Surveyors 3 hours away working on my job ,

I feel your pain. Hopefully you can get it worked out when the other surveyor arrives on site. Sounds like an arrogant party chief that thinks he is all that.

It seems like when I was learning and working on plans when I was a tech, we always referenced the Top of Curb. That was the normal standard in my area. No it seems like there are more and more plans that reference the bottom of curb (gutter). Why the change.

If I walk onto a site, and stuff starts to not check, I always, always assume that I have messed something up. When you start pointing a finger, you always have four more pointing back at you.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

Good night... what the hell is going on over there??? Who the #$%!#$% changes the elevation on the site BM???

Who are these people and what planet are they from?

I agree with you, that he shouldn't be changing your BM's or doing anything to your control points.

But you don't know if maybe his client for some reason wanted him to not use your control points, and to establish his own. Again, even if that's the case, he shouldn't messing with your stuff.

I don't agree with your subject line, though, Surveyors 3 hours away working on my job

Surveyors being from 3 hours away means nothing. I work in many locations and states - and my home office location doesn't affect the quality of my work.

Also, who said that this was your job?

>.... No it seems like there are more and more plans that reference the bottom of curb (gutter). Why the change.
>

I would guess that it makes the drainage and grade calcs easier for the eng*@$%#@*r's and architects, they don't have to subtract 0.5 ft or 6 inches as the case may be.

I was marketing in a neighboring county and was called an out of towner and I was only 30 minutes from my office.

Not the point - the point was the lack of communication and if it were a local surveyor they would have called and said , were working together on this project can I get some info. By the way why arn't we agreeing before I start a @#$@#$ storm. Still my job.

I'm only spit balling on the gutter elevation vs. back of curb thing. I would guess the change has to do with an increased prevalence on mountable curbs. It would seem much easier to calculate gutter elevation on a mountable curb than back of curb. Just a thought.

Send him an invoice...

Apparently your services were required for him to proceed in an accurate fashion.

Flow line would make an easy point to check when placing utility's and paving the crown, one less conversion. Except for alignment, I like flow line controlling grade.
jud

yes this particular job the gutter is more important do to the fact there are situations of flush curb against the building and the ADA requirements so there is no room for error . I have done 10 of these projects and am very aware of the problems even .10 will cause. Asphalt will be ripped out if over 5% on any part of the parking lot or 2% in cross walks . So adjusting the benchmark .07 could cause some area to fail . I will be left trying to match to his building .07 low.

Send him an invoice...

Absolutely, especially since you're verified that there is NO error in YOUR work!

I'm not getting something here, then.

If you're doing site work, and he's staking out the building, then I don't see why he needs to contact you about control - he apparently feels that he has enough control to lay it out.

Also, his elevations are within 0.07' of yours - so I don't see how that will really cause a problem, if the building is only that much different than the site. I mean, how tight and flat is this place?

I've been in a similar situation, and been called in to layout the building, as I was licensed and the site surveyor wasn't. I spoke to him first, and obtained his control. I still tied into the boundary and was off his control points by half a foot or more - so I use my control to stake out the building.

I also ran a level through all of his BM's from two points on the plan, and checked fine into those.

Maybe it's me, but I'm not going to just use another surveyor's control for construction layout. And depending on the situation, I may contact him or not - but I will check into his control.

In my little corner of the world, a difference of about 0.45 feet is also the difference between historical elevations and modern elevations thanks to GPS. One must know which datum was the basis of the elevations. When starting to make a change to a site with plenty of "old" BM's, many will simply use the old numbers.

It's all relative. Use the job benchmark and move on. If it doesn't fit some pie in the sky benchmark 2 miles away, who cares!

> Now it seems like there are more and more plans that reference the bottom of curb (gutter). Why the change.

I bet it has something to do with machine control. If the model has the curbs built into it, the blade will jump up along the edges if they only have the pavemnet thickness dialed into their control box.

[sarcasm]sometimes you can save an awful lot of fill by moving the benchmark down a little.[/sarcasm]

🙂

.07 is enough to push water back to the building along the side walk or not meet ADA requirements . The site is very tight . Like trying to fit 10 pounds of sugar in a 5 pound sack. You dont understand how tight this is it matters. But still not the point . You can practice as you like but if i show up on anothers job using control and what not i will talk to the surveyor . I have been on jobs were we moved the BM number so we could balance a site with out redrawing plans. not calling me in the beginning does not add up.

I don't think that a "new" surveyor needs to "pay tribute" to the old surveyor.
All is fare in love, war & work.
A client has the option to get a 2nd opinion from another surveyor.
You submitted your plans to the client. The new surveyor can rely on these plans. If he messed up then you have your plans to claim that your job was correct. If you messed up then he has your plans to claim that your job is incorrect. Everything is already on record. You already rechecked your work & it is correct.
Either way why lose sleep over the matter.

Whether the new surveyor talks to you or not is really up to him right? He is a licensed professional & last time I checked up on my manual of surveying procedures, I do not see any mention about talking to the previous surveyor. Even in college this was never mentioned in any of my surveying class. I remember researching previous survey plans. Archived & registered plans if these are available but not discuss with the previous surveyor.

If this scenario is a requirement in your neck of the woods, what would happen if the previous surveyor is dead? closed his business? moved to another location? Will the project stop until he is brought back from the dead? Even me I can't remember the details of a job I did 6 months ago not to mention a job that my crew did for the company.

You did your job properly & was paid properly so let the other guy earn a living.