Dear contractor:
In January 2014 I did an ALTA survey on the site, locating all of the horizontal physical features, and the boundary. That survey was for the purpose of closing on the site.
In June they realized they were going to rebuild the parking lot, and I commenced taking elevations on the site. Within hours they found a topographical survey by YYY based upon aerial photogrammetry and I stopped my topographical survey. YYY is a quality firm and there was no need to duplicate the work.
The plans you have are a combination of my information, such as my basis of bearings and my boundary information, but the plans were developed based upon YYY's topographical survey information, which is on a different basis of bearing and a different coordinate system. That certainly is the source of the confusion. The two surveys just cannot be combined or overlaid, which is what has happened. All of the survey layout must be based upon the YYY topographical survey exclusively.
Let me know if you need more information from me.
Please post again after the meeting with the architect and civil engineer. I want to know if they were able to comprehend that there is more than one north. Had that discussion with a young engineer once. His statement "North is north you can't just change it around! You've got to use the bearings in the deeds." After over an hour of showing him common lines in adjoining deeds with different bearings. He repeated the above statement and went to the company owner/engineer about my poor surveying skills.
not another engineer bash fest...
Not bashing anyone. Just have had repeated experience with inexperienced design professionals refusing to listen or being unable to comprehend explanations. I've also worked with both architects and engineers that taught me surveying skills. Those that taught me were "Old School" professionals. They also complained college programs for their professions had been gutted of basic surveying knowledge.
EDIT: The head PE on a highway project told me the worst decision a major university had made was to eliminate the summer "survey camp" from the Civil Engineering BS program. Survey camp required students to use transit and tape to solve a highway/bridge survey problem. Also complete design and construction stake center line and bridge. Ravine was wider and steeper than could be taped safely.
>...Had that discussion with a young engineer once...
I recall an extensive series of emails where I tried to explain to a Geotech why the elevations on her various monitoring wells weren't all just relative to "sea level" and why "sea level" in one set of record drawings and reports wasn't the same as "sea level" in another.
Just have had repeated experience with inexperienced design professionals refusing to listen or being unable to comprehend explanations.
Boy did I go through that this fall, finally I gave up, it wasn't my signature and my name wasn't shown on anything, so.....
>...and why "sea level" in one set of record drawings and reports wasn't the same as "sea level" in another.
Did you tell her it was because of the waves? I've done that before just to amuse myself.
> Did you tell her it was because of the waves? I've done that before just to amuse myself.
Here in the Portland area the difference between NGVD29 and NAVD88 is over 3 feet. Most times the NGVD29 datum is quoted the 1947 adjustment is meant, except in the City of Vancouver, WA and the Port of Vancouver, which hold the pre-1947 adjustment. The City of Portland established it's own datum in 1895, before the C&GS level net reached the west coast. So we have at least 4 vertical datums (datii?) in play in the PDX metro area.
This was not a stupid person, and I had no wish to insult her. She just didn't have the background, in spite of an engineering education, to comprehend these survey matters. The thing is - she had not previously encountered a surveyor who could do anything other than shrug and grunt in response to her questions. So she had a low opinion of surveyor in general.
I did work on a subsea fiber project a few years ago taking a fiber across Cook Inlet that required me to establish the Mean High Water Line on both sides of the inlet, limits of the State's ownership of submerged lands, a distance of roughly 2.5 miles. The difference in elevation between 'sea level' on one side and 'sea level' on the other differs by nearly a foot due to the crazy tidal influences in the area. I'm really hoping I never have to explain that one to a non surveyor.
I didn't go to the meeting. The contractor agreed it had nothing to do with me since the designers didn't use my survey drawing (although they did use my basis of bearings, which obviously made the problem worse).
:good: 😛
That sounds like an awesome phenomenon.
"sea" level..or lake level
I worked on a project building campgrounds and access roads around a COE water reservoir. We had many good BMs around the lake to work with.
We had many conversations about the "level" of the lake. The spillways were close and technically the lake was static. One afternoon we took the time to see what the difference in the lake level was from one side to another, on a day with winds somewhere around 20 to 25 mph.
With a south wind the lake level was about .5' to .6' higher on the north side than the south. We actually shot it several days in a row and never found a time that the lake was actually static. Water moves...a lot.
"sea" level..or lake level
An [msg=181038]old thread[/msg] that is relevant to measuring water levels.
Good discussion about wind and seiche and more from wikipedia.
