Every now and then I??ll set something ?ÿI??m 100% certain will be there forever, come back a month later and it??s gone. I can only assume somebody took the time to go get tools, came back and pried it out and I can??t for the life of me figure out, why???
@james-vianna I tell a version of that to just about every excavator I meet.?ÿ The good ones laugh about it and the guilty ones don't think I'm that funny.
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Another surveyor told me a true story about a corner I revisited this past week.?ÿ It was about 1990 when he needed a center corner that no one had reported found on any record but which appeared on the three subdivision maps from the 1860-1875 timeframe creating most of a local city.?ÿ He put all his best surveying experience with a 30 minute session with a Ouija Board and determined where the stone should be.?ÿ The location matched no local usage and fell in an area worked annually as a garden.?ÿ He began digging and found the stone upright but about 10 inches below the surface.?ÿ He was very proud of himself.?ÿ He flagged it up well, painted the top orange and wrapped some flagging around the stone to clearly identify what he had found.?ÿ He also tied to several nearby structures/walls.
A few months later he was going to show it to a coworker.?ÿ It was GONE.?ÿ They probed to confirm that it had not been lowered but removed.?ÿ His proud declaration of success had been nullified by the landowner.
I needed that corner in 1994 and used his reference ties to set a shiny new bar with the top being 10 inches below the surface.
Last week we checked all tie data plus measurements to two quarter corners and landed smackdab in the center of a 10-inch diameter corner post with fences running to the north and east.?ÿ This must have been set based on a single wire flag I had left in the garden above the well-buried bar.?ÿ I assume it was set shortly after my visit in 1994 as a tree had grown up adjacent to the post to such a size I was surprised it could have grown that large in 27 years.
27 years will have a fairly substantial tree and based on where you practice and live, wouldn't surprise me if it was greater than 20 to 24 inches in diameter.
Cool thing to find your refurbished monument creating a basis for reliance and pendancy.
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In late 2015 after a large storm knocked out some substantial infrastructure, I had a client balk at my proposal to establish semi-permanent control at the site. The intent was for the control to last through the investigation period, design, and reconstruction. Newer more substantial control and monitoring points were to be part of the final construction ?ÿproject. I finally removed those costs from my proposal and reached into my own pocket for rebar and concrete and poured in place six 4-ft monuments. A few weeks later I returned to the site for a wetlands survey and took that opportunity to add these points to my temporary control network. I have visited the site recently and all six of those points still check nicely. The rest of my points are all gone. The construction surveyors have kept the six concrete mons marked and safe so far. I will be using these points to control the new permanent marks next month. While not as old as Jim??s marks, it was nice to see these points survived a major construction effort. I also learned a lesson about providing too much detail in my proposal. Since then, I only have a line item for Survey Control. No other details are provided unless requested, which never happens.?ÿ
Permanency is never guaranteed?ÿ but we can increase the odds.?ÿ
The odds are not in your favor when you set a 2' X 1/2" rebar with a plastic cap sticking 6" out of the ground with no memorials or references.?ÿ
We once had to set a benchmark for some work at a school, and my colleague wanted to use the "A" in the lettering on top of a fire hydrant across the street; something that I had seen done off and on for many years. I've never liked that, because how do you know if that hydrant has ever been replaced? A different model will give you a different elevation! So I demanded we set a more traditional benchmark. Sure enough, later that afternoon a crew came to replace that hydrant. It was not leaking and was not part of the work site, so I have no idea why it was replaced - but it cemented my position that I would never use a hydrant for a benchmark.
