I come here in defense of measurements. If monuments are the rock stars of the boundary world then measurements are the road crew. The star gets all the attention but the show can't go on without all the behind the scenes work of the crew.
If a monument is found then the Surveyor wanders down the sidewalk until the next is found, how is he to know it is the next corner without some sort of measurement? Maybe it's three lots down the street.
"When the division line of adjoining owners is designated in their respective deeds as a line beginning at a specified distance from a fixed object, the only method of ascertaining the location of the line on the ground is by measuring the required distance from the object." Justice Shaw writing in Young v. Blakeman, 153 Cal 477 (1908).
If Young and Blakeman's predecessors had measured accurately and then maintained a record of that the litigation would not have been necessary.
If James Woods had not set the north quarter section corner and northeast section corner of Section 7 900 feet too far west perhaps the litigation in State of California v. Thompson wouldn't have been necessary. Naturally Matt Thompson assumed his northwest quarter was reasonably square as reflected in the plats and field notes. Although he was wrong his distress does draw sympathy.
In conclusion, let me say that measurements are of critical importance and should always be given due care. Monuments set accurately in the first place are less troublesome and once they are found an accurate record of where they are is necessary too.
Welcome back, Dave.?ÿ Missed 'ya.
Are you on parole or did you serve the full term? ?ÿBeen absent for a long time.
Yea Grandpa glad to see you again.?ÿ ??ÿ
How do you know where your monument goes, if yer don't measure it?
Maybe Dave, an Ted Ted, an, Kent were on sabbatical together.... (Guess) or else how did 'e come up wid dat measurements nonsense?
N
The boy is 4-1/2.?ÿ I get the second coming greeting whenever he comes over; makes me feel kind of special.
I showed him a 25 year old family photo, he pointed at my Dad and said, "It's you Pahwa!" (He invented the name, Pahwa).?ÿ I could not convince him that is my Dad and the younger me in the photo is me.
Yes, but that doesnt justify wasting time chasing after those 0.04'.?ÿ
I'm going back to a survey, today; where I found an x in a stone, at the center quarter...
It misses the calculated split by 2.5' west; somebody, with superior measuring skills decided it wasn't good enough (he did not indicate if he even found the stone) and laid out his subdivision based on his superior math. Now, I have to retrace a lot in this plat and I'm missing 1 corner. Where should I set it?
Spoiler alert; it's on the east west center-line of the section.
Where he set it, if any reliance has been made on his survey.?ÿ He didn't move the center of section, but he did set a boundary that may have been accepted by all involved.
Do we do measurements anymore?
I used to spend hours reducing traverses, adjusting the results, calculating topo's from stadia readings, three wire leveling, dmd area calculations, solars, state plane from lat, longs and on and on.?ÿ
Now it's setting up a base, roaming around with a GPS head on a pole, almost never looking at any results except for the checks. Never seem to find any error to adjust. Heck the robot picks up a couple of hundredths and the digital level closes less than a few hundredths and adjusts the turns for you. It's gotten awful boring. All that's left to worry about are those monuments ??ÿ
We have a fire station that is on top of a bluff with a creek below (about 100' vertical).?ÿ So I pull the file, Jim Conkright surveyed the boundary in 1978 but didn't file the Survey.?ÿ I compute his map and as usual everything fits right on.?ÿ Then I guess it into Google Earth and it looks okay.?ÿ Then I look up the County Surveyor's GIS and there is a 10 year old Record of Survey of our south adjoiner.?ÿ They adjoin us on the south and east.?ÿ That map is tied into the County's Geodetic control network and it has two of our boundaries.?ÿ I start computing the map, well heck there is an 8 tenths bust north-south somewhere.?ÿ Come around the west side from the south side where the SPC coordinate is located way and get one answer, come around the east side and get another answer about 8 tenths north, well heck.?ÿ It's close enough for now but you would think in this day and age with computers and all a map should work mathematically.?ÿ It's a fairly complicated map so I see how mistakes can get made in the drafting room but that's the reason for checking.?ÿ Some of the way things are tied together is strange but the boundary is a closed figure and it should close.
Okay, the bold boundary which follows the right-of-way closes.?ÿ I usually build in from the centerlines but in this case there is a bust or busts on the centerline data.
I'm doing a B&T on a lot in a 1970s subdivision.?ÿ The lot is in a block with canned bronze disks at each end of the 500-foot centerline tangent, ramset nails and washers in the curbs at the lot line projections, and wrought iron fences on the side and rear lines (these are pricey golf course lots).?ÿ Ramsets are original, though not called out on the plat.
The plat block closes under 0.01 foot.?ÿ The centerline monuments fit for distance within 0.05 foot.?ÿ The ramsets fit their neighbors within 0.02 foot or less.?ÿ But the ramsets on my side of the street miss the calculated centerline distances by 0.7 foot, and the ramsets on the other side of the street miss by 0.5 foot (same direction).?ÿ The fenced sidelines on my side of the street are parallel with each other, but 8 arc-minutes off of platted (roughly 0.4 foot at the back corners).?ÿ The rear fence (a long tangent) fits the plat dimensions within a tenth or two.
Every single job in this subdivision gets a Record of Survey.?ÿ It's a good thing these lots are owned by well-heeled folks, because they're paying a lot of money to document the sloppy practices of the subdividing surveyor.
Some years ago I spoke with the son of the engineer who was in charge of the layout.?ÿ He told me that the crews monumented the fronts from one set of control, and the backs from another set, without ever checking between the two (this was wide-open flat ag land at the time of construction).?ÿ But even with a transit and chain they shouldn't have picked up that kind of disagreement.?ÿ And how they got the ramsets so badly out of whack with the centerline monuments still has me scratching my head.
I had a summer student working for me one year who was majoring in philosophy.?ÿ We were having one of those monuments vs measurement discussions, and he piped up, monuments hold because measurements have no physical presence. ?ÿ
We're supposed to follow in the footsteps of the first surveyor.?ÿ Once he sets the monument it's set.?ÿ Measurements are dynamic not static.?ÿ Monuments are static not dynamic.?ÿ
The day that bothers me most is when a crew or crew member decides that he/she tells me that a project is complete and they refuse to go tie that place into another project down the road or around a corner to finish out the day.
0.02
I'm doing a B&T on a lot in a 1970s subdivision.?ÿ The lot is in a block with canned bronze disks at each end of the 500-foot centerline tangent, ramset nails and washers in the curbs at the lot line projections, and wrought iron fences on the side and rear lines (these are pricey golf course lots).?ÿ Ramsets are original, though not called out on the plat.
The plat block closes under 0.01 foot.?ÿ The centerline monuments fit for distance within 0.05 foot.?ÿ The ramsets fit their neighbors within 0.02 foot or less.?ÿ But the ramsets on my side of the street miss the calculated centerline distances by 0.7 foot, and the ramsets on the other side of the street miss by 0.5 foot (same direction).?ÿ The fenced sidelines on my side of the street are parallel with each other, but 8 arc-minutes off of platted (roughly 0.4 foot at the back corners).?ÿ The rear fence (a long tangent) fits the plat dimensions within a tenth or two.
Every single job in this subdivision gets a Record of Survey.?ÿ It's a good thing these lots are owned by well-heeled folks, because they're paying a lot of money to document the sloppy practices of the subdividing surveyor.
Some years ago I spoke with the son of the engineer who was in charge of the layout.?ÿ He told me that the crews monumented the fronts from one set of control, and the backs from another set, without ever checking between the two (this was wide-open flat ag land at the time of construction).?ÿ But even with a transit and chain they shouldn't have picked up that kind of disagreement.?ÿ And how they got the ramsets so badly out of whack with the centerline monuments still has me scratching my head.
I've seen the Lot corner/centerline systematic shift before.
there is a subdivision in Folsom from that era, the front corners are rebars that misfit the centerline control by about 3 tenths. I think they set the Lot corners from the hub/tack centerlines they probably ran in on the subgrade then after the streets were complete the last thing was set the centerline control, that is my assumption about the source of the differences.
