over-marking of survey points (again)

I see a sword fight coming on! 🙂

N

Those "cages" are typical here in Florida... drive me nuts too. On a construction sight it makes sense to try to protect your control... but geez!! And don't get me started on spray paint! ugh.

If there isn't construction in the area, I don't see the need to mark it that well.

I can see reasons to leave your own lath there. Better than writing on the witness posts, I suppose. The cage is probably habit, and making sure the next crew actually finds it. Personally, I like the crew that I am following to have over marked, rather than under marked.

I set a magnail in my client's AC driveway in a million dollar neighborhood, very nice neighborhood. No paint, just a little keel.

I come back a few days later, giant orange paint circle around my magnail with giant orange numbers you could read from space, GEEZ! Another surveyor used my magnail, I'm okay with that, he was subdividing the large lot across the street, but use some common sense IN MY CLIENT'S DRIVEWAY IN FRONT OF THEIR BEAUTIFUL HOME!!!

Nate The Surveyor, post: 363941, member: 291 wrote: I see a sword fight coming on! 🙂

N

I thought that one reason for markings of control similar to those in the first photo is to assure that people who don't know what it is, will know it's there and not disturb it. I've seen a number of such markings on construction sites. (It may not have the slightest effect on whether said construction folks will disturb it or not, but it's the thought that counts.)

I always thought the reason for marking control points was to give the machine driver something to aim at!

Dave Karoly, post: 363948, member: 94 wrote: I set a magnail in my client's AC driveway in a million dollar neighborhood

I once got chastised by a million dollar house client for putting an UNMARKED MagNail control point in his driveway pavement! I don't know how he ever found it. He removed it.

I don't advertise my control these days. Too many people have mistaken control points for property corners ("No sir, your property does not start in the sidewalk on the other side of the street"). And what people can't see, they can't complain about.

Back in the old days (1970s), however, we put enough paint on everything we found or set so that it could be seen from orbit! We'd buy orange paint by the case. I don't think I've bought a can of paint in the last 5 years.

Since dad would take on every job that called in even if we were really busy ("Yes, we can have that this week - no problem"), we'd often get angry calls a few weeks later when we hadn't started their job. Dad would head out to the site and set a few random controls points and paint them up good. That would usually hold the client for a few weeks until we got around to his survey. Ahh...the old days...

And if it's in a construction area, it's almost futile anyway. It just makes it a target for the yellow dirt diggers...

If you are about 10 yrs old, and you, and your buddy find a lath cluster, you pull them all up, and regret that the pointed end is dirty, and proceed to have a sword fight. It's standard protocol!

N

Dave Karoly, post: 363948, member: 94 wrote: I set a magnail in my client's AC driveway in a million dollar neighborhood, very nice neighborhood. No paint, just a little keel.

I come back a few days later, giant orange paint circle around my magnail with giant orange numbers you could read from space, GEEZ! Another surveyor used my magnail, I'm okay with that, he was subdividing the large lot across the street, but use some common sense IN MY CLIENT'S DRIVEWAY IN FRONT OF THEIR BEAUTIFUL HOME!!!

Here in town, we were doing an ALTA on a brand new Walgreens that hadn't even opened yet. I was having problems connecting all the shots so I drove by one day. One of my rodmen had set a PK in asphalt, then painted an orange circle around it and wrote "COR" beside it. I made the party chief go back out there with a can of black spray paint.

When I was working in El Salvador, we never left any visible sign of the station behind, because that was a sure way to get the point pulled the next day.

All of the BM's and triangulation stations that I recovered there were buried. I was told if you mark it, it will be gone. The only way to find them was with reference ties. Except the ones on the summit of smoldering volcanos-they were still there!

I agree with all of this. Why dress it up like a birthday present? I mark lot corners with a 2x2 white stake but nothing else gets dressed.
There are crews in this area that mark every topo shot with paint and the number of the shot! Now that's efficient. And the other day I paused at someone's nail with washer set in a drill hole in the middle of a sidewalk. Clearly a tripping hazard for an old shuffler like me not to mention that when occupied it would block the whole walkway sending pedestrians into the street. Oy.
Rant-off. Its my birthday, I should be happy.

Daniel Ralph, post: 363969, member: 8817 wrote: Its my birthday, I should be happy.

Happy Birth Dan.

It depends a little on the nature of your particular job and who you are marking them for. Having a subtle stake several feet away in a safe place with an offset distance written on the stake is a nice way to go sometimes. We've had marks that we put a big carsonite marker near with an offset distance on it, and the maintenance mowers would carefully mow around the Carsonite, and ignore the actual monument. That might be one reason to "cage" around it.

Are you marking it so you can get back to it the next day, or you marking it so the landowner can find it? The why might clarify how you mark it. But in generally I don't like huge orange paint marks on the asphalt stating what it is, and/or tons of flagging on the trees and lath around it.

I recall a party chief i worked with - marked EVERY topo shot with a spot of Orange paint. Good thing it wasn't residential work.... Same dude that wouldn't make field notes. He said he would GPS to the control point. I certainly hope the RTN isn't down....

I think I know what the mark in the top photo is for...we are monitoring a large dam during the opening of a new coal mine (new coal mine???). The mine apparently has their survey contractor out there as well. So far we have found their marks (small rebar with cap, loose in the ground) at two locations. The project personnel say they have seen them, but they have never requested access to the dam. The dam is monumented with about 50 points that we observe to, but I don't have any idea how they can monitor the dam from where their points are. We are looking for 0.003 m accuracy, and their points are very unstable.

I found this one over the weekend. Seems like the previous guy liked pink paint. What's not pictured is the 3' of ribbon tail hanging off the mon.

🙁

Gromaticus, post: 363954, member: 597 wrote: <>

I don't advertise my control these days. Too many people have mistaken control points for property corners ("No sir, your property does not start in the sidewalk on the other side of the street"). And what people can't see, they can't complain about.

<>

back in the early 70's we ran a random traverse out in the woods, it was a lot split job, probably all hubs and tacks with a lath marked with the point number.
a few weeks later we returned to stake it out. Every Single Traverse Point had been replaced with a fence post and new fence constructed on our traverse lines.

I don't remember more but that part I will never forget...

Some firms have multiple crews, on Monday crew 1 might be working the area and on Friday crew 2 may take over to finish the job and it will be their first trip to the site.