Need help regarding cut / fill plan

Drilldo, post: 447726, member: 8604 wrote: Could we expect to have the engineers provide us with a grid over the property say maybe 10'x10' with the X,Y's and desired elevations so that we can go to a certain spot and check it?

Yep.

Drilldo, post: 447726, member: 8604 wrote: Could we expect to have the engineers provide us with a grid over the property say maybe 10'x10' with the X,Y's and desired elevations so that we can go to a certain spot and check it?

Ideally you should be able to get the design data from the engineer - that pdf had to come from somewhere.

There will probably be a digital terrain model of the site design of some sort. I think more likely to be a TIN than a grid,

What are you using as a field controller? can you stake out to a TIN? what sorts of TIN?

If you can't work diectly with what the engineer has, it will need to be converted - maybe to a different sort of tin, maybe to a grid.

I see no problem with asking what they can supply, and if they would be prepared to convert it if needed.

They may say "No" for liability reasons - and I would expect them to charge for converting.

Worst comes to worst you can always do it all manually - grid up the plan and interpolate the heights

Or draw your own grid and interpolate between the contours and spot shots. If they're 1' contour intervals and you are trying to get only within 1', how far off could you be....

What about compaction?
Just pushing it around end up with a costly mess in fill zones.

Is the site balanced?

jim.cox, post: 447729, member: 93 wrote: Ideally you should be able to get the design data from the engineer - that pdf had to come from somewhere.

There will probably be a digital terrain model of the site design of some sort. I think more likely to be a TIN than a grid,

What are you using as a field controller? can you stake out to a TIN? what sorts of TIN?

If you can't work diectly with what the engineer has, it will need to be converted - maybe to a different sort of tin, maybe to a grid.

I see no problem with asking what they can supply, and if they would be prepared to convert it if needed.

They may say "No" for liability reasons - and I would expect them to charge for converting.

Worst comes to worst you can always do it all manually - grid up the plan and interpolate the heights

Yes the PDF is from the engineers. I am using a TSC2 with Survey controller. I have never worked with TIN. I have no contact with the engineers but I have asked my neighbor to ask them.

Larry Scott, post: 447733, member: 8766 wrote: What about compaction?
Just pushing it around end up with a costly mess in fill zones.

Is the site balanced?

I don't know what "balanced" means. He is moving the dirt in 6" lifts and compacting it with his sheeps foot roller as he goes.

We already took a few hundred belly dump trucks of dirt there mainly from my pond I dug on my property.

If your neighbor hired the engineer he can request a TIN and / or a grid as part of the deliverables, they had to create one to make the PDF. As stated above, they may charge for it, but I would hope it would be very nominal since they already have the data. If you aren't familiar with using a TIN have your neighbor request a grid.

Site is balanced if no material has to be brought in or removed, just pushed around.

Lee D, post: 447739, member: 7971 wrote: Site is balanced if no material has to be brought in or removed, just pushed around.

Got it. It. think it has to be going forward. We hauled a bunch of material in from my place and someone with some sort of regulatory body made a stink about it so I think now he can only move his own material around.

Drilldo, post: 447726, member: 8604 wrote: My neighbor is building a house right next to a lake and has to build up the pad for his house and remove a certain amount of dirt from around the lake so that the net water storage capacity of his property is the same as it is in a flood zone. This project encompasses about 15 acres and moving a ton of material.

He has hired an engineer and has a site plan and he will be having a RPLS check everything before building and sign off on it before actual construction begins.

My neighbor owns all his own heavy equipment and we help each other with various things and he wants me to help him start shaping his property according to the plan. He works full time and wants to work on this at his own pace in the evenings. Right now there are places that I am guessing are 15' low so a lot of work needs to be done before he gets down to the nitty gritty and I want to help him get things close before he brings in the surveyors. I will be doing this for free. We are friends. I kind of envision it going something like him moving dirt for a week and then I go check and tell him 7 more feet to go or whatever and then at some point I tell him you are within a foot time to bring in the RPLS.

I have a permanent marker on my property which has dozens of OPUS solutions on it to set my base on and he has a benchmark set on his property by the engineering firm we can check into. I have no worries about getting elevations close enough for the rough in we are trying to do.

What he has been provided is a PDF file showing the contour intervals of what the elevation is supposed to be at various locations on his property. My question is not having worked with something like this is how are things like this normally done? Could we expect to have the engineers provide us with a grid over the property say maybe 10'x10' with the X,Y's and desired elevations so that we can go to a certain spot and check it? I don't have or use CAD software so I am at a loss on how to translate this plan into locations on the ground.

" I will be doing this for free. We are friends."

These two statements alone send up such tremendous red flags that I can barely proceed to asking if your current employer is on board with this, whether you have insurance, etc.

"My question is not having worked with something like this is how are things like this normally done?"

They are normally done by people who are trained to do such things and have experience doing so. I once replace a $1.29 thermostat on my car - $280 worth of mechanic's bill later I realized that perhaps I should not have gone that route.

Sometimes you need to just say "No."

I don't have an employer I own my own business with insurance and have been operating surveying equipment for about ten years. We work in the oil industry and my crew stakes out around 3000 points using RTK a week. My neighbor is definitely bringing in a licensed surveyor for the final grade stuff I think he has to in order to have them sign off on the plans. I am just going to help him get close as it is not very practical to keep having a surveyor come out and check things for him in the evenings when he is working on it.

Slope stake?

Drilldo, post: 447745, member: 8604 wrote: I don't have an employer I own my own business with insurance and have been operating surveying equipment for about ten years. We work in the oil industry and my crew stakes out around 3000 points using RTK a week. My neighbor is definitely bringing in a licensed surveyor for the final grade stuff I think he has to in order to have them sign off on the plans. I am just going to help him get close as it is not very practical to keep having a surveyor come out and check things for him in the evenings when he is working on it.

Have the surveyors come out NOW and set RPs (reference points) for the pad corners and other key point - you help him by transferring the elevations from the RPs to the pad corners, etc. as he needs them. Make sure the RPs get set where they can live without being hit and make sure that they don't get damaged. This should take you right up to final grading.

Carlson CAD Net will convert PDF line work to CAD line work then make a surface from the line work then export to DXF or XML and stake to the surface.

I would put in a boat ramp and call it good...................

mvanhank222, post: 447752, member: 8673 wrote: Carlson CAD Net will convert PDF line work to CAD line work then make a surface from the line work then export to DXF or XML and stake to the surface.

It looks like Civil3D 2017 has that ability now.

From the OP var posts:

"My neighbor is building a house right next to a lake and has to build up the pad for his house and remove a certain amount of dirt from around the lake so that the net water storage capacity of his property is the same as it is in a flood zone." (*if net zero impact were only that simple)

"We hauled a bunch of material in from my place and someone with some sort of regulatory body made a stink about it so I think now he can only move his own material around" (*there goes the net zero. So much for only being that simple too)

"My question is not having worked with something like this" (*yeech)

"I have never worked with TIN" (*double yeech)

"I own my own business with insurance and have been operating surveying equipment for about ten years. We work in the oil industry and my crew stakes out around 3000 points using RTK a week" (*what's that old saying, something about knowing enough to be really dangerous)

Hope all goes well, now and for the future of the project.
Hope you're not from around here, I'm tired of coming in after these kind of messes get made.

ACD Surveyor, post: 447747, member: 494 wrote: Slope stake?

That's what I was thinking...Set R/P's then use a hand level and a rag tape to get close.

I'd steer clear if it were me.

I get asked to survey for friends or find some corners (I'm not licensed)...I always turn it down in a friendly way. It's not that I'm not completely confident, but I know enough to keep myself out of trouble.

I second the suggestion to get a licensed surveyor or civil engineer on board at the beginning. You could help carry grade in from the stakes that they provide if you really want to be involved.

clearcut, post: 447766, member: 297 wrote: From the OP var posts:

"My neighbor is building a house right next to a lake and has to build up the pad for his house and remove a certain amount of dirt from around the lake so that the net water storage capacity of his property is the same as it is in a flood zone." (*if net zero impact were only that simple)

"We hauled a bunch of material in from my place and someone with some sort of regulatory body made a stink about it so I think now he can only move his own material around" (*there goes the net zero. So much for only being that simple too)

"My question is not having worked with something like this" (*yeech)

"I have never worked with TIN" (*double yeech)

"I own my own business with insurance and have been operating surveying equipment for about ten years. We work in the oil industry and my crew stakes out around 3000 points using RTK a week" (*what's that old saying, something about knowing enough to be really dangerous)

Hope all goes well, now and for the future of the project.
Hope you're not from around here, I'm tired of coming in after these kind of messes get made.

I get it. I fully understand and admit this is outside of my scope of knowledge and that is why I was asking for help. The first two things about the net zero and us hauling dirt in are water under the bridge. There was no measuring or calculations done on any of that and it was done before he even knew the balance was an issue. Now an engineer and government at some level are involved and a professional plan is in place.

I am not qualified or even thinking of attempting the final grade. It is going to require an official elevation certification for the flood zone, etc. This is early stage preliminary stuff as in he is over 10' off of where he needs to be. Surely my incompetent self can help him get a heck of a lot closer to where he needs to be. The guy cutting down trees with a chainsaw doesn't need to know how mill out a 2x4.

Once I have the data in a correct format to where I can load it things really seem pretty fool proof.

I get an XYZ file that has SPC X,Y and the elevation per the plan.

I set up my RTK on my monument and check their control point to make sure everything jives.

I navigate to a point and the elevation is 3202 and it should be 3214. "Hey buddy you are 12' low here." Pretty simple really once I have the correct information.