The best way to avoid mistakes is to slow down. Most of the mistakes I have made are a result of going to fast.
@jimcox I suppose that is a given. Hopefully I will be retired and on a beach in Fiji before they come to light. I can say at least I tried my level best. The pressure to get things done on a tight time line definitely plays into it. Often the so called 'mistakes' are a byproduct of making silk purses from sow's ears.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
I was involved in a case where the other firm had two capable surveyors who worked on adjacent properties years apart.?ÿ One survey overlapped the other by enough of a difference to cause a headache.?ÿ It was lack of researching internal files as there was a boundary SNAFU that predated that firm's efforts.?ÿ I have spent a considerable amount of time retooling the data this business acquired since 1981 to ensure that I will avoid creating an overlap.?ÿ I am avoiding gaps too but I am slightly less concerned with gaps...?ÿ
OK, here's my costly errors:
- Big 80 unit 2 story condo construction where the electrical feed was based on street CL not shown on the civil plans.?ÿ Turned out their street CL differed by 20' because so I staked it right in the middle of the pool area and we choked up $18,000 as part of a deal where all admitted culpability.
- ?ÿStaking a NCAA track field where we screwed up the water hazard and it was not aligned with the track properly, which meant it wasn't allowed certify National records, etc.?ÿ After litigation we were exonerated given that we staked *exactly* the civil pans so the engineer ate it; we only coughed up 5 grand.
- A super big hillside development where we were running 5 crews and somehow at the join there was a 3' bust.?ÿ Our mistake but we caught it early and the earthwork engineers fixed it for only $60,000.?ÿ Peanuts in a 1 million dollar contract.
- Pedestrian traverses and leveling runs where we screwed up because of errors in our work. Detectable and fixable with more fieldwork so we fixed it and didn't make a profit.
- Collaborating with big time developers where we were the prime civil and survey contractors and they were overextended and ultimately went bankrupt, leaving us in the lurch and bankrupted us too.?ÿ I lost $30,000 on that deal.
So it appears construction liability is a concern, pure boundary less so.?ÿ I've never carried insurance and premiums vs. payouts has been a push.
Put your hand on the equipment...that is what I learned...after thinking I saw what we needed
I'm sure it's already been stated but if it "looks" wrong, it probably is. Trust your eyes (and your gut) and do your checks.
Check to existing features (if applicable)
T. Nelson - SAM
So it appears construction liability is a concern, pure boundary less so. I've never carried insurance and premiums vs. payouts has been a push.
I've been wondering about this because I've received quotes from a couple different insurance groups over the past week or so.
Commercial vehicle and general liability seems reasonable, but the professional liability seems wonky. 1 group quoted me $1500 and the other quoted $15,000 (local agent sent it back for re-evaluation and it came back at $5000).
Anyway, like you I'm starting to wonder if it's actually worth it, especially considering the types of projects I'd likely be doing.
E&O insurance is a cost of doing business that is passed on to the client.?ÿ The insurance doesn't protect only you it also protects the client which is why some clients demand you have it.
Change the rod height value in your controller BEFORE you move you rod glass up or down. Locate the same improvement in two different setups. Save one of you foresight and backsight shots as a side shot with a different point number. Take field notes like you used to before robotic TS. If you check a backsight that uses a different prism, say "change glass" underbreath until you actually change the prism type in controller. Use a circle symbol for points to be staked and a dot for staked points, then you can easily look for the dot in each circle on the controller screen. For all of you young'ins scoffing at these ideas, as soon as you grow up, you will be doing something similar.?ÿ
I use Microsurvey Fieldgenius and I've had it do this to me. I switched to reflectorless and normally it switches to 0 rod height automatically and a couple times it just stayed at whatever rod height I was at. Luckily I noticed it before taking a shot. I've also had it randomly change my target type from 360 prism to round prism, throwing off my distances.?ÿ
I don't know if this helps, or even at least provides comfort, but years ago I heard on the car radio that the ratio of insurance pay-outs to insurance premiums is very close to 1, something like 0.99995. I thought at the time that these guys must be selling an awful lot of insurance to make a buck, and that there's an awful lot of claims out there.
Make full use of field to finish to segregate the data appropriately.
I assume this means sorting data to different CAD layers.
Check to existing features (if applicable)
Ditto!
For instance, one software will not let you stake?ÿ a point which has a distance farther than your backsight distance.
Interesting take on old-school surveying principles.
Another software prompts the user when a resection geometry is poor.
Darn good idea! Surveyor's have always abused resection programs.
Use a circle symbol for points to be staked and a dot for staked points, then you can easily look for the dot in each circle on the controller screen.
I like it!
I hear you Bud. When running 6 crews in West Palm Beach (1981) if the surf was up or a DC-10 "accidentally" threw out a bale `o weed that landed in someone's cousin's brother-in-laws backyard, half of them were no shows. ?????ÿ
Funny take on "substance" and field crews:
A few years ago I had an office that was relatively close to a larger eng./surv. firm that always ran 8 or 10 crews.?ÿ About every six months I'd get a flurry of hands dropping by over a two or three day period?ÿ to "see if I was hiring".?ÿ I finally had to ask, "Are they laying folks off over there?"
The reply was predictable, "Nope. They just require a drug test every six months.?ÿ We heard you don't drug-test."
I never hired any of them boneheads anyway. 😉
Note each rover/prism rod height change, either in the book or in the separate attribute field on the collector that is there for just that purpose.
Excellent advice! One of our party chiefs always writes down all rod height changes on a separate piece of paper.
with all the tech we have, it AMAZES me that we don't have a rod that automatically sends the height to the DC.?ÿ?ÿ
I wonder how that tech would deal with my rod tip that has dulled a couple hundredths over twenty years.
I'm a proponent of the third point check, especially for staking points. I once worked under an experienced field crew supervisor for a road stake-out job. He had the instrument man backsight a point, which was separated by a small angle and was a few hundred feet shorter than another point. Several hours later when it was time to check in after traversing through a cleared area, staking as we went, we did not check in worth a darn. Turns out we should have taken a backsight on the other point. I learned a valuable lesson that day!