Please forgive me for the sins I have perpetrated. You see, I am a pincushioner.
It's not that I believe that I am a better measurer than my fellow surveyor. It's just that I believe that I have actually made the measurements my fellow surveyor has failed to make.
I am doing an ALTA in OKC. Very urban area. The property is in the triangle formed by the intersection of a state highway, which runs NW to SE, and an east west road centered on a section line. The center of section line running north from the S 1/4 corner of the section roughly bisects the property.
I found and tied references to the center line of the state highway. Search at centerline, nothing found. I found and tied the section corners. Both monumented by mag nails, with references per CCRs. Great. Sad, but that's what it is.
No monument or even a CCR at the S 1/4 corner. But the area to the south was platted in the 1950's with indirect ties to the S 1/4 corner. So search in the neighborhood and eventually find about a dozen lot corners in 2 different plat of various flavors and calculate a position for the 1/4 corner that I'm happy with +/- 0.25 feet. Set the 1/4 cor. thus calc'd, it falls on the painted centerline of the section line road and on the projected centerline seam of the road running south. Can't fight that.
Searching corners of my subject property, I find a 1/4" iron 0.66' north of a point 50' northerly of my section line. In the same vicinity, I find a 1/2" iron, bent, 2.9' north of a point 33' northerly of my section line. No caps on these found irons. Record says the right of way is 33', with a roadway easement out to 50'. I set my own bars. For shame.
At other corners I find as many as 4 mag and pk nails in alligator-ed asphalt arrayed around my calc positions at distances that range from 0.2' to 3.28'. No washers on any of these nails. I set my own irons. Oh, horror.
So I've pincushioned. Let the beatings begin.
Not quite pincushion, but those ET pins are 15' displaced and the others are too far apart and also displaced. I worry too much, I suppose, but the question remains: If mine were displaced, would I be "called on the carpet?" You probably see the same thing in your area. Those ET points are past the statute of limitations and I won't say anything to anyone. It's referred to in a deed and I think they started from a hedge row. I could show you the bigger picture and you'd say, "Wow, look how terribly wrong that other survey is." My line is tied to an 1947 map that shows offsets to the house right next door to the surveyed lot.
When I hear pincushion, I think of a bunch of points all representing the same corner without regard to how displaced they are. Isn't there some old surveyor's wives-tale about a bucket and if the points fit in the bucket, don't set a new one?
You need to slide on over to Our Lady of Perpetual Measurement Church and get absolution from Monsignor Magneticnail.
What is an ET point?
SH 3?
Sounds like "Northwest Highway" somewhere in 4 West. Maybe SAP 55(419)?
If that is indeed the location, good luck. I always found if you located the quarter line intersection with the hwy cl, it puts a PI in the quarter-line. That area is wrought with pin-cushions.
My condolences. 🙁
ET phone home
The company referred to in the deed as having surveyed the place dated 1993. The projection of those 2 remaining points (the others were lost) ends up at a hedge line.
Sweet Mary of Mag Nails
There'd be a line of surveyors and it would have an undocumented turn in it. o.O
SH 3?
The very same. ODOT has a position for the center of section line on its map that differs from mine by 20 feet. That is fodder for another story. I've done sufficient work to satisfy myself that my positions are correct.
We are all responsible for our own work. I have set additonal monuments on more than one occasion. Each time was not due to differences in measuring, but rather differences in proper procedure used. By accepting another surveyor's monument that was set incorrectly due to poor procedure means that I am accepting his poor procedure and any liability that might ensue afterwards. I can more readily defend my own actions better than I can defend my acceptance of someone elses. I am not talking about monuments that differ by hundredths or tenths.
I know of some surveyors who will state something on their plat like "Found 1-inch iron pipe with cap 2.55' north and 0.88' west of true position" in order to not pincushion. They do not set their own monument at their calculated position, but assume the note on the plat covers the situation. The landowner is more concerned with what they see on the ground than what they read in small print on the plat. A fence, wall, or building setback gets built to the found monument and is later discovered to be in error. Are you in any way liable? I would not want to defend this because I did not set my own monument and clearly show where my position was established.
I believe that I have actually made the measurements my fellow surveyor has failed to make.
We are all responsible for our own work.
Each time was not due to differences in measuring, but rather differences in proper procedure used.
These are the usual reasons heard for rejecting monuments. Is it ever going to occur to surveyors that the question of accepting a monument does not relvolve around the previous surveys quality or process? It revolves around answering how the existing monument was used to establish a legal boundary. It doesn't matter how it appeared or who made it appear. It matters how the property owners acted based on the appearance.
I know of some surveyors who will state something on their plat like "Found 1-inch iron pipe with cap 2.55' north and 0.88' west of true position" in order to not pincushion.
Still a pincushion. I agree its better to monument a conflict than to only report it hoping no one will notice. Just my opinion.
Sweet Mary of Mag Nails
You could always bring your intercession to Saint Mary Magnailia.
It doesn't matter how it appeared or who made it appear.
Perhaps no one needs to be licensed, follow any established rules of surveying, and that all land owners should go out and pound in their own monuments.
No, that is an illogical, slippery slope argument.
Land Surveyors are experts in boundary location, it isn't always clean and neat like a cookbook. Sometimes the wrong monument has been in use for decades. It is a fools errand to go disturbing the peace of the neighborhood just for rigid doctrinaire adherence to rules.
But sometimes the offending monument has not been used and in those cases it may make sense to set another.
Sweet Mary of Mag Nails
> You could always bring your intercession to Saint Mary Magnailia.
Perhaps I should do 3 collimations and an act of calibration.
SH 3?
> I've done sufficient work to satisfy myself that my positions are correct.
More correct than theirs, anyway.
Perhaps no one needs to be licensed, follow any established rules of surveying, and that all land owners should go out and pound in their own monuments.
Bad surveyors should be held liable for bad surveying - just not at the expense of the innocent property owners who acted on the beleif that the poorly placed mark was the corner. The law is quite supportive of two landowners pounding in their own marks in the place they beleive to be the true location or accepting a poorly placed mark as the true location. Professional land surveying is a stewpot of technical and legal issues. I'm not saying a new mark is not proper. If the old iron has no meaning remove it. If it has meaning better think twice before adding another. Just my opinion.
> ... Is it ever going to occur to surveyors that the question of accepting a monument does not relvolve around the previous surveys quality or process? It revolves around answering how the existing monument was used to establish a legal boundary. It doesn't matter how it appeared or who made it appear. It matters how the property owners acted based on the appearance.
This was part of an ALTA, and as such I have surveyed and analysed the improvements along the boundary in detail. I don't do this lightly. If any of the other surveyors had capped their monuments I would call them.
> Still a pincushion. I agree its better to monument a conflict than to only report it hoping no one will notice. Just my opinion.
Since these monuments had no ones name on them I would not criticize anyone for pulling them. Just saying. This isn't a family homestead. It's a strip mall among a row a strip malls. The owner is a corporation in Colorado who likely hasn't even been to OKC.
> I know of some surveyors who will state something on their plat like "Found 1-inch iron pipe with cap 2.55' north and 0.88' west of true position" in order to not pincushion.
"Some surveyors" in a certain county in California are *required* to use such a description on the plat and *prevented* from setting a monument at the correct location, or their plat will not be recorded.
Norman
I'm extremely familiar with that area, and it is a mess.
A lot of those recorded plats from the 50s and 60s don't fit each other, let alone a common corner. And the highway fellas have ignored everything over the years. Their ties are weak at their best, especially the "ties" to 1/4 and C/4s.
Mostly "cartoons" imho.
Do your best and report what you've found or set. In that particular area, you've probably done a lot better than most of the other jake-legs that have been out there over the years. :good:
Norman
> ... you've probably done a lot better than most of the other jake-legs that have been out there over the years...
I'm pretty sure many of these "surveys" are done by "calibrating" deed dimensions to the painted centerline, or something, and then "monumented" with mag nails or 3/8" rebar - no cap or washer- and no map. I just can't see why I should honor that.
If one surveyor in 10 is working per the minimum standards how could there possibly be a single section corner in OKC without a CCR?