How many of you

Yes, I have run into that. We carried a 6' folding ruler, and we'd usually hand it to the Sup, and say , here is all you need. Look here... and then turn it over. Tie a flag around it, and hand it to the non English guy.... If the Sup was a good fellow, we'd give it to him, and buy another. If he was otherwise, we'd point to Kara, and say get you one.
Chicago-land area. Often, a few minutes, and they'd be off. And get her done.

N

I was on a staking job and had a dirt contractor ask me if it was alright to stockpile his stripped topsoil (a 500' long, 20' high pile) over in an open area. I told him 'it didn't bother me a bit'. Trouble was the property was owned by an adjoiner and wasn't even part of the project.

The GC and the dirt sub got their legal titties in a wringer over that one and tried like hell to make me liable in some way, shape or form. It didn't work.

Bottom line - keep some supervision on the job that can think and talk English. Paden Cash might be staking the job and you really won't like what he tells people that ask dumb questions outside of the realm of "staking".

I just thought it was me in my area. Just finished a job where I was daily asked questions. I would help them and charge for my time. My next complaint is poor ACAD drawings. Working on a project (not the first one for the same company) and the ACAD drawings are not even close to the sealed plans. UGH! Again... charge for my time! You would think in this day and age of ACAD that we could get all of our stuff on the same page.

I tell most contractors "Every set of plans I get is worse than the last one...Yours are just the latest."

If I can't stake it from the plans, I refuse to ask for an electronic file.
I'll scale from it first and dare them to prove me wrong.

Ron Lang, post: 375427, member: 6445 wrote: Are running it to site superintendents who have no idea what they are doing.

There is a lot of turnover right now. Additionally, the best and brightest (and most expensive) left during the downturn. (I like to think I am bright, just stubborn.)

Not to say all are bad, just that it is less likely to find competent and experienced PM's.

dmyhill, post: 375447, member: 1137 wrote: There is a lot of turnover right now. Additionally, the best and brightest (and most expensive) left during the downturn. (I like to think I am bright, just stubborn.)

Not to say all are bad, just that it is less likely to find competent and experienced PM's.

I agree it's like since the recession most of the good supers dissappeard. There are a few great ones still out there but in my area, many can hardly read the plans. Or understand basic sequence of construction.

Life is a litany of oddities on 2 legs.
But it can also start at the design stage.
Like the bridge I was given to set out that was wider than the 20.12 metre road reserve, yet alone the actual road they were cutting into. We just redesigned it on site and said nothing.
Then there's the car parks. Redesigned, sometimes completely.
May have just told us where and how many bays and leave the rest to me!
The sewer pipes, laid from wrong end without even checking their laser, (or me) running several legs and, crossing underneath a railway and meeting the cut-in manhole beneath the invert! Oops! Ouch!

Some formen have little comprehension when it comes to transitioning from a design to an older construction.
Fudging, smoothing in whatever you call it,
That can show peoples talents and just plain old nouse.
But thankfully there are those thoroughly switched on bods that only need a few basic setout points and they have it in their head and translated to the finished article without recourse for further action.
I take my hat of to those blokes. They're a pleasure to work with.

I do the same thing as Nate and give them an old folding rule. The new generation of job supers cannot read plans and wants to work 40 hour work weeks. They know nothing about scheduling or very little about what a surveyor does. You can forget about the conservation of column line offsets. Stupidity can be very expensive but I'll take their money.

My cuts/fills are always an even foot. Never in 20 years have I marked cuts/fills in decimals of a foot:stakeout:

It was always fascinating, to watch the sup take the 6' ruler, and look at the INCH side, then turn it over, and see engineers, and see his lights come on. "I did not know they made these!" One used to walk around with his 6' ruler, and check grades, and it was sort of fun to see his brain wheels turning. He was not a bad fellow. He was hard working, and not rude at all. Just not familiar with the tools at hand. Funny that some of them were college grads, and had never held a 6' ruler!

N

jaxsmitty, post: 375463, member: 11693 wrote: My cuts/fills are always an even foot. Never in 20 years have I marked cuts/fills in decimals of a foot:stakeout:

Really, that's amazing. How does one go about staking everything to an even foot?

Ron Lang, post: 375467, member: 6445 wrote: Really, that's amazing. How does one go about staking everything to an even foot?

My guess is you have to carry at least 2 different lengths of stakes.

It's a toss up.

I have one job that has had the worst superintendents I've ever seen. They request complicated hardscape layout in areas that still need 12' of fill, they excavated a bio retention area then realized that the needed to bring materials in the site through it and had to fill it back in. Etc.

Across the street on another government site I have multiple jobs going on and the superintendents are the best I've ever worked with. They request stakeout a week in advance, they email me marked up plans of what the need staked and how they want it staked out. They starting two months out coordinating how 125 drilled shafts supporting a water tank foundation were going to get staked and constructed.

A lot of my construction projects are design-build and it takes a certain type of super, one that can plan six months out knowing full well that tomorrow will change everything, to manage those projects successfully.

Ron Lang, post: 375467, member: 6445 wrote: Really, that's amazing. How does one go about staking everything to an even foot?

My guess is that he's doing what he wrote: marking, not staking to an even foot.

It's been years since I've workd anywhere where the surveyor actually field marked th cuts & fills on a stake. If the contractor can't read a cut sheet someone better hire a smarter contractor. Also it takes a contractor who's not thinking about the budget to pay me $175/hour to mark stakes

jaxsmitty, post: 375463, member: 11693 wrote: My cuts/fills are always an even foot. Never in 20 years have I marked cuts/fills in decimals of a foot:stakeout:

Same here always even foot. How I was taught. How I'll always do it. Watch a YouTube video once. They graded the stake at a .33' cut. I amazed me to hear that.

Had a grading operator Super that always went behind the surveyor and raised the Finish Grade mark to a Cut 1 mark with a Red Sharpe. Then he'd tell his helpers "Red line string line"

James Fleming, post: 375470, member: 136 wrote: My guess is that he's doing what he wrote: marking, not staking to an even foot.

It's been years since I've workd anywhere where the surveyor actually field marked th cuts & fills on a stake. If the contractor can't read a cut sheet someone better hire a smarter contractor. Also it takes a contractor who's not thinking about the budget to pay me $175/hour to mark stakes

I mark all cuts/fills in the field around here cut sheets are for the county inspectors on their utilities. I can't see marking 3000' of curb & gutter, or drainage structures to the nearest foot when usually the contractors are right behind me building what I just staked.

For rough grading even foot is fine. But anything else has an accurate cut on the stake.

But I calc everything in office prior to staking. No need to go back and mark stakes.

Second-Generation, post: 375471, member: 1477 wrote: Same here always even foot. How I was taught. How I'll always do it. Watch a YouTube video once. They graded the stake at a .33' cut. I amazed me to hear that.

Had a grading operator Super that always went behind the surveyor and raised the Finish Grade mark to a Cut 1 mark with a Red Sharpe. Then he'd tell his helpers "Red line string line"

I guess different strokes for different folks.

Agreed, but still talkin c/f 1.00' or 2.00' ect. For everything from finish floors, top curb, fin asph, inverts. All grades, really. Not rough. I'll set dirt grds with the robot. All others get level rod...

Ron Lang, post: 375472, member: 6445 wrote: I mark all cuts/fills in the field around here cut sheets are for the county inspectors on their utilities. I can't see marking 3000' of curb & gutter, or drainage structures to the nearest foot when usually the contractors are right behind me building what I just staked.

For rough grading even foot is fine. But anything else has an accurate cut on the stake.

But I calc everything in office prior to staking. No need to go back and mark stakes.

Just to clarify. I'm not rounding up to the nearest foot. For example if the finish grade is a 72.60' but the existing ground elev. is rough graded to 73'. I'll raise the Linker Rod .60' And grade the stake at a Cut-1.
Sorry in advance if I misread your post.
I work for a small family surveying firm. Which is very old school. We mainly do small parking lot. I've only staked road a hand full of times and never had to do a cut sheet.