Relocating Monuments

My 2¢.

IF you go and set up control, so as to be able to RESET another surveyor's marker, THEN, go and reset it, the marker in question SHOULD have your LS #, and some sort of paper filed with it, as to why all this happened.

I want to SUGGEST that maybe it would be a good idea, to set YOUR control around the intersection/prev mon, and that IT should have your LS # one it, and then come back, and see if the original mon has been destroyed. IF it has, well, reset it, BUT publish your control around the intersection, along with the missing monument. Also, I recomend having ALL your work on State PLANE brgs. or SPC and Brgs.

Just me thinking out loud, not a carefully thought through set of ramblins!

Nate

Matt,

Excellent question.

The small town where I live just completed a downtown main street reconstruction where main street was completely redone, and it looks beautiful. There probably weren't many monuments left along the right of way because the parcels are as old as the hills.

That is something that the town never considered, at least as far as I know.

I'm impressed that your town/city is considering that.

I would say that if you are resetting someone else's monument, then your number should probably be on it, however, I would have to say that I would want something on record showing that you are merely "rehabing" the existing monument.

I would think that a call to your State Board could help clear up the issue.

Good luck on your proposal.

Simple. Prior to any construction, go and physically set 3 or 4 witness points. Use nails, pk's, building corners, whatever. Just go physically do it and don't just go get GPS coordinates and call it good.

When the job is done, go re-set them based on your physical ties. I'd tend to let them pour the slabs and then just set something after the contractor is gone. That may be the tough sell.

That will likely be more cost effective (for you) than trying to coordinate with the contractor, inspector, and reviewers, and just "hope" they don't mess them up during construction. You'll still have to check them. You may have to core them, then so be it.

See, simple. Let your record filings reflect what your procedures were, and then you, and the public, are covered.

Relocating Monuments - What we did

Here is a sample of how we did one such project in the Denver Area several years ago.

We titled the project and plat as
"Survey Marker Perpetuation for Sidewalk Replacement Project"

Note the Certification
We called it the Un-Certification

----

Matt

We do quite a bit of these for new construction. Many of the 60's-early80's reconstruction projects just wiped out existing monuments and that was that. If there wasn't some record of old monuments they are gone.

For a newer project all existing monuments need to be located prior to construction and then replaced after everything is done. We use a Hilti battery drill and replace each property monument with a new 2" aluminum cap at or slightly below the level of the concrete (if it ends up in concrete). One ROS is then filed for the new monuments covering the entire project. It sounds like you may need multiple ROS's if the area is large.

The city needs to understand the costs for the entire work flow. My experience is that you don't want to get involved with setting the monument during concrete pours, but drill them after. Leaving swing ties can really help. Just be sure nothing can be mistaken for a property corner, and like all construction projects areas you never think will be touched get destroyed.

Hilti Drill

> For a newer project all existing monuments need to be located prior to construction and then replaced after everything is done. We use a Hilti battery drill and replace each property monument with a new 2" aluminum cap at or slightly below the level of the concrete (if it ends up in concrete). One ROS is then filed for the new monuments covering the entire project. It sounds like you may need multiple ROS's if the area is large.

Any recommendation for the Hilti Drill (ie model, size?)
Thanks!

Relocating Monuments - What we did

Very good 6th. That is a great idea.

I can't read the bottom of the sketch of the "recross" cap. Did the person resetting the cross location put their PLS number on it?

Big Pappa Smooth

Not an ethical issue AT ALL. Let me explain why from my vantage point.

These corners are about to go missing, plain and simple. All you're going to do (hopefully) is to set control, and tie them in, and then re-set them when the time is right. Let the concrete crews tear them out, that way, if the contract doesn't go through, you didn't remove anything.

As I'm in Texas and a non-recording state, I've seen this once or twice, and would do something similar. File an affidavit stating that you found the block corners of whatever on some day, describing in full the corner with cap or whatever, then you reset another corner in the wet concrete on another day, describing your monuments in full.

At least you will perpetuate the record of the corners and hopefully, lend a helping hand to another surveyor at a later date.

Depending on your size of practice area and competition, you might even give them a copy as well.

Or, you could do the Kent McMillan approved method, and get a 4" disc and stamp in it what was there and when you found it so that if some knucklehead surveyor didn't go dig up your affidavit, then the corner would tell him what he should have found and what he is finding. If you go that route, at $30 per monument or something. I hate stamping the discs.

Hilti Drill

I have a TE 6A.

It looks like this:

Thats not mine-I left my cell and camera at the house this morning.

There are all kinds of attachments that can be purchased for drilling wider holes for caps from small 1" to larger 3" monuments.

Big Smooth

If you don't want to spend the money on a Hilti (although I have to say it is something of a must have for me) you can rent a drill. I used to do that quite a bit before finally getting the Hilti.

And if it's in a urban area I would rent a core drill. They will chew through concrete even faster than the Hilti. You want to schedule when you use it and have everything marked for drilling before you show up. Usually I would rent a generator and the drill so I wouldn't have to search for power. I can't remember how much the core drill and generator cost to rent but it was long ago. The Hilti I bought used and it's still going years later.

Relocating Monuments - What we did

> I can't read the bottom of the sketch of the "recross" cap. Did the person resetting the cross location put their PLS number on it?

Of course there is a LS# on it
I just spotted it up a little
No need to advertise

Big Smooth

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated.

Relocating Monuments - What we did

> Of course there is a LS# on it
> I just spotted it up a little
> No need to advertise

I know it sounds like a stupid question, and I would expect you to obscure it. I think this kind of thing should be stamped in that you are certifying to the fact that you got it in the same location. Where a surveyor might be concerned, is the fact that they may not have done a boundary survey in that area, and/or that they may not even agree with the previous monument's location. It is a touchy point with some surveyors.

Tom

Relocating Monuments - What we did

> > Of course there is a LS# on it
> > I just spotted it up a little
> > No need to advertise
>
> I know it sounds like a stupid question, and I would expect you to obscure it. I think this kind of thing should be stamped in that you are certifying to the fact that you got it in the same location. Where a surveyor might be concerned, is the fact that they may not have done a boundary survey in that area, and/or that they may not even agree with the previous monument's location. It is a touchy point with some surveyors.
>
> Tom

Tom,

The powers at be (at the time) came up with the specific language and certification.

The project was done for the sidewalk and curb replacement program at the time.
Denver 'approved' the certification, but I really don't think that they cared.
They basically said, yep that looks Okay

The LS in charge, went round & round, then finally came up with the certification
or what we so fondly referred to as the Un-Certification

Relocating Monuments - What we did

6th, I remember years ago when we started discussing this very issue with Richard Baur back in the day. The City was starting to rehab a lot of curb intersections into handicap curbramps not to mention when sidewalks would get replaced and all of the old "maltese" crosses were getting destroyed. (I assume you already know this, but I wouldn't know for certain.) I don't know when the final standard got written up and they started applying it, but I know it can be extremely difficult to convince nonsurveyors in a municipality that it is worth it to spend money on this sort of endeavor. We need to be able to preserve and upgrade evidence when it is destined to be destroyed by a construction project, and Denver (or the surveyor that actually made it happen) has my respect for the tenacity and perserverance it must have taken to get this through and approved.

I have gone through similar efforts and concerns with roadway overlays and projects that would eliminate aliquot corners. I know that there are multiple aliquot corner monuments in many places in Denver-metro as well. I don't think it is, or should be, up to the surveyor tasked with upgrading the corner monument(s) to make the decision which one should be called the section corner and upgraded, but it should simply be up to him (or her) to reference the monument and make sure there is something left in its place.

I'm not sure that making roadways run right down section lines was a great idea. At least denver created its 'range lines' to offset that, and that almost got obliterated.

Hilti Drill

Your Hilti Drill:

Does it Hammer, and drill separately, or does it ONLY hammer, while rotating?

Thnks

Nate

Relocating Monuments - What we did

>
> I'm not sure that making roadways run right down section lines was a great idea. At least denver created its 'range lines' to offset that, and that almost got obliterated.

The majority of old Block Cross's that reference the Range Lines and control the block lines have gone missing.

The projects that I worked on, as shown above, was for street improvements; C&G replacement and sidewalk replacement and did not deal exclusively with block corners.

Denver has been in the process of installing Handicapped Ramps (excuse me - access ramps) at block corners. These new ramps has destroyed almost all block control and the old cross's have not been referenced or replaced.

It appears that the C&C does not have a very good oversite concerning the construction of these new ramps the the replacement of the survey control marks that get destroyed.

Relocating Monuments - What we did

On thing I did when I worked out of Denver, is I got the support of the designer, and set in motion to recover and preserve all of the range corners on an overlay project down Alameda between Federal and I-25. My argument was that they had to shut down lanes and rotomill anyway. I wrote up the specifications and Curt Acklam's company got the job. (Curt died a few years ago) They recovered all of the aliquot and range corners still in the street and raised the boxes to the new asphalt level. They also set four references outside the roadway for all of the monuments found. After that (unless some have been destroyed), you could measure to all of the straddles and calculate the intersection by intersecting distances.

This should be done, in my opinion, every time an overlay or road improvement is done. It is not only dangerous to get out in some of these roads, it is also difficult to recover monuments that are under several layers of asphalt and concrete.

If I can upload them here is one of the references from 1995 @ Alameda and Alcott Street.

Hilti Drill

Good question. I've only used for one thing and that's to drill concrete and pavement. I'm pretty sure there's no setting for just spinning. It hammer drills and goes in reverse as far as I know but I didn't get a manual with it.