How do you prep for stakeout?

I calc far fewer points than a lot of guys do and make heavy use of the stake to line/ stake line and offset functions in my dc. That allows me to make adjustments, such as sliding that point to stake up or down line easily, or changing offsets on the fly.?ÿ ?ÿ

I use dxf background maps extensively. Having the big 7" screen is just gravy on that biscuit.?ÿ

You have already mentioned staking a DTM. So I won't repeat that.?ÿ The problem is getting a reliable DTM. The civil designer probably has a pretty good one and may be willing to share. But they won't take responsibility for it's correctness. So use with caution.?ÿ

The key to managing any big project is to break it down into manageable chunks. Control, Boundary, Storm, Sanitary, Water, Franchise utilities, Curbs, Landscape, Buildings are separate but complementary efforts that come together to create the whole.?ÿ?ÿ

I create 3d linework of all curbs, grade breaks, 3d utilities and FG surface model in CAD. Then upload this to the controller. This way I can stake anything on the job site. Are you located in the Sarotoga / Washington County area? Some day we should meet for lunch and I will show you.

@leegreen

Hey Lee, Gregg from Keeseville here. That's what I'd like to accomplish but it's tough to find the time to create all of that linework, ect  and get things done too. How do you find/make the time? 

We should definitely meet up again soon.

Gregg

Big thermos of coffee, unmarked car, binoculars, long lens camera, backup in place.

I've been building 3d models for nearly 25 years. With proper software and training it can be very quick and efficiently done. I do a lot of athletic fields for high school and colleges. I use Carlson Takeoff ($9000) for site work and Microstation w/ InRoads for highway and bridges ($12500). As you can quite see it is an investment. I build most project models in less than 8 hours. Another key is knowing how to read into cad files from the Engineer and know what to ask for.

In my stakeout i have both the lines and points in the data collector, so i am able to pick out any additional info to set out. The only problems is the damn designs keep changing and the engineer keep only providing 2 versions behind.

If you have the roading module for Access you can create alignments and templates that allow for staking Stations and offsets without points and lines. ?ÿA dxf background map with pertinent info is helpful, i.e. odd station numbers, radius dimensions, etc.?ÿ

@gmpls

ok so disclaimer here: I'm not a registered PLS but I am a registered PE & licensed contractor working for a consultant firm with a survey dept here in NC. But here in NC, PE's along with PLS's are allowed to create digital terrain models from what I have read on the board's policies. So now that my disclaimer is out of the way & everyone can take what I have to say with a grain of salt I guess. Also, this is kind of a tangent of mine I would like to point out here before we delve into DTM's...?ÿ

I have worked part time for a grading & utility contractor for almost 15 years now extensively in the grading portion helping them from rough earth moving to earthwork quantities on site (they topo at their own risk) to laying out curb line & finish grading streets & parking lots. Some may laugh at this or think this is beneath a PE or even them but there's a serious benefit to getting out there to better understand how things are actually built & constructed in the field by these contractors (most engineers don't know themselves how things are built while they design sites & some are just too arrogant to admit it). Hence why I'm on here these days as I'm very interested in becoming a licensed surveyor & wanting to try to learn as much as possible. But my point in mentioning all this is that this particular grading contractor utilizes the newest GPS machine control equipment that Topcon makes (yes Topcon's probably not king of the survey industry by a long shot but their machine/grade control equipment will give Trimble & others a run for their money; I've personally sat in & played with two identical dozers equipped with each system & gotten feedback from real world operators who all seem to prefer the Topcon equipped machines & even other local contractors seem to be ditching their previous setups for Topcon these days so I'm tempted to buy stock in Topcon haha). I've heard people who used to scoff at GPS equipped dozers or pans and say "they're close enough to rough cut earthwork to maybe within two tenths." Well nowadays I'm seeing newer dozers equipped with the most modern GPS and a decent operator that can get the stone bladed in streets to say within a couple hundredths (once compacted) when properly paired with a base setup. For somebody like myself this is impressive to see how far the industry has come in the last 2 decades since GPS machine control was really introduced but like all things they must be used with some discretion, set up verified methods for doing things & checked behind. Prime example of GPS being used when it shouldn't have been was where a surveyor one time come to layout curb for some?ÿ 3000' of streets in a subdivision with grades predominantly at 0.50% up & down across a very flat site using a rover that was running off VRS network nonetheless (I learned a lot that summer about manually laying out curb). While the horizontal was acceptable enough to layout the string line by but the vertical was crap & had to be re-adjusted at every 25' offset stake using a basic level & grade rod off some known benches - this took almost 2 days (these are contractors we're talking about here not mathletes who can calc cuts & fills fairly quickly in their heads).

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But this leads me to my response to the OP (despite the book I wrote earlier)... when you build any digital terrain model with the hopes of the contractor or even yourself trying to abide by it for grading purposes yourself, that particular model BETTER have some serious definition to it and have been looked over thoroughly by yourself. I've learned don't trust others' models as they're typically garbage with just some basic 2D polys for contours that some engineer or CAD tech thinks they'll enough to help you define some very intricate grading or better yet the architects or landscape architects who try to give you some site grading with a few basic curved 2D polys or splines to represent contours on a slope that is non-uniform - they ought to be slapped. We run AutoCAD C3D (varies from 2015 up to 2020). If you're willing to take the time to learn it's capabilities between feature lines (essentially a fancy 3D poly with a few other options), corridors (not just for streets these days) & the "Grading Creation Tools" then you can create some really good definition in C3D's surfaces (what they call a digital terrain model). It took me a good year of creating & playing with proposed surfaces for multiple jobs before I started to figure out what does & doesn't work as well as what Topcon's very basic model building software would accept (it's a crude program called Topcon Office 3D but hey it was free & I wasn't willing to spend more money on software if I'm just learning at first plus C3D isn't cheap itself).?ÿ

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One thing I have found is that basic building pads or areas of the site that you intend to keep at a set elevation don't require much definition, usually just an elevation at each vertex along the 3d poly or feature line if you're using C3D. However, curb line on the other hand can definitely require a lot more points along it when that curb line has any horizontal or vertical curvature at all so be sure to model it appropriately. Radii at street intersections or for cul de sacs are prime examples - I don't use C3D's culdesac or intersection builder tools here (I can't get them to always grade how I'd like to see it) but rather basic corridors & then tie together the more intricate items with my own feature lines to represent CL of the sac, the EOP, flow line, BOC, grading at R/W edge & then whatever the tie-in grade may be to the site or lots. Other times, embankments/berms or even basic swales/channels can be modeled with a simple 3d poly or feature line but depending on the parameters you want the berm or swale's design to abide by, using either a corridor or grading creation tool in civil 3d with the proper parameters will yield much better results with less effort. Other times you're looking for the surface/DTM to have a tie in slope either of a certain, defined angle with a grading creation tool making that simple. Or for that slope to just fall within an acceptable window of min & max slopes for tie in purposes you could drape a feature line across the surface & give it the slope parameters to abide by.

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One last comment. A lot of engineers don't understand paving parking lots or streets with intersections that take steep plunges from CL to the EOP. A contractor might go through the extra effort of laying out the subgrade exactly like it was intended to be done per the design. But a paving machine won't perfectly conform to that subgrade seeing as it's either a rubber-tired machine or one with tracks so the guys on the back of the paver adjust the screed height for the mat thickness as best as possible. However, if the pulls of asphalt being laid down have to cross say an inverted portion of the parking lot due to the direction that the trucks & pavers have head towards to leave that area (say a flat swale essentially in the asphalt due to the fact that the curb line is higher) then that paver & its crew can't usually adjust for those particular differences in elevation that quickly in order to keep a perfect mat depth on the asphalt while the paver is creeping forward (much less say the guy in the dump truck loading the paver bumps it accidentally). My point here is that I've seen a lot of good surveyors who can understand the problems the paving crews might face here & they have adjusted DTM's to help try to minimize these issues. So that's something to consider when it comes to helping with construction staking. A lot of designers put things on paper that look great but can't be built either efficiently or easily due to lack of thought or understanding on their part

@leegreen

Exactly! Getting the right info from the designer or their CAD tech is key to building a good model. Somebody sending basic 2d polys usually is never enough to build a thorough model by. I ask for anything from points to TIN to 3D polys (feature lines) to the actual surface they originally prepared (some won't share their original surfaces for various reasons such as liability, etc.)

How to prepare for stakeout:

1. Receive digital files.

2. Request the 50-70% of digital files that are missing, and PDFs of the signed plans for construction, since the disclaimer for the digital files absolves the designers of all liability for their mistakes in those drawings.

3. Xref the digital files into our layout/control drawing. Find discrepancies.

4. Call up the architect and ask why their boundary is different from the one we sent them months ago. Receive indignation, and eventually a file that is still not correct but close enough to work with.

5. Call up architect again after realizing all of their linework is on the same layer "AE-STUFF" and means nothing to me. Receive more indignation and an explanation of which of the 12,987 overlapping lines are the "real" building lines.

6. Call up the structural engineer and ask why the FF elevations on their plans are different from those on the civil plans. Receive equivocation.

7. Call up the civil engineer and ask the same question. Receive more equivocation. Request those additional files from #2 that never showed up.

8. In the interim, begin creating all of the fancy 3D entities (alignments, corridors, feature lines, surfaces) that the engineers had at their fingertips for design, but rejected in favor of 2D polylines and hand-calculated text labels that do not match.

9. Repeat steps 6 and 7 a few times until the two engineers realize that they are going to have to talk to each other rather than through a surveyor who really couldn't care less what the elevations are but will not be held liable for their screwups.

8. Find discrepancies between those hand-calc'd elevations and grades shown. Call engineer to see if they might want to correct them. Receive indignation, eventually acquiescence, and finally some direction.

9. Begin adding points, elevating alignments, etc. Fix some design stuff that doesnƒ??t match up because I am tired of calling engineers.

10. Prepare maps and control files for crews, along with digital files (alignments and corridors).

11. Send crew to site to begin work. Receive call once they are on site letting me know that they are all set up and work is going smoothly.

12. Fifteen seconds later, receive panicked calls from construction super, who has a newer or older set of plans than we do which are significantly different in multiple respects. Recall crew.

13. Go back to number 1. Then when you get back to this point, forge ahead as best you can knowing all the while that the plans are being revised as you are staking, and that the remainder of the project will suck the life out of you as well as the time from actual surveying projects.

14. Curse the fact that your company does construction staking.

15. Remember that ultimately the company likes it because it makes someone up top lots of money.

16. Remember that #16 still doesnƒ??t make the annoyance, stress, and hassle go away for you, nor does it make you any more money than the other actual land surveying projects you undertake. And you still hate it.

17. Go home and drink.

Step#1: Do not do construction staking if at all possible. There is much more profit to be had by doing other tasks with much less aggravation and liability.

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@rundatline

I do construction staking, but these days it's only for private companies, condo's, large houses, some reservoirs, ect. If a client calls and requests staking from me it's a TM process. The days of big public jobs are gone as far as I'm concerned. 

Last week a couple of construction companies requested bids for a public housing project just down the street from my office. This was Monday, one company sent a bid package, typical stuff, 800 pages, all kinds of legalsleaze, threats of prosecution, weekly certified payroll, all for a little parking lot stakeout. I asked when they need the estimate and the guy said tomorrow...…….Tuesday. 

I don't see why anyone does these, but good for them if they want to be in that business, I'm out. 

I prepare a fair amount of comps and worksheets. However you cannot anticipate every request that comes up and at the risk of repeating others I do not do anything outside of the requested task simply because I see that as an extra cost billable item. If I am called out to stake and offset a building, I stake and offset the building and if someone has an additional request I will treat that as an extra cost item and get the acknowledgement in writing. Simply put show me the money, it takes time to prep this stuff and truck hood comps are a surefire way to goober something up.

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@rover83

That sounds about right but in my case I am also the crew. The project that I was referring to was the biggest layout job I have done on my own and it left me wondering if there are more efficient, less stressful ways of doing things, aside from getting extra help. I think that's just how it is though. I can surely improve the efficiency of my methods but it's still going to be a lot of on the fly, need it done yesterday kind of work. I don't know how full time layout guys do this year after year. I do enjoy the money and satisfaction of seeing the project completed but there is no way in hell that I'd do it as an employee!