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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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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