You need your own anal reviewer in-house

Once upon a time if a plat showed 33.33 on 3 interior lot lines and the exterior said 100.00' folks knew what it meant...

We had that exact thing happen at a county review. 100' split into 3, each lot technically was 33.3333333... feet, which of course rounds to 33.33. Reviewer wouldn't accept it, so we arbitrarily changed one lot to 33.34, then it was "right".

> Norman commented below about anal reviewers. ...
I don't mind the kind of comments you listed, for the most part. The one's that irritate me are much more picky than that. And I don't mind suggestions. I do mind the reviewer requiring me to draft my maps to his personal, but unstated, preferences. Thankfully most of the reviewers around here don't do that. But it has happened.

I try to markup the drawings I peer review here in the office in 2 colors, blue or green for suggestions, reserving the red for F-ups. I started doing this after working on a large transit project that had a procedure manual which had multi-color markups. One color was for "this may or may not be okay, please explain it to me more."

We’ve been hired for many types of surveys. That being said, it is true that clients typically won’t pay for you to correct a mistake when they catch the mistake. The client typically will pay if you catch the mistake before it gets to them.

Some clients complain when they see office time on the invoice. They say things like we just need your field crew to make the measurements. We have found that if you reframe the issue as, “OK so were going to come out a make some measurements. We can hand over the raw data to you, or would you like us to check it first? If you want us to assure the quality of the work, we will need office time on this project.”

What we have implemented is a process that includes:
1. Completing the field work for the survey,
2. Compiling the report,
3. Checking the report, this step includes giving the red-line revisions back to the person in step 2 to make the changes.
4. Back checking the report, the person in step 2 makes the agreed revisions and gives the report back to the person in step 3 to agree that all proper revisions were made.
5. Re-checking the report, the person in step 3 “Re-checks” that all proper revisions were made...
6. Reviewing the report. This is step is made by a new person in the process. The review is made to make sure that the QA/QC process was properly completed. The report is now sent to the client.

There can only be 2 people in steps 2, 3, 4 and 5. It can be beneficial if one of those 2 people can also be the person in step 1.

The person in step 6 should not be in step 1 thru 5. While large nuclear jobs have many more QA/QC sign offs. The above process can be adapted to work on smaller jobs. The 6 step process outlined above, works well for the vast majority of our clients.

Oh, and another thing. When did we stop being able to put a line where we intended it to go and be of the proper length? I can't tell you how many times I have encountered lines that are fully intended to be parallel with bearings reported to be several seconds different and the danged line is only about 50 feet long. The same applies to lines that are intended to be of identical length and are reported as being 0.02 short or long. There is no rational benefit to promoting such stupidity. Are we simply supposed to announce to the world at large that we are completely unable to do anything correctly?

Our good buddy John from Ohio was reporting recently about the frustration of dealing with a county where the reviewer apparently had special demands that were only applied to the firm with which John was working. Anyone else could do it one way, but if John's firm did it the same way identically, it was wrong. I fully understand his need to &%&###(*&&(#&%%#$#^&%*^&(& on the subject. People who operate in that manner deserve to have very, very bad things happen to them.

Sometimes that one-hundreth is an error, sometimes rounding works that way.

> (Actually saw one of these) Every bearing in the description was reversed on the plat. Surveyors understand that N 14d07'14" E is identical to S 14d07'14" W, but most other people do not.

In my days before CAD my sometimes lazy, anal draftsman did that intentionally to me once. I made him change the map to reflect my descriptions. A few more similar instances that just seem lazy to me, and he got to collect unemployment.

Then there are the reviewers who want all descriptions to be clockwise, or counter clockwise just so they match. That can be a challenge sometimes especially on multi lot splits with different controlling lines. That used to drive me crazy too. To appease those types I would just label the same line NE on one side and SW on the other side.

Now we have unlicensed planner types actually try and dictate how they want my opinions displayed (for clarity). I try and educate them, or just go over their head if it's that big of a deal to me.

Not sure I'd want anyone reviewing my anus, but yeah, it's good to have someone thoroughly inspect your work.

We used to do that when I worked in Tucson. We'd give each other our maps and ask that they be made bloody by way of red pens. Sometimes we'd roundtable our stuff at weekly meetings so the whole department could pick on each other. It was pretty great. I learned a lot from all the feedback and enjoyed the hell out of picking on others.

I am currently dealing with a final map where the LS that has reviewed my map is expressing his very strong opinion of how the map should look. His opinion isn't asking me to do anything wrong, but it is claiming that my own particular way of drafting the map is incorrect; which it isn't.

I have recorded several final maps in the City in question. And with this latest map, I perpetuated the style and appearance of previous maps in this City. The problem is (I think) that the map checker, being new to checking maps in this City, has decided that any new maps must conform to his own style preferences, regardless of what the many, many existing maps in this region show.

I'm doing my best to not turn this into a battle of wills. And for the few legitimate errors (mostly typos to map references) I am happy to comply by making the suggested changes. But it is really, really frustrating when the map checker simply wants the map to conform to their idea of how the map should look.

> Norman commented below about anal reviewers. The best way to stop worrying about such people is to ensure you have someone on staff who is even pickier. You need this person to keep your public image sharp.
>
> Recent examples that sound nitpicky but which may very well lead to someone questioning your ability to do proper and accurate work:
>
> Description says N 14d07'14" E but plat says N 14d07'15"
>
> One label says the total line is xxxx.14 feet long, but when you add the three subparts of that line you get xxxx.15 feet.
>
> The description clearly says: "thence bearing/distance to the Easterly corner of a tract....." Guess what. It's the Westerly corner of a tract.....
>
> Six lines on the plat all run N 14d07'14" E but those same lines in the description all read N 14d07'44".
>
> Description says 1302.93' while plat correctly indicates 1309.23'.
>
> Four short lines on a plat are all 330.13', then the next half again bigger line reads 330.13'.
>
> Beginning at the northeast corner of..... Guess what. It's the northwest corner.
>
> ....in Nodaway County. Nopey. Nopey. It's in Clarke County.
>
> A survey in the northwest quarter and southwest quarter of section such and such, yet the entire survey is only in the northwest quarter of the section.
>
> (Actually saw one of these) Every bearing in the description was reversed on the plat. Surveyors understand that N 14d07'14" E is identical to S 14d07'14" W, but most other people do not.
>
> ...thence East to the southwest corner of the section. It'll only take about 25000 miles to get there, but you would eventually get there. (One of my own mistakes)

I'm not sure how any of the above would be considered an 'anal reviewer', i would consider those to be comments from a 'competent reviewer'. If it's wrong, it's wrong and needs go be fixed. I will exclude the bearing reversal and the subparts comment though.

Yes, I am one of those 'competent reviewers'.

I manage the GIS department for a local government and am amazed at what passes for "professional". I'm not a surveyor, but I use the work product created by surveyors. I did take three years of drafting in high school and it was pounded into me to clearly label all my lines/measurements/dimensions/etc...

Bearings and distances that are placed on cross-hatching are the biggest mistake I see. If a surveyor goes to all the trouble to create a quality plat, please make these clearly legible so that it can be retraced.

Scrivener's errors exist on plats and I can understand that for historical documents, but shouldn't these be eliminated by most modern CAD systems?

If you're a licensed professional, your work should reflect your license.

My $0.02,

Paul VanDyke
IT Supervisor
Kodiak Island Borough
Kodiak, Alaska

Its also a pain when you get someone, that tries to use the last City they worked in rules. There was one guy that came from another State trying to get his old States rules show on a Plat. He left after every Surveyor in the area told him where he could find those changes at.

When the City reviewer gives you a list of changes, ask him which rules they violate. If he says none I just like they way this looks better. Tell him its your name on the Plat, when he is signing it he can make it the style he likes.

Fully agree.

One of the big issues we have in our industry is then people like to claim they are professional but then do produce professional work, act in a professional manner, dress in a professional way, etc, etc.

If we cannot demonstrate easily to a client that we are professional why should they believe us when we claim to be?

Well, the problem I run in to here is that on a subdivision map, the reviewing LS is signing a statement that they have checked the map and it is "technically correct". And that is where the "grey area" lies.

On the one hand, there are some things that can be argued all day long about whether or not they are technically correct. But at the end of that day, if the map checker refuses to sign the map because they feel that the map isn't technically correct, that map won't get recorded.

I have very few issues with a Record of Survey, it is only the Subdivision Maps and Parcel Maps where I run into this issue.

I agree with this as well.

I've been on both sides of the review process. And it drives me nuts when the plat has lines that cross over text making it hard to read. Or when the leader arrows don't clearly identify the positions at which they are supposed to be pointing.

I do have a problem when the reviewer decides that my particular method of referencing record data isn't up to their idea of what should be done.

There is incorrect data. And there is correct data. But just because a reviewer doesn't like the method by which the correct data is presented, that doesn't make it incorrect.

Not real professional with the grammar in that post sorry. 🙁

This is a challenge for those of us that work alone.

For every survey that is to be recorded, I write the legal description from the drawing, then use the printed legal to calculate the closure of every lot. It's time consuming, but it does catch a lot of little blunders.

It would be better if someone other than the draftsman (me) did this.

How many surveyors actually do this? I'll bet less than half.

> This is a challenge for those of us that work alone.
>
> For every survey that is to be recorded, I write the legal description from the drawing, then use the printed legal to calculate the closure of every lot. It's time consuming, but it does catch a lot of little blunders.
>
> It would be better if someone other than the draftsman (me) did this.
>
> How many surveyors actually do this? I'll bet less than half.

Any legal I prepare I also prepare an exhibit in Civil3d. I use the annotated brgs and distance and curve data to prepare my parcel which is then exported directly to Word. Haven't had any issues with closures or missing data in years. Misclosures are my pet peeve. Being a reviewer of other licensed surveyors for a certain local municipality I know with almost 100% certainty that data will have a misclosure while submits constantly accurate data. It;s a sad state of affairs that some of us licensed professionals claim to be professionals.