The office is finishing up a large urban survey for DOT. It is at the DOT office for review before filing. An out of state firm appears and our PC notices them doing a survey for a large retail parcel. Presumably an ALTA survey. This parcel runs along the Highway so it interests us. He notices new monuments and figured we need to locate them for the DOT plats. He finds pincushions. Around the parcel are set new AL caps next to original subdivision caps. The original caps are buried down, sometimes 1/2 foot now, but not too difficult to find. Call the surveyor's number and he was very cordial. We are sending down files for our survey and some other info and he is "talking to" the crew and sending them back up to fix everything. It's always a bit nerve wracking to call on this stuff, but you got to do it, this time it was very interesting and glad to have done it.
None of the original caps are from this office, the two surveyors are passed now that did the subdivision in the 1980's and 1990's. The surveys are not math perfect, but the caps are mostly still there, some are missing. It would have been nice to have had the DOT plats filed before the ALTA survey started, but alas it takes time.
Just one of many reasons that I despise ALTA factories where the license could be halfway across the country and doesn't know and/or care what the field crews are doing.
@hi-staker Local field crews can miss stuff too so I don't think it has much to do with how far away the PLS is.
Had something happen where another surveyor was called to set the corners of a specific lot in a s;ecific blowck for which we were still attempting to get the final plat recorded.for the Addition. The other fellow had gotten his hands on the Preliminary Plat required ahead of the Final Plat. His new bars were correct, relative to each other, but he had overlooked the BASIS of BEARINGS.statement. OOPS. We were to set ALL lot corners immediately after recording the final plat. His bars were all pulled and correct one with our caps set. We did contact the new owner of that lot when we discovered who that was. The Register of Deeds Office had refused to accept and record the deed until the Final Plat was officially recorded.
Local field crews can miss stuff too so I don't think it has much to do with how far away the PLS is.
Returning to the site for a follow up look is inconvenient, to say the least, for these travelling outfits. Resolutions have to be done on the quick, and entirely by the field crew. No chance for reconsideration.
There are manners and characters of monumentation unique to every area. I wrote a rather long dissertation on this site a few years ago about a type of monument particular to a certain survey of Portland locally called "Ramsey Points". No surveyor from outside of the area would recognize them nor comprehend their significance if found.
Stuff common to Portland, such as Brass Screw offsets, are not seen in the suburbs. If I go as far as Salem, less that 50 miles off, I'm seeing entirely different things and maybe missing some because I don't know just what I'm looking for. Vancouver, BC, Vancouver, WA, Seattle. OKC, Tulsa.....these are all places I've worked with their own characteristic quirks.
@hi-staker Local field crews can miss stuff too so I don't think it has much to do with how far away the PLS is.
I won't argue that local field crews can miss things just as easily as blow and go ALTA crews, but at least when a local license does the work, he or she follows standards, statutes, and other such requirements that the ALTA factories rarely do.
In Montana, if a PLS sets or replaces a corner of any type, then at a bare minimum they are required to file a Certified Corner Record (CCR) with the county Clerk and Recorder that the work is being performed in. They also have to have a cap with their Montana license number on it that goes on the corner. Every time I have found a corner set by an ALTA factory, there has never once been a CCR filed.
I can't tell you how many times I have found a corner with a license number on it, that when that license number is looked up it is from a license halfway across the country. Then you Google that person's name and what do you know, that individual is licensed in dozens of states.
@norman-oklahoma
I would like to read your post about the Ramsey points.
Joe
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. Typing class 9th grade!
I would like to read your post about the Ramsey points.
Not as extensive as I recalled. Perhaps it was the follow up conversation that made it seem so.
Thanks for the link. I must have missed that conversation. Ramsey points were considered gold, I found and used some myself.
I did find a very miniscule piece of lead and brass wire once. Was on my hands a knees to find it.
Joe
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. Typing class 9th grade!
Ramsey points were considered gold ....
One time in my career and one time only I have received a written message from another surveyor praising my aprroach and resolution of a boundary. That happen when I found, tied, and held 4 Ramsey points. Recorded here: 66757.pdf