The possibilities are vast depending on the terrain, the development and the level of accuracy you are requiring for your project.?ÿ
If your engineering projects are parking lots, heck even a drone would work for the topo, if it is a industrial plant site, then you might need everything in a fully equipped surveyors toolbox.
If I were in your shoes, I would do two things. Firstly, find yourself an experienced survey technician willing assist you for the occasional weekend.?ÿ
Secondly, establish a relationship with a survey equipment rental company.
The survey tech will be able to get you up and running with the rental software and offer insight into the best equipment to be rented for each project.
Rental rates of $150/day, are certainly cheaper that $15000 for a decent used robotic setup. It would take 10 years of projects to break even with owning vs renting, which should actually be a wash as you would bill your client for the rental rates.
Best of luck,
Justin
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The possibilities are vast depending on the terrain, the development and the level of accuracy you are requiring for your project.?ÿ
If your engineering projects are parking lots, heck even a drone would work for the topo, if it is a industrial plant site, then you might need everything in a fully equipped surveyors toolbox.
If I were in your shoes, I would do two things. Firstly, find yourself an experienced survey technician willing assist you for the occasional weekend.?ÿ
Secondly, establish a relationship with a survey equipment rental company.
The survey tech will be able to get you up and running with the rental software and offer insight into the best equipment to be rented for each project.
Rental rates of $150/day, are certainly cheaper that $15000 for a decent used robotic setup. It would take 10 years of projects to break even with owning vs renting, which should actually be a wash as you would bill your client for the rental rates.
Best of luck,
Justin
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If your engineering projects are parking lots, heck even a drone would work for the topo....
Except for the need to set out control for the photography.
Rental rates of $150/day, are certainly cheaper that $15000 for a decent used robotic setup.
Good idea. Rent, don't buy.
I have staked foundations in the NC mountains. Don't do it yourself. Add the cost of the survey to your total price and explain to your client that even though they may only have spent $350 for a survey of their land in Florida, $1000 is what it costs in the mountains. That said, if you get your surveyor a good CAD drawing of the foundation and have them stake only the footer, you might be able to get them to drop the price a touch. Pinning the foundation corners on the footer always took me longer than staking the footer.?ÿ
If you only need the equipment for a few days a month and know in advance when it is required, rental would be the way to go.
Leica Geosystems has survey equipment (total stations/GNSS for survey and construction and GIS/GNSS equipment) available on their rental site: www.lgsrents.com.?ÿ
Once you get the credit app completed, you can rent equipment quite easily.?ÿ
That is why I recommend the simplest form to get the job done. ?ÿMany times the job necessities are far simpler than what we have the capability to do because we tackle far tougher jobs. ?ÿSometimes all it takes to tighten an 11/16 nut is a pair of pliers.
If you only need autocad once per month, why pay for it?
Be careful. Some states require a licensed surveyor if topos are tied to the earth, like for design.?ÿ
Be careful. Some states require a licensed surveyor if topos are tied to the earth, like for design.?ÿ
The big money is in the topos that aren't tied to the earth....with them floating around up there you are always getting paid to update the location as they drift around.
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Sorry...sometimes I just cant resist.?ÿ ??ÿ
For nearly flat one-acre open lots all you really need is a level, steel tape, grid layout, pen, paper and a pocket calculator. ?ÿNo high-dollar autocad seat and everything that goes with it.
That's just good sense. It seems to me if you're the engineer, you're likely ahead of the curve in that, you already likely know; the soil type, and permeability, you can see the grade and flow on site, identify barriers and any local drainage system or structures.?ÿ
If it gets too easy you could increase your utilization rate and difficulty level by emailing yourself with an endless number of questions. ?ÿ
North Carolina is one of those states.?ÿ?ÿ http://www.ncbels.org/Policies/EngSurBP-1005-3Rev%203.pdf
Some of the most colossal engineering fubars I've ever run across were the result of designs based on defective topo data.?ÿ?ÿ
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Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
Some of the most colossal engineering fubars I've ever run across were the result of designs based on defective topo data.?ÿ?ÿ
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I agree. A few months ago I found a 6ft bust in a topo by an Engineer. It cost hum about $5k., but I saved him some coin. If left it would have $250k.
North Carolina is one of those states.?ÿ?ÿ http://www.ncbels.org/Policies/EngSurBP-1005-3Rev%203.pdf
Looks like an engineer can do a topo for his own project, but if the projects are on parcels that are less than acouple of acres how can you design them without locating the boundary??ÿ
"The Board??s
position is that the provision for ??engineering surveys? would allow a PE to do
topographic and hydrographic surveys for his/her engineering project. At a minimum,
any horizontal or vertical control, including locating boundary line corners must be done
by a PLS. "
I agree with comments above about it depending on the work you intend to be doing, and size and type of terrian at the sites. Hire equipment for once a month jobs if available. Establish refernce marks on site, you may elect to use assumed position and height (site datum). Place disclaimer on your survey work that it is undertaken for engineering purposes only.
If I read correctly IGage will supply a IG8 Network Rover and controller with SurvCE under $10,000, or a Base Rover RTK kit under $17,000.
If you could find other topo work, or hire out when you are not using it, this euipment would be good value and very productive.?ÿ More so than old worn out second hand gear.?ÿ The risk of error manually booking field data and reducing (say using spreadsheets) and low productivity should be considered.?ÿ
One of the many good things about the engineer doing the topo-for-engineering-purposes yourself, is that you get to have a good intimate sniff around the site.
Kechha, one thing not yet mentioned is software to generate a topo survey in the form in which you need it. Do you have engineering software that will do that? If not, you'd need to look into buying or licensing survey software that will do it. There would be costs and a learning curve.
A survey software package will likely include a data-transfer routine for getting field information from a data collector into your desktop computer. Engineering software most likely will not. In that case you'd need to get a free-standing data-transfer program to read the data from the collector and get it into a form that the engineering software could work with. And you'd need to get that data-transfer program to work with your engineering software.
Liability would be another question. Would your professional-liability insuror have a problem with your doing your own topos? Maybe not, since your engineering training will have included the theoretical background of the work, but it wouldn't hurt to ask. If a survey bust generated expensive problems down the line, you'd want to be covered.
Richard makes a good point about the elevation datum. If you need to use an established datum (what used to be called a sea-level datum but is now more complicated), you're not likely to find a bench mark right in front of the site. The elevation would need to be carried in from some distance away. The time-honored method involves a level, a rod, and a helper. A TS can also be used to transfer elevations, with slightly less accuracy.
Any site can be designed and built using an assumed elevation datum. But everyone involved needs to be on board with that. And there need to be plenty of durable bench marks, including some off the site so they don't get taken out. If the assumed datum marks all get lost, there will be trouble.
Summerprophet and Johnson5144 also make a very good point about renting equipment vs. buying.
For sites no larger than you have, I'd use a robotic TS for everything. That will work on all sites, while GNSS/RTK gives trouble in areas where there isn't a clear view of the sky. And you'd only have to learn one piece of equipment rather than two.
You might also rent your selected instrument for a couple of days before actually doing a topo, to give yourself time to learn how to run it, download data, etc., and rent the same make and model every time.
It's reasonable enough for you to look into doing your own topos, since you're having trouble with turnaround times in having surveyors do them. It would take awhile to set up, however. Once set up, you would very likely be able to cut the turnaround time, but you couldn't count on making money from the surveying operation.
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