Whenever one's spidy senses begin to twinge, one would be wise to call into question the assumptions that one is working under. Finding a corner that is out by a foot from record, depending on where, when and by whom the survey was done, may be cause to go out farther, in this case to have sufficient ties to the parent parcel so that you can feel warm and fuzzy that your not getting set up to look foolish or worse. Having worked on many crews before getting licenses, I know well that many field techs are not thinking of the 'big picture' when executing a survey (particularly on a friday afternoon) and it's not always practical for the boss to write out instructions for every possible scenario. That said, it's easier and more effective to make more ties than the minimum to prove up the survey the first go around, than to have multiple crews taking turns swiping at it.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
> Each time they had the job folder with everything I used to calc it up. Short plat, underlying plat, city engineering department quarter section tile, adjoiner surveys.
>
I know it should be enough, but there are two pressures working on a good field crew. 'Get it done, now.' And 'Get it done right.'
What it takes to get 'Right' has to be defined by the PLS, if they are taking 'responsible charge'. Things don't have to be done with overkill, but the reasonable care and adequate standards are the minimum.
When I am a field crew working under another PLS, I care, value, and honor their license. It is their signature, name, and reputation. Sometimes an honest conversation can help, but if the crew doesn't get it, then intensive management is critical.
My first thought is why didn't the LS visit the site, especially after the crew missed important data on their first visit?
I would never make boundary decisions without visiting the site myself. But, that is just me........
Last week this week
Had a similar issue. I have a new field guy who loves to resection and won't use 3+ points even though I have suggested it repeatedly.
Last month he used a resection with a 10d angle and one short leg to establish coordinates on a PK, then traversed to another PK and made a sideshot into a PK from the original trav.
Last week he went to stake a building, but they were not ready. I told him to just make sure his traverse was good before he left.
This week he went out to stake and I got the phone call "My check shot is off by 0.30', what do I do?" I told him to setup on the original traverse to re-establish coordinates on the new PK.
I then took his raw data, found his awful resection, aligned this to the record traverse, computed a coordinate for the point he set and called him. His relocation fell within 0.02' of my calculated location. I asked about last week's work "Oh we recovered the traverse but did not set up..."
[sarcasm]The trouble with modern labor laws is you cannot whip, beat or otherwise cause harm to your employees when they fail to listen, learn or do their job right.[/sarcasm]
Thanks for all the candid comments.
I gave notice. There are a few outstanding projects that I will continue until they are done.
Someone called this thread "dirty laundry". Maybe I shouldn't have posted it. Don't think I didn't stew about it a long time. I am just tired of it and anyone with a problem can refer to Kris Morgan's Acronym.
Short Plat
> I am not familiar with the term "short plat". Please explain. Is it a form of s subdivision plat?
>
A Short Plat is a subdivision, IIRC, of 4 or fewer lots. It was designed as a simpler process than that of a larger subdivision. In California, we call them Parcel Maps. Other jurisdictions might refer to them as minor subdivisions.
> Thanks for all the candid comments.
>
> I gave notice. There are a few outstanding projects that I will continue until they are done.
>
> Someone called this thread "dirty laundry". Maybe I shouldn't have posted it. Don't think I didn't stew about it a long time. I am just tired of it and anyone with a problem can refer to Kris Morgan's Acronym.
I didn't see anything here that could be called "dirty laundry" because you are posting with a pseudonym and have given any identifying info about your employer.
As to this particular situation, as several others have observed, it demonstrates serious shortcomings in field procedure and in management.
The logic that all the points are essentially set in stone because they are original mons of a filed subdivision doesn't fly if the points are along the exterior boundary of the subdivision. The interior lines and points are fixed because thay are original for those positions, but the exterior is a retracement survey of previously existing lines. They are subject to the same principles that would affect any other boundaries of adjoining parcels which are not part of a common subdivision.
If the parent parcel of this Short Plat is junior to an adjacent parcel, and the Short Plat's monuments are in conflict with the previously established boundary of the senior parcel, as your comments seem to state, then unless there is some valid title claim based on AP, acquiescence, estoppel, etc., the Short Plat exterior boundary as incorrectly monumented generally must yield to the senior boundary.
The procedures starting with the crew's, through the crew's actions, to the LS's final instructions to you are very poor.
There is nothing wrong with initially providing the crew with calculated positions for all pertinent record mon positions. I've done that quite often. The most common breakdown in procedure though is inadequate initial instructions given to the crew together with inadequate understanding of the instructions by the crew.
The instructions should be written, specific, and detailed. For a job like this, the first step for the crew should be to find and locate specific controlling monuments set during the Short Plat survey and of monuments that survey used as controlling. The next step is for the crew to compare what they found with what was provided as calculated points. If the comparison is reasonably close (specific criteria identified by the LS and given to the crew as part of the written instructions), then the crew may proceed to set the requested points. If the comparison shows some significant discrepancies (doesn't meet criteria given by LS), then the crew's instructions should be to find and locate additional monumentation, both of the Short Plat and of adjacent surveys, including sufficient offsite control to re-establish the exterior Short Plat boundaries as needed.
The field procedures described as being used to measure boundary evidence sound to me like procedures that are only adequate for recon or for ground topo. A single RTK shot on a monument is not sufficient. Using GPS under tree canopy that is heavy enough to interfere with the signal is not acceptable. The crew not keeping an eye on the DOP is unacceptably careless.
Equipment that is reliable under the conditions present, and making redundant observations are absolutley basic requirements of proper procedure. The party chief is possibly not competent if his training has included these basics. Or possibly he is just lazy, that is to say negligent by producing observations his training has told him are not sufficiently reliable. In either case, the LS who knowingly allows substandard field procedures to continue under his direction is professionally negligent, and by virtue of his license, is responsible for his own negligence and that of any of the employees working under his direction. Allowing such sloppiness is very likely to catch up with him sooner or later in the form of a civil action for monetary damages and/or a Board sanction against his license.
I didn't fully understand your description of what the LS told you to do with regard to RS content. If I understand correctly, he instructed you to show all of the Short Plat monuments, exterior and interior alike, graphically as if all were correct, and to make no real analysis as to whether the exterior boundary is correct or not. He wants you to report record and measured along each of the lines that were measured, but not to make any specific notations of exterior monuments which may be placed incorrectly. In short, don't fully hide the discrepancies found, but report them in such a way that they are would not be apparent to someone who does not understand the significance of the difference between "record" and "measured" dimensions. Have I got that about right?
IMO, what should be done on the RS is first, work with enough reliable field data to make an analysis of the exterior boundaries pertinent to the requested work, and make the analysis to either verify the Short Plat monnuments along those lines or to identify significant discrepancies. Is there sufficient reliable field data to analyze whether these lines and points are subject to any principles of establishment and repose? Is there valid reason to hold their positions even though their placement falls well below the standard of care interms of positional error that one would reasonably expect?
When I worked in and around Kitsap County, we worked on projects that were in relatively open and somewhat flat to gentle slopes in which a few tenths would certainly fall outside of the positional errors reasonably expected. But I worked in many more areas where an iron a foot or so off line between controlling monuments that are 1/4 mile or so apart would not be uncommon. There's a lot of thick, brushy, steep land up there. Some sites don't offer more than about 50' visibility through the underbrush. What's acceptable in terms of position is going to vary a lot depending upon the site.
If there is enough reliable data to impeach those monument positions, then the RS should specifically note that (i.e. "Fd. 5/8" Rebar and chincy plastic cap, mkd "LS 12345", S 35-28 E 1.13' from subdivision corner"). I would also show record and measured dimensions between the corner positions as I determined them, which may or may not be on the monument existing in the vicinity of the corner. Each mon gets its own analysis. Many landowners may not notice differences reported dimensions, and may not understand what the dimensions are telling them if they do notice. But most will understand a note that explicitly states that the monument is not at the corner. Additionally, the client needs to have the significance of what was found explained, and if there are remedies available to resolve any discrepancies, have them offered and explained as well, before the map is filed or additional points set.
If the procedural problems you've described are chronic, then your decision to move on is a good one.
RCW 4.16.300.16.327 limits the accrual for a cause of action based on a claim arising from construction, alteration, design, planning, and surveying for improvements to real property to six years from substantial completion of construction or termination of services, whichever is later. This statute of repose sets an outer limit on the discovery rule. Thus, if the facts which would support a negligence claim against a surveyor arising out of a construction project are discovered seven years after substantial completion or termination of services, the action is barred. However, if the facts are discovered five years after completion the claim must be brought within three years of discovery. The statute of repose does not prevent the surveyor's liability from potentially running out to the eight years (or longer) in the preceding example.
#Title: WASHINGTON STATE COMMON LAW OF SURVEYS AND PROPERTY BOUNDARIES
#Author: Jerry R. Broadus
#Date: 2009
#Link: www.lsaw.org
#Article: 2914: WASHINGTON STATE COMMON LAW OF SURVEYS AND PROPERTY BOUNDARIES
#Parent: 2917: Chapter I .. DUTIES AND LIABILITIES OF SURVEYORS .. .. A. Surveying, a ...
Seems to me that either way, whether before repose or after, you have a duty to record what you found. If you find it before repose, you have a duty to the client to disclose the latent ambiguity. If in your silence (or by hiding the error in a "measured" annotation to a faraway monument) you deprive the client of their cause of action, you are liable. If you find it after repose, you still have a duty to all the other surveyors to save them the future confusion.
Just my $0.02 because there are still plenty of things that I don't know.
I'm not very anonymous anymore. There are dozens of people locally who know my pseudonym, and I'd be surprised if the boss' phone hasn't rung a few times already.
I have quit before and I am still showing up. It is easy to make people wrong and grump about it but more of a challenge to help them make it right.
I appreciate the critiques and I will try to implement as much as I can.
Checklists are a great idea. That might even solve a big part of our issues.
What is your balance between calculating recon point to go find and calculating points to stake? If you calc a boundary do you stake it on the first site visit or do you gather evidence and ponder it for a while before staking corners? In what situations would you do one or the other?
-From the field crew files-
Half,
This part of a filed crew would rather find the monument the first time than have to return to the scene and go through the entire setup process for one iron.
I'm not entirely lazy but there's something mentally demoralizing about having to return to a job site for one small dinky reason.
Office calcs are fun, and more hours for the crew if its within your budget. There are probably some times when you have to lay the burden on your crew chief as your eyes and ears, and say 'here's what we're up against. I could sure use your help in putting this together on the ground, the first time, because it is a difficult boundary issue, and registered bid it for a song'.
You know weigh the costs of a return trip against some extra field calc and shovel time.
Offer any paperwork or the file if the crew asks. The benefits are; the field crew can identify and adjust to any problems or issues as they arise, they get a chance to see what you have to work with from 1500 miles away, it offers the crew practical experience in correcting deed or survey errors on the fly, registered's project might come in under the bid.
> Just my $0.02 because there are still plenty of things that I don't know.
You sell yourself short, there are plenty of things you DO know..:-)
Just remember, though, there just as many things, actually more, that you don't know, that you don't know.;-)
I would need to see how your scenario plays out on a work sheet; but at first blush, I would say you have a simple difference of an angle, at one of your property corners.
If you take the model you've built and tweek one of the angles a bit, I'll bet you can can get the whole thing to come together.
Just a thought, I could be wrong; Like I said, I'd have to see a work sheet.
Dugger