Not a Monument but...
I was working on a contentious little project in the NIMBY neighborhood of Yarmouth on the beach. The non-waterfront owners were my clients and they were suing for beach rights based on an old sales flyer that claimed beach rights were included, a beach shown on the original subdivision form the late 1800's and long term use. It really was a no-brainer but the shorefront folks were putting up a major fight!
So, I set my backsight on a concrete bound and walked the 1200' back to the instrument and went to shoot the backsight and I couldn't find it!
I looked and looked, but no sign. I knew I wasn't out of sight because I could see the instrument when I set the backsight.
I walked back to the bound and fond my set up stuffed in a garbage can.
A couple of people came out to berate me, claiming I had no right to be there, etc...
Well I ignored them and went about my business. I left SWMBO at the backsight and then went about working....
> Habitat for Humanity, the boss did these jobs at cost rather than hourly rates. (this was a prior employer)
We did one for them last fall for free....good cause I guess.
We staked for bounds and then the road was closed for construction. When we returned the stakes were gone.
We reset the stakes and immediately set the bounds.
We just got a call that one of the bounds was destroyed by the road contractors. They also graded right up to an ancient grave. Thank goodness the bones did not tumble out.
Identical situation.
The excavator watched as I marked out a car park then moved in and lifted out the mark along with my cloth tape I'd sat alongside. It had a stake alongside.
Unbelievable!
Really makes you wonder.
As my old chainman said "it's all the same rate".
Suppose while they keep paying then all is (somewhat) well.
:good:
On one job we never had an opportunity to set monuments.
We ran a few thousand feet thru woods and down hills and thru bottom land on a Friday.
Returned on Monday to set monuments and post on straight line and found a fence built from hub to hub.
:'(
Many years ago. I had just set a hub and lath for an offset to a manhole in the middle of an active construction project. I am standing at the next station and look over to see a dump truck back over said hub snapping off the lath. Moments later the project super appears, talks to the driver and they swap places. Turns out truck driver was fired on the spot and left standing there next to the broken lath. I felt kinda bad for the guy but it was company policy.
Not property corners, but I once staked some curb in a rough part of town in Memphis. The curb landed on some existing asphalt so we staked the offsets with PK nails. Came back the next morning and all of the PK's had been pulled. At least it was easy to see where to put them back.
I have had them disappear over night. When I know they will shortly vanish, I will get my client to watch me put in the corner, and then cross-reference with a few tie-in distances to nearby features. Then, I will put in a "pull-up pin," which is usually a leftover piece of rebar around a foot long, and wrapped up with flagging, set a few inches away from the real corner that is set just below grade and hidden. Everybody is happy over that trick. Happy client because the corner is there. Happy neighbor because my fake corner had been made to vanish. Happy surveyor because he has been paid and the corner marker has been set and the client knows where it is.B-)
If you find yourself lost in the woods just write "do not disturb" on a stake and drive it in. You'll hear a dozer coming in about ten minutes and he'll give you a ride back to civilization.
Here just recently we were doing construction. We put a nail in for a building corner with a stake to mark it. Construction was happening at the other end of the sight but about a minute later a dozer inexplicably came over and ran it over. He then backed over it again for good measure and proceeded to drive off. It was hilarious. I have no idea why it happened.
About 30 years ago, I was setting a corner in an older neighborhood at a corner that fit every measurement and bearing it could - the old neighborhood was laid out well with plenty of monuments to be found. We were happy with the location, but the 85 year old neighbor lady wasn't. She stood near where we were setting the rod for corner beside her husband and daughter and complained the whole time. We had already remeasured her front and back distances from her corners to show her that she was getting all her distances, but no amount of reasoning with her would pacify her, so we began to set the corner. I took line and we measured the distance and after we made a slight adjustment, my rodman placed his index finger on top of the rod to give me one last look through the instrument. As his other fingers left the rod, the old lady took about two steps and place kicked it, end over end, as perfectly as any NFL place kicker I have ever seen. It narrowly missed the face of the other rodman standing nearby and probably went about 30 feet. We left, but got to come back and set it later after her husband and daughter were finally able to reason with her.
Perhaps an hour. We were staking new curbs for a gas station, finished up at the end of the day, packed up the truck to head home and I proceeded to back over one of our own stakes. Unpacked everything to reset one stake.
Did your co-workers laugh at you?
It's great to hear someone admit to such an egregious error. We all do stupid stuff from time to time. Usually, we look around quickly to see if anyone noticed.
Did your co-workers laugh at you?
That happened to me once. Was doing a construction staking job for an apartment complex. When you park in the morning when it is nice and dark and nobody is else or working in the area. As always when they see a survey crew working they think, oh we better work right next to them, lets get all the earth movers going near them as well. This must also be the next area they want to do, so lets drop off all of the wood and pipes by them as well.
When we go to leave we have wood, pipes, and a deep trench cut right near the truck, so we had to back over a stake to get out. Lucky it had a hub, we just had to rewrite the station and cut info. We could have just pulled the stake before we backed out, but hey that never helps after long hot day in the field.
Overnight, but much crueler than pulling everything.
Ongoing grading stakes job, it's hot so the grading contractor likes to get going at dawn, so we stake his work areas the evening before typically. A 4 (big)lot subdivision (Parcel Map) with a lot of pissed off rural neighbors. I get a call early next morning from the earthwork contractor (whom I had worked with before, solid guy) saying everything's all screwed up, makes no sense. Turns out *somebody* had walked the site that night, pulled the cut/fill stakes, then put the stakes back in next to hubs randomly. Also pounded down redtops so no turkey tails were visible. Fixing the grading stakes was a reverse jigsaw puzzle; had to re-redtop the street(s). The sheriff was called in but his investigation went nowhere, even though there was a likely ringleader, a PE neighbor (local bigwig). The dirt contractor and I split the "costs" (item bid contract, not time and materials). He ate the equipment downtime (not much because he kept his cans working the uphill big cut with a general idea of where the dirt goes, stakes or not) and hired a night security guard (feared his equipment would get monkey wrenched), I fixed things in 6 hours of billable time which (damaged survey stakes replacement line item change order) was chargeable to him but only charged 3 hours so we both got burnt a little.
I'm confused about the posts concerning iron monuments (Final Monumentation) in subdivisions getting ripped out by construction activities. In my neck of the woods, they're placed *after* the roads, utilities, hardscape, fine grading, drainage structures are in (even houses, landscaping and sod in a spec subdivision). Not an earthwork machine on site, sweet new soft asphalt, fences in place, handy sidewalks for placing offset tags, birds chirping, fall is in the air. Setting Final Monumentation is pleasurable work and easily bid accurately.
Of course there's a procedure; a Monumentation Bond must be filed with the County to prevent jacklegs from leaving town before putting in the lot corners, and it's hefty, enough so County forces can do the work if necessary (with their 5 man union crews). 90 days(?) after "substantial completion" of the project the monuments must be in and get spot inspected before the Bond is released. You can petition the County Surveyor if things have gone wrong, like the developer went broke and the earthwork's half done, for years in some cases, but your bond is unrecoverable 'till then.
Additionally, on good jobs, you'll be putting lead and tack w/tag in the tops of cinder block walls because they're dead nuts on the lot line which you staked for the wall (big money 150 lot subdivision, $500k per lot retail with a house minimum), offsets where an Electrical box ended up at the corner, etc., where your Final Map called for generic 1/2" IPs w/tag. Requires a Certificate of Correction, basically a letter where you say SW corner of lot 23 is a lead and tack w/tag, 1/2 IP w/tag 3' on side lot line from NW corner of lot 27, etc. Cheap to file but tedious to prepare so dial it in to your costs upfront.
Anywhoo, I *do not* put in final monuments until the construction work is done, except subdivision boundary angle points, required if you use a ROS to establish the subdivision limits for financing purposes, a clever maneuver when developing high dollar subdivisions. And they are substantial, 2 1/2" Berntsen flare pipes set in concrete with caps and ties to every adjacent physical monument. Rip that out with your Ditch Witch if you can, cable TV installers!
In Texas when you file the Subdivision Plat at the Courthouse, all corners must be set. It can be a $1,500 fine for any corner not set. A smart developer would not start any work until the plat is filed. There has been talk of changing this law, but what happens if the start of constructions is delayed, someone goes bankrupt, or they decide not to do build the project. Then you are left with a plat and no corners.
Yup. A case of different rules in different places. In our area the monuments go in before the plat is recorded.
MT code I can set monuments up to 240 days after recording the plat (if I state so on the final plat) problems arise when the contractor building the streets sidewalks etc. can't finish in that time frame. The local utility companies won't install their lines unless they see the monuments, aka, targets-:pissed: Also around here; home builders have a tendency to put their basement excavation fill on the lots and beyond, sometimes raising the ground 2-4 feet above original grade.:-@ and then there are the fence builders who come in later:pissed:
Paden
We were working on a small subdivision one time and a contractor for the power company was out there and asked if I'd show him where the property corners were. I asked that if I did, would he promise me to move off at least five feet from every corner. He said that was unacceptable and got huffy with me. I told him then that he could retain my services so that I got paid (instead of just being a swell guy) to stake for demolition. He was not impressed and he never figured out where the corners were.
He waited around for me that afternoon and after I'd done my work, I saw him driving stakes near my stakes. Only thing was, I'd told the landowners what was about to happen, and they got shown the correct stakes, and then I put dummy stakes out there with "Prop" written on it. Guess what didn't make it 24 hours? 🙂
> If you find yourself lost in the woods just write "do not disturb" on a stake and drive it in. You'll hear a dozer coming in about ten minutes and he'll give you a ride back to civilization.
>
> Here just recently we were doing construction. We put a nail in for a building corner with a stake to mark it. Construction was happening at the other end of the sight but about a minute later a dozer inexplicably came over and ran it over. He then backed over it again for good measure and proceeded to drive off. It was hilarious. I have no idea why it happened.
Hilarious.