How Hard is it

I was always telling the crews, "If you are not sure if the office needs it, JUST SHOOT IT" I can deal with extra points.

not too hard. We have frequently added the top/face curb shot also to our cross sections when creating a DTM - makes the cross-sections look correct. for a half street: cl pvmt, 1/4 line pvmt, lip/gutter, fl gutter, top/face curb, top/back curb, top/back sidewalk.

I just get tired of telling the to take the shots on every single job looks like they would learn!

> :pissed: How hard is it to take a gutter line and ep shot everytime you take a shot on the back of curb

3 times as hard

we shoot a profile shot when we start a section of curb:
boc
gutter
ep

then it is just boc unless something changes with the curb.

it is MUCH quicker to create a 3d line through the boc and then 3d offset to get your curb line in the office than it is to shoot 3 shots every 25 feet in the field. it creates a much smoother drawing and contour line as well.

quit bitching and learn how to make life easier for your field crew. morale will improve.

You will find if the crew gets all those you will get sea sick looking at it on the screen, get a X-sec at the beginning and the only time that should vary would be at a driveway cut

ric

> then it is just boc unless something changes with the curb.

I figure the flowline is the critical item -- nobody really cares much what the top of curb does, as long as the water flows. (TOC figures in some ADA situations, but it's not an issue for normal street cross-sections.) I shoot the flowline and generally don't show grades for the curb or lip.

BSW, FL, CL is all I normally provide.

Not here

You my friend need to learn how to draw... If you took those two xtra shots (100times over) once while working here, you would not do it twice... Not here anyways.

> > :pissed: How hard is it to take a gutter line and ep shot everytime you take a shot on the back of curb
>
> 3 times as hard
>
> we shoot a profile shot when we start a section of curb:
> boc
> gutter
> ep
>
> then it is just boc unless something changes with the curb.
>
> it is MUCH quicker to create a 3d line through the boc and then 3d offset to get your curb line in the office than it is to shoot 3 shots every 25 feet in the field. it creates a much smoother drawing and contour line as well.
>
>
> quit bitching and learn how to make life easier for your field crew. morale will improve.

Notice I am bitching only here and not at them. Morale will only improve after the temps drop out the the 90's.

I once worked with a guy who thought it would save money to have the office person "create" shots for the gutter by subtracting 0.5' in elevation and creating a point 0.5' offset. He also would shoot two diagonal corners on a concrete slab and then type a note "Create rectangle". Stuff like that. He was never an office CAD person, so he had no idea what a pain he was creating, not to mention guesswork and accuracy issues. He loved typing long notes, but they took twice as long to type as it would have taken to just get a couple of extra shots.

Not here

> You my friend need to learn how to draw... If you took those two xtra shots (100times over) once while working here, you would not do it twice... Not here anyways.

Not the way it works here, the BOSS/OWNER wants them shot no questions asked. But every company does things different.

> I once worked with a guy who thought it would save money to have the office person "create" shots for the gutter by subtracting 0.5' in elevation and creating a point 0.5' offset. He also would shoot two diagonal corners on a concrete slab and then type a note "Create rectangle". Stuff like that. He was never an office CAD person, so he had no idea what a pain he was creating, not to mention guesswork and accuracy issues. He loved typing long notes, but they took twice as long to type as it would have taken to just get a couple of extra shots.

I agree "creating breaklines" in office will save field time but how much will you save when some IMPORTANT topographic feature is not shown and causes problems!

We have so many curb times (like Bubba Gump shrimp) that we need to shoot gl and t.c. otherwise it just looks funny.

my crew loves taking centerline shots of objects

last year we staked a lot line where a wall was over the line by a foot
they located the centerline of the f****** wall. how the f*** can you accurately locate the center of a wall? how can i be confident to show a client the wall is 0.9' onto their property when it could easily be 1.0'?

i am about to take the centerline code out of the library. if only that would solve the problem.

rant off, happy friday

he should be fired out of a cannon and into the sun - futurama (my favorite quote ever)

I've done it several ways. I've done the lazy way and only shot one of the lines and used offsets for the others, but:

Most important is what is needed.

Now a days, with ADA requirements being very critical, more is better when trying to match strict longitudinal, cross and ramp slope requirements with tight field constraint conditions.

Another issue is drainage. Flat grades and confined curb flows require fairly involved engineering design. Having only the BSW, FL and CL as has been suggested here would be insufficient for calcuating flow spread, DI opening size and spacing, DI depressions, not to mention travelway and shoulder cross slopes.

Often I shoot CL, ETW, EP, ES, FL, TOC, TBOC & BSW for when I know drainage and ADA are concerns. It is not often that these aren't critical design components.

> I've done it several ways. I've done the lazy way and only shot one of the lines and used offsets for the others, but:
>
> Most important is what is needed.
>
> Now a days, with ADA requirements being very critical, more is better when trying to match strict longitudinal, cross and ramp slope requirements with tight field constraint conditions.
>
> Another issue is drainage. Flat grades and confined curb flows require fairly involved engineering design. Having only the BSW, FL and CL as has been suggested here would be insufficient for calcuating flow spread, DI opening size and spacing, DI depressions, not to mention travelway and shoulder cross slopes.
>
> Often I shoot CL, ETW, EP, ES, FL, TOC, TBOC & BSW for when I know drainage and ADA are concerns. It is not often that these aren't critical design components.

We work for engineers so most of our design surveys do include seeing if existing site meets ADA requirements we also so alot of asbuilt surveys where engineers review sites for ADA compliance. Also our engineers want all kinds of detail that i will not even try to go into here.

Some field guys just don't get it. We were out yesterday looking for bench marks. I parked the truck and walked the 200 or so yards to were I thought the bench mark would be based up references that I had. I turned to the I-man and no one had brought a shovel or metal detector with them. And this was the 5th stop to look for bench marks that day so they should have known what we would need.

I like my field guys but some days, I just want to fire all of them...

Houston Contract Specs

Houston contract specs mandate curb AND gutter shots every 100 feet, plus extra shots at inlets, etc. No big deal here.

To make drawing easier, I have seen crews run t/c out and bott/curb back or just t/c with a measure down.