Compass Survey for Kent
Sometimes a sectionalized land surveyor will never grasp to concept of surveying in the colonial states and the rules and procedures that we have to follow.
Perambulations
> Thnx Perry. It has been an interesting thread, and has prompted me to look up a few things.
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> Kinda glad it petered out before it turned into a thread about personality types 😉
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> Thnx....G (INTJ btw) 😛
I was kinda trying to steer it back, but it kept getting hijacked.
Compass Survey for Kent
> Sometimes a sectionalized land surveyor will never grasp to concept of surveying in the colonial states and the rules and procedures that we have to follow.
More often, though, a surveyor in a metes and bounds state like Texas will wonder why in the world anyone is orienting surveys to magnetic North as if being able to follow the work in fifty years is no biggie.
Compass Survey for Kent
> A Compass Survey is a survey where a Compass is used to measure the bearings around a traverse on the ground. If I take one of your surveys and rotate it to a magnetic bearing, it does not magically become a Compass Survey.
But hasn't it just become pretty much the same as a compass survey since it no longer has a bearing basis that can be reproduced fifty years from now? And if the boundary monuments are just a bunch of trees and rock fences, in what way is a total station survey approximately oriented to magnetic North any better than a T-0 survey with distances by Disto?
Recreating Bearing Bases for Kent
> > A Compass Survey is a survey where a Compass is used to measure the bearings around a traverse on the ground. If I take one of your surveys and rotate it to a magnetic bearing, it does not magically become a Compass Survey.
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> But hasn't it just become pretty much the same as a compass survey since it no longer has a bearing basis that can be reproduced fifty years from now? And if the boundary monuments are just a bunch of trees and rock fences, in what way is a total station survey approximately oriented to magnetic North any better than a T-0 survey with distances by Disto?
After this 180 acre survey has been completed, there will be 10 iron pins/pipes located and an additional 8 pins set. There will also be ties to two other granite town line posts. This will give a future surveys 20 physical object to recreate the bearing base with a high degree of confidence. Also there will be at least 6 more pins located on abutting properties that will have tie distances/BN's for the survey.
Kent, it's actually pretty simple to reproduce bearing bases from surveys oriented to any bearing base using these existing point! Send me an email or give me a call and I can walk you through the procedure.
mathematically speaking... Locating just one extra pin is always superior any advantage a reproducible bearing base gives you.
Recreating Bearing Bases for Kent
> After this 180 acre survey has been completed, there will be 10 iron pins/pipes located and an additional 8 pins set. There will also be ties to two other granite town line posts. This will give a future surveys 20 physical object to recreate the bearing base with a high degree of confidence.
So, fast forward fifty years. How many of those rebars do you think will still be there? How many will have been pulled up and driven where one of the amateur surveyors thought it should be? Are granite town line posts really made out of the same material as the hull of the Starship Enterprise or are you just assuming that nothing else is going to ever happen in New Hampshire that will make some future owner wish that someone hadn't thought that granite posts were indestructable?
Recreating Bearing Bases for Kent
> > After this 180 acre survey has been completed, there will be 10 iron pins/pipes located and an additional 8 pins set. There will also be ties to two other granite town line posts. This will give a future surveys 20 physical object to recreate the bearing base with a high degree of confidence.
>
> So, fast forward fifty years. How many of those rebars do you think will still be there? How many will have been pulled up and driven where one of the amateur surveyors thought it should be? Are granite town line posts really made out of the same material as the hull of the Starship Enterprise or are you just assuming that nothing else is going to ever happen in New Hampshire that will make some future owner wish that someone hadn't thought that granite posts were indestructable?
I would say that darn near all those rebars will be there in 50 years. Maybe the snowplow will hit a frontage pin or two. After all, the Town Line Posts was set more than a century ago and most of the pipes we will locate have survived more than 50 years and they look in pretty good shape.
Recreating Bearing Bases for Kent
> I would say that darn near all those rebars will be there in 50 years.
You realize that you have just pretty much guaranteed that none of them will survive, right? That's the whole point of making boundaries permanently identifiable. You provide a surplus of information and don't taken anything for granted. Best practice, even if you still want to facilitate amateur surveying by quoting magnetic bearings of lines, would be to provide even the faintest hint of a clue as to what direction magnetic North actually was and what the geodetic positions of various corners actually are.
Perambulations
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> > Exactly. Why would one want to hire a professional surveyor when a good survey would actually locate the town line permanently and exactly? As far as I can tell, New Hampshire surveying begins with the idea that a compass ought to be good enough for almost anything and ends with the idea that anyone can run a compass. I'm frankly not certain why land surveyors are licensed in New Hampshire if any crowd of laymen can do it.
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> Perambulations are not run much anymore. They used to be required to be run every 7 years, but I believe the state stopped requiring them a couple decades ago. Any town line work now is done by modern survey methods.
Perry, The state RSA still requires that that the town line be perambulated every 7 years. The problem occurs when the towns ignore state law.
You can call Brian Burford at State archives for more info. All Perambulations are on file at the archives and Brian is responsible for maintaining them.
Jim in NH
Perambulations
Perambulations are still required by law-
51:2 Perambulation of Town Lines. – The lines between the towns in this state shall be perambulated, and the marks and bounds renewed, once in every 7 years forever, by the selectmen of the towns, or by such persons as they shall in writing appoint for that purpose.
It just is not enforced and most towns that actually do it at the prescribed 7 year interval have a selectman or other interested party who is a surveyor or cares about such things.
This is a corner common to three towns, the most recent date chiseled on the stones is 2006, the oldest 1841.
Good luck deciding which bound is actually the corner....
