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Same (London-Kitchener area).?ÿ We have just decided that we are not going to compete solely on price.?ÿ If they want a layout service company to lay it out at a cheaper price, have at 'er.?ÿ All of our layouts require a confirmation of the boundary that we are satisfied with.?ÿ We have had 2 jobs where people were annoyed, but things went in right.
Case 1:
Contractor "had to get things going."?ÿ They were putting in a 5 storey apartment.?ÿ Tight offsets.?ÿ The contractor decided to save money by using GPS to dig the footings tight enough that they did not need to form them (ie. they used the dirt as the forms).?ÿ This was before we confirmed the boundary or laid out the grid lines.?ÿ We confirmed the boundary, asked for what the contractor held (they localized off the property bars), we agreed w/ their localization, and refused to lay out the grid lines until the arch. responsible for the site plan gave us a stamped pdf reflecting the work done on-site w/ offsets and CAD that had the grid lines and property lines in it (they previously only supplied BIM files).?ÿ Side note--the contractor laid out the building off the civil eng. plans.?ÿ 2nd side note--the civil eng. plans referenced the whole building (ie. not just the foundation) so sorting out what went where was going to be a liability nightmare.?ÿ It got dicey as our sister company was the engineering consultant and we the geomatics guys were, technically, a subcontractor to the general contractor (GC).?ÿ Our structural guys said the building had about 1" of play horizontally on the footings.?ÿ I'm not paying to underpin because somebody doesn't want to form.?ÿ The arch. provided what we needed.?ÿ We checked into the excavation company w/ spec.?ÿ The concrete crew was very happy w/ the layout (they took over laying interior things out after we laid out the main grids).?ÿ The GC.......less so........and may not call us back for another job.?ÿ I would rather stick w/ clients who want us to do the job right.?ÿ You have to decide where you cut things off in the "race to the bottom."?ÿ Ours is that we have to confirm the boundary.?ÿ Our entire profession is based on that idea so not doing that seems silly.?ÿ Extra income doesn't matter if you keep losing it to claims.
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Case 2:
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Contractor "had to get things going."?ÿ They were putting in a 4 storey apartment.?ÿ Building arch. did not match the site plan (ironically, both were done by the same architect).?ÿ GC could not wait so began excavation.?ÿ They had a technical company lay things out for them.?ÿ They set the new setbacks.?ÿ Resubmitting the site plan w/ the new setbacks would restart the whole site plan process.?ÿ Arch. will not submit an SI due to that.?ÿ We get, in writing, that the GC & owner will take liability for the layout as per the new setbacks and to use the unofficial CAD.?ÿ We ask all parties for their latest, stamped plans and CAD as a check (the grids matched in both, just the setbacks changed).?ÿ We lay it out.?ÿ GC calls me wondering why my east-west is good, but my north-west is out by exactly 2'.?ÿ In answering this, I explain our methodology.?ÿ We employ a hierarchy for most site construction layout:
1. Legal boundary (this must be confirmed--always).
2. Site plan offsets (these must be stamped or have written confirmation from someone that they are setting them and taking responsibility for them).?ÿ We use this to set our offsets from the legal.
3. Arch plans (these must be stamped or have written confirmation from someone that they are setting them and taking responsibility for them).?ÿ We use this to set our gridlines from the site plan offsets.
4. Structural eng. plans (these must be stamped or have written confirmation from someone that they are setting them and taking responsibility for them).?ÿ We use this to set our footings, piles, etc.
5. Site work eng. plans (these must be stamped or have written confirmation from someone that they are setting them and taking responsibility for them).?ÿ We use this to set the top of foundation/finished floor for our cut/fill.
6. Site work eng. plans (these must be stamped or have written confirmation from someone that they are setting them and taking responsibility for them).?ÿ Often, these also have the benchmark to set vertical for the site.?ÿ We also confirm what other contractors are using to check against ours if they are already going ahead of time.?ÿ If they are w/in tolerance, we will usually hold them as the site has been excavated to that.?ÿ Tolerances are set by the contract or the GC/owner.
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All of these 6 things are on every layout sheet we plot and hand in.?ÿ It states exactly where and when we got our info to base our layout on.?ÿ Yes, that takes time.?ÿ We do it for single residential houses to apartments (obviously the document reference list is smaller for the former).
In this example, the technical company asked me how I got my setbacks.?ÿ I showed them the chart and explained.?ÿ By compiling this info, we noted the following discrepancies in all the plans:
1.?ÿ Site plan had the correct CAD bearings and distances but was mislabelled.?ÿ Twice.
2.?ÿ Indeed, the arch. plans did not match the site plan.
3.?ÿ The eng. plan's 2 benchmarks were full of spelling mistakes and both numbers were the same.?ÿ They referenced the wrong municipal database and were at opposite ends of the city (likely a copy/paste that wasn't fully updated).?ÿ We did not set a site BM as we were not asked to and we decided just to avoid the situation unless called in later.?ÿ We made the GC aware, told him where local municipal BM's were, and left it at that.
4. The technical company was using plans that were 9 months out of date.
5. The technical company misunderstood the road widening (not only did they misunderstand the extra 1' being taken, they tacked on *another* 1 ' because..........I have no idea why, honestly).
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Long story short, the excavation company was brought back in as they had to dig a couple of feet south.?ÿ We were told that we would be laying out the 2nd apartment on the site in a year.?ÿ For us, we have decided that we are only laying out buildings and things w/ critical setbacks to the property line.?ÿ We have the expertise to do curb, servicing, surfaces, etc. but 1.) a technical company will always underbid you, and 2.) we do not believe it is worth the time/liability w/ our business model.?ÿ That's just our stance.?ÿ It is neither right nor wrong--it's just what we have decided for us.?ÿ YMMV.
One thing that annoyed me about magnet field...I'm not sure what it's tolerance was...but sometimes I can't find my control...so I set up and do a resection to a couple building corners or something, so I can stake out my control. It just says "solutions failed to converge" or something like that, no residuals, just a "screw you". I would literally switch to Fieldgenius, do the resection and export the coordinate to magnet field so I could find my control and continue on with my life. It would fail to let me resection when I was only a few CM off the point I was looking for sometimes.?ÿ
There was a lot of smart things in magnet field but that was not one of them.?ÿ
I'm used to having to set my rod height at 1.47 for a 1.5m reading or whatever it may be.....and sometimes you go 6 months or a year and remeasure and it's a centimeter shorter from wear and tear so you memorize a new baseline lowest rod height and have to do the math in your head if you have to go up.?ÿ
