> ".. is staked about 0.24 ft. wider than that."
>
> That's weird. I imagine stake-out in the Hill Country is quite a bit different from this flat land. Wonder why the row doubles the error.
If you are set up on a station on the centerline and setting markers on either side of your traverse, you'll get +0.12 ft. one way and +0.12 ft. the other way, a net of +0.24 ft.
> Who has time for that?
>
> Quickie-Dickie Surveys doesn't for sure!
>
> Man, you're going over to the dark side.
Hardly. My solution is both practical and professional. The private landowner has a sale pending in a week. You're free to tell your clients that you won't be able to complete a survey for a few months because some DOT surveyors need to correct some monuments they've installed and there's nothing you can possibly do until then. I mean, the DOT paid $1000 for 584 s.f. of land for a corner clip. That means that everything is on hold forever, right?
> Why not get TDOT to let you move the marker? While they are at it have them fix all the rest as well.
So, why should my client the landowner foot the bill for that? No good reason? I didn't think so. The professional thing to do is just to fix the problem, which I have done by correctly marking the corner and describing it in the metes and bounds description by which the land will transfer.
Was the land transferred using the TDOT markers? If the markers don't mean anything why are they there?
I suppose I should start calling all PLSS stones I find 'Off' because they don't fit the distances and bearings in the notes.
Would it really have stalled the sale if you hadn't punched that tablet? Does Texas require LS numbers on markers you set? Doesn't the punch fall under a mark you set?
Seems you could have just referenced in from the mark 15 feet away and as you state from the original punch mark, something like 0.127 feet N 17 23'47.3” E of a TDOT tablet punch mark.
Did you snuff out the original punch mark with yer vise grips?
I REALLY don't expect you will answer more then the ONE question to decide on. So carry on and so will I, need to get some work done.
Happy Punching! May yer punch stay sharp until yer done.
Oh ok, It's fairly flat in these parts and centerline isn't always run out in a subdivision here.
> Was the land transferred using the TDOT markers? If the markers don't mean anything why are they there?
No, the deed of conveyance called for an iron rod with an aluminum cap set to mark each of the two points where the clip line intersected the boundary of the lot. Naturally, neither is in place and has supposedly been replaced by the Type II Tablet-in-Concrete marker that is "right where the rod and cap was". Even if the rod and cap markers described in the deed were still in place, all they would do is define the clip line. They would not, of course, alter the positions of the lot lines.
> I suppose I should start calling all PLSS stones I find 'Off' because they don't fit the distances and bearings in the notes.
Well, you might start thinking about what you're really doing if you want to treat everything that looks as if it might be a survey marker as absolutely correct, regardless of what it is and what the other evidence demonstrates. Just sayin'.
> Would it really have stalled the sale if you hadn't punched that tablet? Does Texas require LS numbers on markers you set? Doesn't the punch fall under a mark you set?
Texas practice requires boundary corners to be marked. The sale requires that a survey be made and that a map and metes and bounds description be produced. That means boundary corners are to be marked. In that particular case, the tablet is sufficiently unique that it is readily identifiable. My description of the punchmark by the "T" in "TEXAS" and bearing N47-19W, 0.15 from the station mark at the approximate center of the table shouldn't give any competent surveyor I know the slightest problem in identifying the punchmark at the boundary corner.
> Seems you could have just referenced in from the mark 15 feet away and as you state from the original punch mark, something like 0.127 feet N 17 23'47.3” E of a TDOT tablet punch mark.
The highest value obviously in having the corner itself marked. The solution you suggest is needlessly lame when the corner can be marked, as was the case here.
> Oh ok, It's fairly flat in these parts and centerline isn't always run out in a subdivision here.
In the Hill Country, if the lots are being staked in advance of construction (as they should be), running a traverse near centerline makes sense since the trees and brush limit what can be done by radial stakeout.
I like the Quick and dirty check
Shoot a prism 10' away, and check it with a box tape.
Saved many a headache that way.
N
Like I mentioned before. Every Kent from now on is going to punch that tablet. If you measured a bit different in 5 years wouldn't the same justification apply - the other punch marks are not quite right. Does it ever end?
Gawd, I wish my boundary problems were as small as where the mark goes on a concreted in brass tablet.
Working on one now where there ain't any markers mentioned in the record ever, beyond the original GLO survey. Ain't any original metal markers in the ground either. Also the record is a perfect cookie cutter (perfect PLSS square mile all mathed out, title folks been squaring this away for decades), only problem is the reality on the ground is far different, but their maps all work out nicely. There are long established boundaries though and nobody wants them disturbed. All the landowners need is a surveyor (when required) to locate the true boundary between their lands as established by law. I find many surveyors can't get beyond the math their data collectors display for them coded in from the metes without bounds deeds.
What would it cost to rent yer punch and smack a few fence post corners, make em official? Then we could write it up in a new description, rent yer word processor. Actually I have a few punches and my computer is working just fine.
And, it is the professional thing to do, describe the boundaries where they have been established for a century by the landowners (from original surveys not of record). Save the landowners the time and expense of going to court and have the judge tell them the same thing.
I suppose different conditions require different approaches. I've never found UDOT markers in perfect alignment but I never found some perfect center line markers to start from (usually no CL markers). So rarely are two guys going to measure it up exactly the same but hopefully we will be close and big fights won't erupt over a tiny bit. The good part is there actually are UDOT markers out there on most of their roads (vs. county road easements with not even a survey description of record). Beats the heck out of no record markers out in the fields nearby. So I usually just shoot em in and don't really fuss all that much about a few tenths here and there. I'm not in high priced city though so the only ones that care or even know are surveyors. Everybody else just uses the physical markers, don't even know there is a punch mark on some of them.
But is sounds like you did a great job, hope you are paid and paid very well!
> Like I mentioned before. Every Kent from now on is going to punch that tablet. If you measured a bit different in 5 years wouldn't the same justification apply - the other punch marks are not quite right. Does it ever end?
>
You plainly haven't understood the fact situation. I presented it fairly clearly, I thought. Can't help you, I'm afraid.
I'm OK with that, don't need any help.
> I'm OK with that, don't need any help.
Glad to hear it. If you did, it would take someone who was better at explaining some fairly elementary ideas about land surveying than I think I'm inclined to do.
While I know that you endorse the practice of pincushioning under certain conditions, I cannot recall that you have heretofore admitted having done so. At least, there aren’t two markers, just one with two punches. Provided the next surveyor knows to use the one you set, then everything should be copasetic insofar as your survey is concerned. But, if he has no reason to examine your documentation, he could accept the TDOT mark and determine the lot corner to be off line.
I guess it’s a good thing that you determined that the R/W was fat. It’s also good that you determined that the tablet was not the original monument. Otherwise, you might have had to figure out how to accept the “TDOT” punch as being good.
> While I know that you endorse the practice of pincushioning under certain conditions, I cannot recall that you have heretofore admitted having done so.
There really aren't very many "pincushions" in Texas. That's more of a PLSS thing where so many corners were originally located by protraction and the question is whether some realization of that protracted corner by a marker on the ground is a position that is now established or not. In Texas, one does find mistakenly located markers. Those aren't that hard to find.
The situation in the case I described was that a landowner who held title to a 5.00 acre lot in a subdivision conveyed a very small snippet of the lot at one corner. Picture running a line diagonally across the lot to cut off the corner for sight distance purposes (presumably).
There are two elements to the retracement problem. The first is the location of the lines of the lot that the clip line intersected and the other is the location of the clip line. I trust that even in other jurisdictions outside of Texas nobody would think that just because a marker was supposedly set on the lot line, but actually wasn't, that the lot boundary had somehow instantaneously moved out of its original position.
It certainly doesn't happen in Texas. Once one has determined where the clip line was located and has determined where that line intersects the actual lines of the lot, the corners are determined. If some brass tablet in concrete happens to miss the corner, it misses the corner. End of report.
In that particular example, I had the advantage of finding what are most likely the original lot corner stakes at the 25 ft. radius return curve that was clipped off by the take. They hadn't been destroyed by construction yet. So the question of where the lot lines actually are on the ground could be solved without resort to the tertiary evidence of the tablet in concrete. I'm surprised, frankly, that anyone finds the idea that a brass tablet in concrete can be erroneously positioned some radical proposition.
> I trust that even in other jurisdictions outside of Texas nobody would think that just because a marker was supposedly set on the lot line, but actually wasn't, that the lot boundary had somehow instantaneously moved out of its original position.
You'd be surprised. Not likely by me, but by quite a few others.
> > I trust that even in other jurisdictions outside of Texas nobody would think that just because a marker was supposedly set on the lot line, but actually wasn't, that the lot boundary had somehow instantaneously moved out of its original position.
>
> You'd be surprised. Not likely by me, but by quite a few others.
LOL! I was giving the poster the benefit of the doubt that he or she didn't fall into the second class.
That is one way of looking at things.
I still don't see a pincusion.
There is the TxDot station mark
and
the subdivision corner
both
landing on the same brass disk.
😉
> That is one way of looking at things.
>
> I still don't see a pincusion.
>
> There is the TxDot station mark
> and
> the subdivision corner
> both
> landing on the same brass disk.
Yeah, and the prevailing TexDOT practice of having its contractors set rod and cap markers that "may be replaced with a TxDOT Type II Right of Way Marker upon the completion of the highway construction project" is a dip into The Matrix. What does that mean? Does it mean "okay when this conveyance is executed there is a marker in place that shows where the land you're conveying to us is actually located on the ground, but we're going to blade that out as soon as possible and then you're just stuck with wherever one of our contractors slaps a new marker in place"? So, it's not in the same position? Sorry, Charlie, SOL?
I like the Quick and dirty check
:good: 😉 :good:
I like the Quick and dirty check
:good: :good: :good: