nobody said it was easy
so, let's dumb it down to the 66 IQ range
evolution is our friend
The monument is in a specific place, just not one single imaginary flyspeck that no one can see. The monument occupies whatever area it occupies. Attempting to decide on a specific centroid is a masturbatory effort that only satisfies the current surveyor and no one else.
Holy Cow, post: 365337, member: 50 wrote: ...Attempting to decide on a specific centroid is a masturbatory effort that only satisfies the current surveyor and no one else.
I can remember post-processing mountains of data back in the early nineties (for what seemed like the rest of my life) at the Highway Dept. We were "densifying" the recently created HARN Network with geometry in the 25-50 km. range.
After all of the hours of the fretting and calculations, you could still drive out to one of our stainless steel rod monuments (driven to its point of refusal per NGS specs)...and that rod had not moved a single centimeter!
It was where it was...and it never moved...no matter how many times you processed the data. 😉
paden cash, post: 365340, member: 20 wrote: After all of the hours of the fretting and calculations, you could still drive out to one of our stainless steel rod monuments (driven to its point of refusal per NGS specs)...and that rod had not moved a single centimeter!
Just a short hijack. I remember the first time I came across the phrase "driven to refusal", I asked another surveyor what that meant. He said that's the point at which the man with the sledge hammer said "I refuse to hit that rod one more time."
Holy Cow, post: 365337, member: 50 wrote: The monument is in a specific place, just not one single imaginary flyspeck that no one can see. The monument occupies whatever area it occupies. Attempting to decide on a specific centroid is a masturbatory effort that only satisfies the current surveyor and no one else.
Well, I suppose that if the purpose of a boundary agreement were not to fix the location of a boundary, you might have a point. The original post dealt with lots 40 - 50 ft. in width, not a pasture, so most surveyors I know would say that the boundary location actually should be defined closer than +/-0.5 ft.
So the question is how to turn a fence post into a functional monument, meaning one that defines a specific location and is readily identifiable and usable for surveying purposes. Peter suggested pop riveting a "tag" to the post. Others have suggested stamping a number on it.
I take it your suggestion is that it doesn't matter where the center of the fence post is, that any location within 0.5 ft. is equally correct. So a peanut prism held on top of the post is just as good a means of locating the post as meticulously locating the center of the post at grade. Ditto prism pole as close to post as can be held, I assume.
By those criteria, I take it that you would consider a concrete yard gnome to make a pretty good boundary monument:
It should be obvious that not all objects used for boundary monuments serve the purpose equally well. The photo below shows a common corner of several surveys made in the 1840s in Central Texas. It's a feature known as Jacob's Well.
Yes, the "center" of that feature is the corner.
The precision of the numbers involved is a fantasy sought by surveyors as it provides for an air of superiority over the common person's view. Such precision encourages a higher level of refinement in arriving at a precise area for the tract being surveyed. But, except for anal retentive bureaucratic nitwits in areas with elaborate systems in place to forbid sensible people from doing sensible things, the precision of the final area is somewhat unimportant. Simple thermal expansion and contraction of building materials could lead to daily encroachment over ultra-precise invisible boundary lines if the constructed setback is 0.000000000000000 feet.
At a boundary line length of 50 feet, placing the tip of the measuring device with perfect centering ability and perfect reading ability a distance of 1/32 inch to the left on one shot and 1/32 inch to the right on a redundant shot introduces a confusion of 20 arc seconds. Yet, the surveyor will fight to the death to defend the number he selects as being correct to the stated one-second level of precision provided in the description he prepares. This is lunacy. The sooner we all accept the fact that perfection is a dream and not a reality, the better off we will all be.
More or less. Now, that is the real world.
Holy Cow, post: 365361, member: 50 wrote: The precision of the numbers involved is a fantasy sought by surveyors as it provides for an air of superiority over the common person's view.
Yes, when the common person wants to have his or her property surveyed, a pine lath marked "APPROXIMATE CORNER" should be plenty good. They don't need to know where the boundaries of their land really are. I mean, so what if a fence or shed gets built onto the land of the adjacent common person. Common people never argue about stuff like that, right?
The south line starts out in the middle of the road and runs smack through the center of the power pole until it hits that big pine tree back there in the corner. You keep your junk cars south of that line and I'll keep my valuable Studebaker antique cars on my side, OK?
Holy Cow, post: 365377, member: 50 wrote: You keep your junk cars south of that line ...
Yes, when land is only worth $40.00 per acre, land surveying tends to evaporate.
This thread really plays into the "it depends" factor of land surveying. A fence post of any kind as all of you have said is a fine monument. The degree of refinement of the accuracy of where exactly that fence post is varies depending on the property. In my part of the world where there are quite a few zero lot line subdivisions, a fence post as Mr. McMillan has stated, is insufficient. On the other hand in the rural sections the fence post itself was sufficient for the job and has been around longer than some of the iron rods or concrete monuments. Farmers and construction folks around here seem like they aim for a beautifully flagged fresh iron rod and cap, but leave the fence posts alone. Fences are great and insufficient all at the same time, it just depends.
Working in timber country, where we have more trees than cattle, oil and gas and bales of hay, I can not count the times while retracing a survey, being it a Headright Survey or a 0.25 acre subdivision lot and finding the original monument now resides within or under the tree or being pushed aside by the root ball.
50yrs ago, there were as many pineknot monuments as those of iron or rock.
One such memorable monument was finding and locating a rail end inside the cavity at the southeast base of a 42inch sycamore tree.
On the occasion a calculated division corner falls inside a tree, I usually set reference monuments at the edge of the root ball along the boundaries that lead into the tree and give their distance from the corner point inside the tree.
That does happen around here more than you would believe.
I found one ironbar protruding from the bottom the root ball of a pin oak that had blown over.
Then there is the client that insists that the new dividing line to follow the fence that was pulled from tree to tree in fence segments from 50ft to 400 feet in length.
The trees are usually wrapped with a sheet of tin with the wire wrapped and twisted to allow for expansion when the tree grows and sometimes it is not and simply wrapped and twisted around the bark.
From all of this, another conundrum does begin to appear "what came first the monument or the tree".
Bottom line, I have no problem calling a corner a point where no monument can be set in place as long as there is sufficient evidence of actual recoverable references to place that point within measurable tolerance.
B-)
I don't like fence corners as monuments, they tend to move (lean) and they tend to be replaced quite frequently, a wooden fence has about a 40 year life span, that's if it's been taken care of.
Maybe chain link ones last longer but they seem to get replaced around here, possibly cause the look is out of favor.
Monuments... Monuments are better? Maybe.
Those "monuments" are still in my office today... part of what I call The Wall Of Shame
The legal definition of a "Monument": "In real property law ans surveying, monuments are visible marks or indication left on natural or other objects indicating the lines and boundaries of a survey. Any physical object on ground which helps to establish location of a boundary line called for; it may be either natural (e.g. trees, rivers, and other land features) or artificial (e.g. fences, stones, stakes, or the like placed by human hands)."
As much as we surveyors like to think that a monument isn't a monument unless set by, marked by or blessed (pissed on) by a surveyor, the reality in what make a monument control the boundary is the reputation and reliance placed upon it by the landowners. What makes one type of monument more reliable than another is its certainty. Any fence post, when intended to mark the location of a boundary, is more certain than any two-bit rebar, tag with a license number, or fourth-decimal coordinate that a land surveyor sets. When the landowner can sit on his front porch and point to the corner, I'd say it's pretty certain in the eyes of the landowner and the law despite any attempt made by a surveyor to mark it with an appropriately sized dimple, locate it to the nearest decimal point, or to fix it with the most reference points.
I certainly agree that a surveyor should take care in measuring the location of the monument center so it can be recovered and perpetuated as future needs require. Keep in mind, however, that boundary surveys are an entirely different animal that the First Order, Class II surveys some would desire. We cannot impose our ideals of perfection upon the common landowner.
JBStahl, post: 365539, member: 427 wrote: We cannot impose our ideals of perfection upon the common landowner.
Doesn't Utah have a minimum standard? I KNOW they do down in Texas....:snarky:
JBStahl, post: 365539, member: 427 wrote: Any fence post, when intended to mark the location of a boundary, is more certain than any two-bit rebar, tag with a license number, or fourth-decimal coordinate that a land surveyor sets.
The problem, of course, is that obviously isn't true. Any surveyor who has dealt with boundaries marked by fence posts will know that corners so marked are anything but as certain as the markers typically set by land surveyors are.
The whole point of this thread was to consider the relative merits of using some fence posts as the basis for fixing the location of the boundaries of building lots ranging in width from 40 ft. to 50 ft., lines to be established by written agreement. Just asserting that fence posts are "close enough" may work for realtors, but there isn't any reason for a professional surveyor not to know better.
I certainly agree that a surveyor should take care in measuring the location of the monument center so it can be recovered and perpetuated as future needs require.
Except that misses the real problem, which is that there are multiple "centers" on most fence posts and the fence post itself should be an identifiable object, not merely "whatever fence post is in the vicinity at any time in the future". Setting reference monuments solves the problem much more definitely and in a way that will likely outlast the post.
a wooden fence has about a 40 year life span, that's if it's been taken care of.
I would take 40 years all day long. Last week we went back to a lot, for a new owner, we surveyed 6 years ago and out of 6 monuments "3/4" by 36" pipe" we set, only one was still existing.
Kent McMillan, post: 365545, member: 3 wrote: the fence post itself should be an identifiable object, not merely "whatever fence post is in the vicinity at any time in the future". Setting reference monuments solves the problem much more definitely and in a way that will likely outlast the post.
I agree with this thought. If the post is the monument, the surveyor needs to mark it in some way that the landowner cannot transfer to a new post if they rebuild the fence. But then, there are states where tags, caps, etc. are still optional, which seems ludicrous to me.
All the post to be used as monuments are corner post and I don't have caps.
Bill93, post: 365549, member: 87 wrote: I agree with this thought. If the post is the monument, the surveyor needs to mark it in some way that the landowner cannot transfer to a new post if they rebuild the fence. But then, there are states where tags, caps, etc. are still optional, which seems ludicrous to me.
The situation is probably better described as that of the landowners wanting to agree to establish their common lot lines in locations that run to or through certain fence posts in place that are not by their nature particularly well suited to be boundary monuments. The surveyor's task is to make a professional judgment as to how to best do what the landowners want, which is to permanently fix their boundaries by written agreement in positions that can be determined with certainty by a surveyor in the future.
Whether the fence posts carry the entire burden of fixing the location of the agreed corners for all time depends upon how the fence corners are described in the agreement to be executed. It is very simple to describe the corner in a way that places it within the post, but without giving the post superior control.
