I'll be posting another soon. By the way, I just received a letter approving me to sit for the SIT exam!! Woohoo!
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As an academic exercise for purposes of teaching effective field procedures, it would have been pretty easy except that you put a 0.74' discrepancy between found monuments on the back line. That's significant enough that the problem is now more than a simple math and field layout procedures problem.
The first step would be to try to determine the cause and precise location of the discrepancy along the back line and to examine physical evidence to determine if the error/discrepancy on the back line in any way affected the original locations of the front corners. Although the centerline mons are right on between record and measured distance, and given no other evidence of discrepancies, you would simply work from that control and the record map to replace the fronts, you can't assume that the centerline control was set before or at the same time as the fronts or that the fronts were set from the centerline mons.
When the map was filed and the original survey performed might give a clue as to the order of original monument placement, but over at least the last 30 years, in my experience the centerline monuments are the last to be placed and the rears, being least likely to be disturbed by construction of roadway improvements or by site traffic while lot improvements continue, are often the first placed. The discrepancies present on the back line could have carried through to the front line if the back line mons were used as control to set fronts. Or, it could be that the rears, fronts, and centerline monuments were all set at different times from other independent site control, might each have discrepancies among themselves and still have additional discrepancies between each of the monumented lines (rear, front, centerline).
Your "as found" sketch indicates that measurements were made that show the centerline and rear line to be parallel and 175' apart, matching record and negating the possibility of many of those potential discrepancies, but you do not show a distance along centerline to the point that is 175' from the rear of 4/5. That's a necessary measurement to help determine the location of the discrepancy along the back line.
If it's a made up scenario for a class problem, make the discrepancy a couple tenths or less along the back line and add the dimension from the 175' tie to the SE centerline mon showing something very close to record.
Once you simplify to take the flies out of the ointment, then one correct answer is radial stakeout from the centerline monuments, but the best answer, IMO is to set temp control on RW adjacent to each centerline mon then just run your distances up the RW to each front corner. The distance between the temp offset RW points serves as a check.
Kent,
There are quite a few facts missing here, like where you were on the night of May 10, 2011 and what are the names of the children of the two sets of litigants?
I am also certain that it is just a coincidence that your office time almost exactly matched the field time.
Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
😉
Jack
Jack Chiles, post: 378457, member: 24 wrote: I am also certain that it is just a coincidence that your office time almost exactly matched the field time.
That project was difficult partly because of the extent to which recent surveys had obscured the pattern of original evidence, the general victory of landscapers over land boundary markers, and the unusual soil condition along the sloping parts of the lots. I'll post some more examples of surveyor's reports I've prepared that deal with some interesting problems.
I didn't mention this specifically, but I think that one of the most valuable purposes of a surveyor's report is to set out the rationale behind various decisions, in effect to tell the story behind the story in plain English. If you can't do that, then the odds are against being able to convince a judge or jury of much as a witness.
Kent McMillan, post: 378478, member: 3 wrote: I'll post some more examples of surveyor's reports I've prepared that deal with some interesting problems.
Kent,
Please do not redact the gun fights (opinion differences)...
DDSM
Dan B. Robison, post: 378485, member: 34 wrote: Please do not redact the gun fights (opinion differences).
Okay, I'll consider that, It's true that the nature of land surveying opinion is that an opinion as to what is correct, if properly formed, usually implies that substantially differing opinions are incorrect. Why sugar coat that fact?
BTW, in case anyone who has read the report is interested, here is a pdf of the accompanying map. Note the mesmerizingly elaborate North arrow and bar scale design.
Kent McMillan, post: 378580, member: 3 wrote: BTW, in case anyone who has read the report is interested, here is a pdf of the accompanying map. Note the mesmerizingly elaborate North arrow and bar scale design.
To be honest, I didn't even notice the north arrow until you said something... my eyes were immediately drawn to the informative content contained in the map!
For what it's worth, I think it's absolutely adorable you involve your grandkids in designing your north arrow!... Too cute!
Jim_H, post: 378668, member: 11536 wrote: To be honest, I didn't even notice the north arrow until you said something.
It makes a statement that I'm comfortable with. My business cards are along the same lines. There was a West Texas surveyor named Nick Thee who sometimes decorated the margins of his maps with drawings of wildlife and plants. That only works when the essential information is correct, which in his case it wasn't.
Kent McMillan, post: 378580, member: 3 wrote: BTW, in case anyone who has read the report is interested, here is a pdf of the accompanying map. Note the mesmerizingly elaborate North arrow and bar scale design.
Forgive my ignorance of Texas surveying requirements, but is it a Texas requirement to list the coordinates of each point, to map the curb and show and coordinate your control points?
Very informative but seems a bit excessive.
I understand listing the coords of the property corners. But why mathematize the curb and list control points?
Ron Lang, post: 378686, member: 6445 wrote: I understand listing the coords of the property corners. But why mathematize the curb and list control points?
Probably the most permanent and stable control points are those I set in the concrete curbs. They are what some surveyor could use to reestablish any and all of the boundary corners shown on the map. The present trend is for landscaping and redevelopment to destroy old survey evidence, but the curbs tend to remain in place.
The additional benefit is that they are obvious and easy to find. That means that a surveyor could set up, tie to the curb points and then either find or replace boundary markers with considerably less effort than it took me.
Ron Lang, post: 378686, member: 6445 wrote: Forgive my ignorance of Texas surveying requirements, but is it a Texas requirement to list the coordinates of each point, to map the curb and show and coordinate your control points?
To answer the question about coordinates: there is no requirement to do that. There is a requirement to show the relationship of all points connected by the survey, though, and I happen to think that simply providing a list of the coordinates of various points is a great way to provide a check on the ties by bearings and distances as well as connecting points that are not directly tied by bearing and distance annotations.
Kent McMillan, post: 378698, member: 3 wrote: Probably the most permanent and stable control points are those I set in the concrete curbs. They are what some surveyor could use to reestablish any and all of the boundary corners shown on the map. The present trend is for landscaping and redevelopment to destroy old survey evidence, but the curbs tend to remain in place.
The additional benefit is that they are obvious and easy to find. That means that a surveyor could set up, tie to the curb points and then either find or replace boundary markers with considerably less effort than it took me.
Kent McMillan, post: 378702, member: 3 wrote: To answer the question about coordinates: there is no requirement to do that. There is a requirement to show the relationship of all points connected by the survey, though, and I happen to think that simply providing a list of the coordinates of various points is a great way to provide a check on the ties by bearings and distances as well as connecting points that are not directly tied by bearing and distance annotations.
Playing devils advocate here. But then what is the controlling factor, the monumentation, the corrdinates, the bearing and distance annotations or the reference points?
Ron Lang, post: 378704, member: 6445 wrote: Playing devils advocate here. But then what is the controlling factor, the monumentation, the corrdinates, the bearing and distance annotations or the reference points?
Well, when the monuments are destroyed by landscaping or construction or slide down with the rest of the clay hillside at the rear of the lots on the East side of Churchill Drive, the most important question is "Where were the original monuments?" The supplemental coordinated control points, their coordinates in the Texas Coordinate System of 1983 and the bearings and distances annotated on the map form one reference system that is both more than reasonably permanent and more than reasonably useful.
That is the point of a modern, accurate land survey: to perpetuate the essentially exact positions of the monuments in a way that can be reproduced in the future with as little uncertainty as possible. This is the power of leaving some very stable, permanent coordinated control points that are easy to find and from which the positions of the original monuments be can be reproduced with very small uncertainties.
eapls2708, post: 378366, member: 589 wrote: The first step would be to try to determine the cause and precise location of the discrepancy along the back line and to examine physical evidence to determine if the error/discrepancy on the back line in any way affected the original locations of the front corners. Although the centerline mons are right on between record and measured distance, and given no other evidence of discrepancies, you would simply work from that control and the record map to replace the fronts, you can't assume that the centerline control was set before or at the same time as the fronts or that the fronts were set from the centerline mons.
When the map was filed and the original survey performed might give a clue as to the order of original monument placement, but over at least the last 30 years, in my experience the centerline monuments are the last to be placed and the rears, being least likely to be disturbed by construction of roadway improvements or by site traffic while lot improvements continue, are often the first placed. The discrepancies present on the back line could have carried through to the front line if the back line mons were used as control to set fronts. Or, it could be that the rears, fronts, and centerline monuments were all set at different times from other independent site control, might each have discrepancies among themselves and still have additional discrepancies between each of the monumented lines (rear, front, centerline).
Yeah. It's been my experience, as field crew here in Houston, that utilities are equally placed on both the front and back, and depending on the era of the subdivision, your sanitary could be run in the front or back. I think the older subdivisions around here, by and large, had the sanitary and gas run down the alleys or back PLs. Newer subdivisions will usually have your; gas, electric, cable, and telephone on the back PL. The front PL will usually have your storm, sanitary, and water.
But looking at that what jumps out is the idea of a rod-found-flush on the back PL, knowing it borders the external S/D boundary, and there will basically be some lot grading. It's established law a landowner is barred from impacting an adjacent property with drainage or runoff from any project or improvements.
I would be suspicious of any original monument found flush.
And just that small snippet of information leaves me wondering how C/L monuments could be that far off station from an exterior monument. Though it does represent the distance between the PC and nearest lot corner. Tough to tell if the plat contains the errors, and the stake-out just got botched.
Tough to tell if the plat contains the errors, or the stake-out just got botched.
