jpb, post: 383864, member: 9284 wrote: If the monument's are found, and within the standards that you mention, they are the corners!
I'm going to guess that you aren't licensed in Texas. In Texas, just any old survey marker does not control a boundary corner, only the original monuments fall into that category and the objects set as monuments only remain so when undisturbed. Accurate measurements are an essential aid to identifying when markers no longer remain in place undisturbed.
We are not professional measurers.
I'm still guessing that you aren't licenced in Texas. Skill at making measurements is an essential part of surveying practice here for reasons that ought to be obvious. Measurements perpetuate the postions of things sufficiently well that as original evidence disappears boundaries do not become nebulous indefinite things, but corners can be remarked in essentially the identical positions.
If I would choose to set a monument with a rag tape in the above and split the line and set a monument there, you have no right to dispute the monument because you have assigned some arbitrary coordinate to found monuments.
Well, that's novel. If we know where the original monument was by knowing its position in relation to other monuments by measurements of the quality that modern surveying should be able to accomplish without breaking a sweat, then the whole exercise is actually directed toward identifying the position of the corner as originally established. Modern measurement techniques facilitate this and quickie-dickie fiberglass tape measurements definitely do not. Sorry.
You are correct I am not licensed in the state of Texas. Is there an order of calls that is used in Texas that is different from the basic list that is used in other states? In my states, a subsequent monument comes directly after original. It may be different in Texas. Please correct me if I am mistaken.
Of course measuring is a very essential part of our job. It needs to be done with care and understanding. Just because you find a point that is 1:9999, does not mean that the other surveyor is incompetent, unskilled, or unprofessional. They also don't need to be called out repeatedly or degrade the entire profession in a very public setting.
Do you have any comments on 663.10(5)Û??
jpb, post: 383896, member: 9284 wrote: You are correct I am not licensed in the state of Texas. Is there an order of calls that is used in Texas that is different from the basic list that is used in other states? In my states, a subsequent monument comes directly after original.
That would not be true in Texas. A mistaken replacement of an original monument would be a mistaken replacement of an original monument that would only acquire local control through some acts of the adjoining landowners. The fact that a surveyor mistakenly located it with a fiberglass tape wouldn't even be worth a cup of coffee.
Kent McMillan, post: 383739, member: 3 wrote:
In other words, the stated reason for the rule was the use of GPS, which has become pretty much synonymous with RTK. The Board thought that a standard accuracy tolerance of 1:10,000 + 0.10 ft. was "outmoded" and chose not to adopt any accuracy standards at all. Considering that RTK GPS would easily fail the old standard in many cases and that no standard replaced it, what other reasonable inference for the purpose of the rule change should be drawn?
The new rule provides:
"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."
But does not impose any requirement whatsoever upon the accuracy or error tolerances of the survey. It has "RTK" written all over it.
I have installed the flame retardant pants and am ready...
I would not claim to speak for Texas, but generally, the 1:10000 rule is discarded simply because it has no useable context in GNSS measurements, and means absolutely nothing to a non-surveyor. I can get 1:1,000,000 all the time with GNSS, but two points measured 10 feet apart from each other could be 0.10' different than what my steel tape says. And that is with static...
Actually, Kent, the real reason is much worse than you think.
The TBPLS cannot enforce any rule concerning precision. It cannot accept a complaint, have an investigator perform the field work, using procedures that would eliminate any successful defense, without totally blowing its entire yearly sum earmarked for investigations even for one such complaint.
I would hazard a guess that no one on the Board practices what you do on a daily basis. I must admit that I do not, at least to the depth and breadth to which you adhere. The Board could not and would not ever touch a complaint concerning precision unless the errors were so profound that they would almost speak for themselves.
It seems that the Board wants to use the legal precept of "The Reasonable Person" for the standard of care used by us professionals as its ruler.
Why make rules if one cannot enforce them?
dmyhill, post: 383920, member: 1137 wrote: I have installed the flame retardant pants and am ready...
I would not claim to speak for Texas, but generally, the 1:10000 rule is discarded simply because it has no useable context in GNSS measurements, and means absolutely nothing to a non-surveyor. I can get 1:1,000,000 all the time with GNSS, but two points measured 10 feet apart from each other could be 0.10' different than what my steel tape says. And that is with static...
Yes, exactly. The way to have updated the specification would have been to have made it some value like 1:50,000 that is easily met with conventional equipment, leaving the random uncertainty of +/- 0.10 intact. That way, it would have been just a slightly more relaxed ALTA/NSPS standard.
Jack Chiles, post: 383926, member: 24 wrote: Actually, Kent, the real reason is much worse than you think.
The TBPLS cannot enforce any rule concerning precision. It cannot accept a complaint, have an investigator perform the field work, using procedures that would eliminate any successful defense, without totally blowing its entire yearly sum earmarked for investigations even for one such complaint.
The answer, of course, is that you frame the rule in terms of the documented paper trail. You don't need to send an investigator out to examine the quality of field work, it's in the documentation. That is pretty much how the ALTA/NSPS standard is set up by making the test one of formal uncertainty analysis.
Some substandard quickie-dickie show will not be able to produce any sort of credible Q/A documentation.
I realize that it is unrealistic to expect that every Texas surveyor is suddenly going to become proficient at least squares adjustments and error analysis. So, the immediate objective should be to have documented checks on the quality of the measurements including enough redundancy to detect blunders. I'd give extra points, though, to any surveyor who could produce a report of error analysis that indicated appropriate survey quality, either by inspection or by point-to-point comparisons between all points connected by the boundaries being surveyed.
Kent McMillan, post: 383899, member: 3 wrote: That would not be true in Texas. A mistaken replacement of an original monument would be a mistaken replacement of an original monument that would only acquire local control through some acts of the adjoining landowners.
I think that is an accurate restatement of the law everywhere. Monuments aren't acceptable just because they are there, there needs to be some relevant evidence and rational analysis.
