663.15 was revised, so the only basis upon which they could now reprimand a licensee for making an inaccurate survey would be if the contract specified that the survey was to meet either the TSPS or ALTA/NSPS standards or made some other special provision as to survey accuracy.
As I said, I think this is what the net effect of RTK surveying looks like. Standards fall apart because evidently a sufficient number of surveyors think that it just COSTS TOO MUCH to maintain them.
So, I guess there are LOW accuracy standards in Texas. Kent, I hope you see how un professional and demeaning you have become, as you ONLY have ALTA standards, to uphold your rude conduct. Reminds me of the old saying, "I upped my standards, so up your!" Please refrain from this attitude. It's not a direction we should follow. I have always reached out to others who were interested in learning.
Nate
Maybe they believe the professional can determine what level of accuracy is needed for each project. I could think of several were the previous minimum is inadequate.
And how would a rag tape not meet the standard of 1:10000 +0.1?
Nate The Surveyor, post: 383723, member: 291 wrote: So, I guess there are LOW accuracy standards in Texas.
Actually, I would not propose that any state adopt a rule like that which was mistakenly adopted in Texas in 2013. The background to the rule is that RTK use has become so widespread that the inevitable spastic blowouts apparently need to be accommodated by a rules change. The old rules were perfectly fine, if a bit loose.
jpb, post: 383726, member: 9284 wrote: And how would a rag tape not meet the standard of 1:10000 +0.1?
I'm going to assume that you're kidding.
Kent McMillan, post: 383728, member: 3 wrote: I'm goint to assume that you're kidding.
Not at all. I would not set a corner this way. But to set a front lot corner with a normal 25'x140' or 50'x140' lotting, with a found monument on either side, how would you not be well within the OLD standards to pull a tape from corner to corner?
Kent, it seems that ARKANSAS surveying standards are higher than Texas standards. If I were to guess, it's maybe because Texas is so big, that they sort of said "Hey a foot or two, here there or yonder ain't gonna matter". (This is tongue in cheek, based on the generalizations by Kent...)
Which, I understand, because I drove across Texas a couple of times, and it really is a big place. I even googled "Bigger in Texas" and some of the pics that came up were sort of rude, so I will refrain from posting them here.
I hope you get your standards up to RTK standards, down there. Say, do you know where ARKANSAS water runs? Downstream.
jpb, post: 383729, member: 9284 wrote: But to set a front lot corner with a normal 25'x140' or 50'x140' lotting, with a found monument on either side, how would you not be well within the OLD standards to pull a tape from corner to corner?
Under the old standards, a corner that was re-established within the incorporated limits of a city and reported to be in a position more than 1:10,000 + 0.10 away from where it actually was placed would have been considered evidence of incompetent practice. For a lot with a frontage of 50 ft., that would amount to an error greater than 0.10 ft. in the reported position of a front corner as located constituting incompetent practice.
So, that meant that if 0.10 ft. was incompetent practice, what standard would a surveyor need to work to in order to be certain to be within standard? The answer is that if the maximum size of the 95%-confidence relative error ellipse between the two corners as reported is to be 0.10 ft., then a surveyor would need to keep keep the uncertainties of the positions of each corner as reported below about +/- 0.03 ft. DRMS. which is not a particularly loose error budget.
Nate The Surveyor, post: 383730, member: 291 wrote: I hope you get your standards up to RTK standards, down there.
You may have missed this part, but the disappearance of accuracy standards in Texas is best explained as a result of the widespread adoption of RTK by surveyors who discovered that they were routinely failing the old standards.