Finding a survey monument set in the concrete collar of a fence post in my area of practice would have me thinking that I am dealing with a corner which has been disturbed by the fencing crew and was almost certainly not set that way by the surveyor... cannot tell by the photos, but if the concrete was poured in place around the rebar, rather than the concrete having been drilled to accept the rebar, I am going to be skeptical of that position. I may accept it as the best available evidence after my analysis and additional research, but that corner certainly becomes suspect.
Kent McMillan, post: 371591, member: 3 wrote: Well, the obvious answer was "neither, the monument appears to have been disturbed." :> That was a very good real life example that did snare some folks with blinders.
Snare? Blinders? Is that what they call it in Texas? Most anywhere else it is called a plain old blasted lie.
Yepper, Kent, aren't you the clever one. Post a carefully cropped picture, throw out lies, and ask a pointed question, and when people logically respond, you congratulate yourself on your cleverness? Golly Gee, yes, I wish I was as clever as you is!!!
Most real surveyors with a eye for the obvious, would have noticed the three moved iron posts, steel H braces, and other obvious clues, and had the "mystery" solved before they ever opened the truck door and certainly long before Kent would have gotten his micrometer and hands out of his pants and even started Starnet.
Like I said in my first post, if this what constitutes a genuine surveying dilemma in Texas, boy do you guys have it tough........
Dave Karoly, post: 371614, member: 94 wrote: Apparently Texas Surveyors need StarNet and 95% error ellipses to figure out a monument is out of place 5'.
Actually, there was loads of resistance in a previous thread to even the very CONCEPT of ordinary errors as a measure of gross error. So, presumably an error of about five feet would not figure into the evaluation of the rod in the photo and all that would remain are the characteristics of the (former) monument as seen in the photo (which didn't seem to bother most readers).
Dave Vliem, post: 371619, member: 7055 wrote: Finding a survey monument set in the concrete collar of a fence post in my area of practice would have me thinking that I am dealing with a corner which has been disturbed by the fencing crew and was almost certainly not set that way by the surveyor... .
Yes, that would definitely be evidence that suggests disturbance. However, there is a long line of posters who would not be bothered by that fact at all. They would figure that the ESL fence crew had merely "reestablished" the corner as the agents of one or more of the adjoining landowners. In this case, it was clear that the rod hadn't been drilled through the concrete, but the concrete had been poured afterwards. Some of the flagging tied to the rod was submerged in the concrete when liquid.
Brian Allen, post: 371621, member: 1333 wrote: Snare? Blinders? Is that what they call it in Texas? Most anywhere else it is called a plain old blasted lie.
Hey, it's not my fault if you don't think the question, "Do you consider the top or the bottom of the rod to mark the corner?", admits more than two answers, and that one answer is "no". It was only a trap if you couldn't conceive that the corner might not be anywhere near the rod that sure looks like a textbook illustration of a disturbed survey marker in the photo. Sorry 'bout that.
Dave Karoly, post: 371566, member: 94 wrote: Your photo in no way tells that story.
What it does tell us is that you can't be sure about a monument just by it's appearance or even it's proximity to a fence corner.
It still looks like an armadillo den to
me.
Kent, did the landowner move the post. Some elderly owners like to get their toys out play with stuff.
Robert Hill, post: 371632, member: 378 wrote: did the landowner move the post. Some elderly owners like to get their toys out play with stuff.
I'd suspect that the landowner had his help rearrange the fences since he would have been older than 75 when it was done. I don't think any reputable fence contractor would have just lifted the corner section with welded braces (and the concrete around the posts) and tried to stick it in new holes. It happened sometime in the last sixteen years.
This project has just about one of everything in the fence catalog. The fenceline surveyors would be running around like blind dogs in a meat house.
Mark Mayer, post: 371628, member: 424 wrote: What it does tell us is that you can't be sure about a monument just by it's appearance or even it's proximity to a fence corner.
I've told this story before but it's applicable here, so here it goes again.
Back in the first few years of my career I was working on a field crew in White Rock, B.C. One day we were sent to stake a house on a lot in a subdivision we had recently pinned. The monuments were all in, straight up, with the regulation triangular guard posts next to them and pretty as a picture. Everything was looking good until we measured between two of them. They didn't match plat by a couple of decimeters (way too much for the standard). We checked to others and everything was this way and that way a couple of decimeters.
Cutting a long story short, the monuments had been set before the lots were graded. The grading crew had carefully removed the monuments and guard posts, graded the areas, and put the monuments back "in the same place" . Except they weren't, of course.
These lots were some pretty high priced real estate just a couple of miles from the beach. They didn't sit vacant for long. And the applicable accuracy standard was recited in millimeters. But this sort of thing could easily happen anywhere, including some remote part of . And if the land stands undeveloped for 37 years it will be really tough to tell the difference, especially if local accuracy standards were +/- a foot or more.
Yes, that reminds me of the time that an architect client called me out to make a title survey of his newly-built house on some of the most valuable real estate in the Austin area. I had previously surveyed the boundary of the lot when I made a topographic survey more than a year before, so I was expecting an easy ride.
A quick recon showed that all of the lot corners remained marked with the 1/2-inch iron pipes that the original surveyor of the subdivision had used back in the late 60s, my (weathered) wood laths still standing beside them with my somewhat faded flagging on them. Hey, this was going great. Not a single corner had been disturbed.
Set up on my old control point to tie the house and check the two front corners. One, flat, but the other I couldn't even see. It was behind a large shrub and something was wrong since I had tied it from this exact control point about a year before. All was revealed when I turned to the position in which the pipe had been and, lo and behold, there was a hole in the ground and no pipe. It had evidently been pulled up and moved over about five feet further away from the driveway. Pulled the "reset" pipe and stuck it back in the hole in the same position in which I'd found it. Lath, too.
"Hey," I told the architect later, "I think one of the subcontractors moved your boundary markers around."
"Oh," he said, "I did that. "The building inspector thought the driveway was too close to the property line. I forgot to move that 'pin' back before you arrived."
Can remember a case from nearly 30 years ago where the seller had shown the realtor the rear survey pins on a single town lot. A bit later the realtor returned and moved them three feet south so the neighbor's garage wouldn't intrude across the "line". I was hired by the buyer. Hadn't been onsite 10 minutes before a neighbor told me what he had witnessed out his back window. A few months later I was chatting with the realtor and told him of my discovery on that particular lot. He told me he did it on purpose and precisely why. He could not understand that it was WRONG to do things like that.
Mark Mayer, post: 371628, member: 424 wrote: What it does tell us is that you can't be sure about a monument just by it's appearance or even it's proximity to a fence corner.
The point of this thread is Kent is implying that any Surveyor within the entire United States that may have at one time or another disagreed with him on a point of law and the facts would UNCRITICALLY accept that rebar which he knows has been moved 5' which fact is not clear in the photo.
It did look disturbed to me but I ignored the thread until Kent started making broad statements by implication.
Kent McMillan, post: 371625, member: 3 wrote: Actually, there was loads of resistance in a previous thread to even the very CONCEPT of ordinary errors as a measure of gross error. So, presumably an error of about five feet would not figure into the evaluation of the rod in the photo and all that would remain are the characteristics of the (former) monument as seen in the photo (which didn't seem to bother most readers).
There isn't resistance to the concept of being able to detect gross error.
That isn't even the question.
Of course we all can detect gross error.
The question is, is the fact it is gross error legally relevant after 30+ years?
Kent, why can't you return to California? I like to think you UNCRITICALLY accepted a rebar, it's the romantic in me.
Kent McMillan, post: 371543, member: 3 wrote: Hold on. You mean that original monuments don't control if they have been disturbed? Should a land surveyor determine whether a monument has been disturbed, then? This sounds like Rocket Science when there is there is the 1983-vintage rebar right there in plain view.
"This sounds like Rocket Science ..."
In many cases I fine evidence evaluation much more difficult than Rocket Science. Its more like Rocket Surgery!
I would look @ all the evidence including the measurements, and local physical evidence and come up with my best professional judgement where the monument was originally set.
I had a similar experience as the couple of examples above. We were surveying in a corner position and I, as a rodman, came up on a rebar that looked good, straight and between the two houses. I told the crew chief (this was 30 years ago) that I found a monument. They turned out the angle where it should be and it missed by multiple feet. They were scratching their heads and checking their calculations, when the homeowner came out and asked "Well how did I do?" I asked what he meant, and he said that he found the pin laying around and put it in the ground where he thought he remembered it to be.
The angled rebar might be closer than some straight up and down rebars that appear undisturbed. You evaluate all the evidence. measurements are important, afterall they are part of the legal description that (legally) identifies the boundary.
Dave Karoly, post: 371656, member: 94 wrote: The point of this thread is Kent is implying that any Surveyor within the entire United States that may have at one time or another disagreed with him on a point of law and the facts would UNCRITICALLY accept that rebar which he knows has been moved 5' which fact is not clear in the photo.
I thought this example provided a necessary corrective to the free-floating idea that anything resembling an old survey marker must necessarily control any boundary corner in the vicinity. If in fact the concept of ordinary and expected errors enters into the picture, you're welcome.
Kent McMillan, post: 371671, member: 3 wrote: I thought this example provided a necessary corrective to the free-floating idea that anything resembling an old survey marker must necessarily control any boundary corner in the vicinity. If in fact the concept of ordinary and expected errors enters into the picture, you're welcome.
This concept of "Ordinary and accepted errors" is quite simply put, a variable.
And, we often need the proper legal corner, even when our math goes out the window.
Such it is....
Retrace enough of another surveyor, and you can develop realistic expectations. For that Surveyor. For that era in his life. Even that changes. If he gets new equipment.
N
Kent McMillan, post: 371634, member: 3 wrote: I'd suspect that the landowner had his help rearrange the fences since he would have been older than 75 when it was done. I don't think any reputable fence contractor would have just lifted the corner section with welded braces (and the concrete around the posts) and tried to stick it in new holes. It happened sometime in the last sixteen years.
Actually, the only people I know, who subscribe to building H-Braces prior to sinking them, and then moving them to the fence location, and folks from the Central Texas Area who now reside in God's Country of East Texas. They all moved here from the Czech counties you love so much. We call it Bo-hunk fence building up here. More like bunk fence building.
The rest of us just build them in place to not have that unsightly problem of them not being right.
Nate The Surveyor, post: 371672, member: 291 wrote: This concept of "Ordinary and accepted errors" is quite simply put, a variable.
If by "variable", you mean something that must be taken into account, yes. The obvious next question is how to determine whether a survey marker is so far out of position that the most reasonable conclusion is that it is no longer in the position in which it was set.
Before the arrival of electronic calculators, it was quite common for surveys to be made by running on true line or on a parallel offset to true line. So a monument that is both off line and a discrepant distance from other markers should ring some bells.
