Memories

Memories about engineers handing me plans to stake and complaining later because things don't fit are something I am glad to be far from these days.
I am glad to say that I did work on the two major mall projects in NE Texas from the ground up to final stages.
The Longview Mall around 1974 and the Texarkana Mall around 1978.
Each one the final product may have looked similar or the same from store placement to property size, except each was a total different build and by different methods.
Longview mall I was in charge of obtaining my own control and grades and locations and everything drained with no pooling.
Texarkana mall was on a crew under Engineers direction and a 100ft grid layout and their hydraulics breakdown was trying to get water to drain uphill and pooling was all over the entire site.

Also glad of my work on the Cason Power Plant Units 2 & 3 and much of the grading plan of the entire site.

Very glad I have only been land surveying since 1989.

I also worked on a power plant that required a man made wetland. We laid out a 1000' plus drainage ditch to divert water to said wetland. Got a call, after the ditch was built, saying the ditch was running uphill the wrong direction. I shot a few grades and asked the super where the water went when it rained. His response was "in the pond". End of story.

I do my best to stay out of any construction staking, but it happens. So when it does, we try to hire a crew that knows how to do it, and that's what they do. Sure, we check up on them, which is what makes this memory stand out. Looking at the plans, this house was all wrong! It was, well, after looking, exactly backwards somehow.... So I'm scratching my head, dragging tape to rough check, and things are right but backwards. The job foreman sees me, or is driving by or something, and stops. That's when he explains that the architect wanted to break up the monotony of the neighborhood, and requested every third house be built by holding the plans over your head and staking the house out that way. Guess they didn't know how to flip it in auto-cad!

Webbed feet, post: 393057, member: 10038 wrote: I was just perusing through some of these posts and started thinking back on a few of my more memorable construction projects.

Several years ago the firm I worked at was hired to trace piping through a fairly large petroleum refinery. Long story short, this led to stake out of 4 new "units" to be built. I spent a month laying out a complex compressor foundation that contained many anchor bolts at varying elevations. Checked and rechecked everything. After pour, the foundation had to cure for quite some time and I moved on to other projects.

One early morning I received a call from the super to get to the site ASAP. Something was terribly wrong with our foundation layout. My heart sank and I was almost sick as I made the 45 minute drive.

Upon arrival, I performed an as-built survey on every anchor bolt and elevation change. I compared this to the prints and everything was in tolerance. The super told me there was no way and that the compressor just would not fit. I asked to see the compressor plans and Voila! We built a foundation for a different type of compressor! Cost the engineers major $$$.

Mine is somewhat similar. I staked, checked the layout, and signed the pour sheet for a chip screening building in a paper mill. A few weeks later I get a call saying "Somethings not right, the steel don't fit." Of course my heart drops and I dig out the plans to go check. Everything checks well within tolerance and I'm standing there scratching my head when the erection superintendent walks up looking sheepish. "It's OK", he said. "The foreman had the plans backward, he tried to put it up with the south end steel on the north and vice versa". I think I walked on air the rest of the day.
Andy

Monte, post: 393249, member: 11913 wrote: I do my best to stay out of any construction staking, but it happens. So when it does, we try to hire a crew that knows how to do it, and that's what they do. Sure, we check up on them, which is what makes this memory stand out. Looking at the plans, this house was all wrong! It was, well, after looking, exactly backwards somehow.... So I'm scratching my head, dragging tape to rough check, and things are right but backwards. The job foreman sees me, or is driving by or something, and stops. That's when he explains that the architect wanted to break up the monotony of the neighborhood, and requested every third house be built by holding the plans over your head and staking the house out that way. Guess they didn't know how to flip it in auto-cad!

What's going to be real crazy to see is when the builder digs down two stories and puts on an upside down roof and builds it up to the floor. 😉

I was conscripted to stake a small strip shopping area once-upon-a-time and the plans were particularly ambiguous. The site plan called out a proposed elevation of "100.0" for the finished floor of the building, and all the grading and paving data was tied to that elevation. A few months earlier I had prepared a topo of the site and delivered it with 'real' elevations. Before a permit was issued the city required the grading plans to show an "approved" benchmark. The firm preparing the plans apparently cabbaged a top-rim of a manhole from my original topo and the final grading plans proudly announced "BM: Top Rim Sanitary MH at SW Cor. of Site - Elev. = 1237.25' "

Trouble was all the grading elevations were still at "100". Tried as I may, I could not find one single place where I had a good elevation that I could relate to the proposed elevations. The grading contractor was getting itchy to get started. I contacted the A&E firm about the problem and was told the plans were approved and they couldn't change anything. Okie-Dokie...

I staked the grading utilizing the published BM and provided grades from the approved plans. I had a cut of 1140.7' to the F.F....the grading contractor thought it was hilarious.

Needless to say it finally caught someone's attention and some new plans magically appeared in a day or two.