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Well, At Least They Didn’t Destroy It…
Posted by BStrand on December 1, 2021 at 2:33 amI was out tying ROW monuments today and one of my calc points took me to this fence corner. Locator wasn’t very helpful with all the metal in the area and the calc point landed right on the irrigation box. At first I was like great, these clowns HAD to put the valve box there? I thought for sure the monument had been destroyed and was about to move on to the next one when I thought what the hell, maybe the lid will come off. And then…
Norman_Oklahoma replied 2 years, 4 months ago 18 Members · 31 Replies- 31 Replies
Mr. Strand,
So, did the monument fit the record position?
Or did the construction guys do like a wall contractor was doing to me? I had set 1″ iron pipe at the rear corners of the lots per a tract map I had done near my home. The developer had decided to build CMU walls around the perimeter instead of the typical wood fence.
I was driving home one day and noticed a contractor working near one of the lot corners of the tract. I stopped and introduced myself and watched him insert, into the freshly poured footing for a wall, an 18″ long, 1″ iron pipe with my tag in it.
I asked if he had tied out the position of the pipe in order to set it in the same location. He said no. His company never did that. He was told that the existence of the iron pipe was very important and to always replace them if the dug them out. (!?)
I checked the remainder of the tract and found about a dozen more where my friend had done me this favor. Most were out of position by a half foot. I had to amend the map to show tags in the wall or footing instead of the 1″ers. I busted up a bunch of the footing getting my pipe out of there.
I was paid for the additional effort. I just wonder how often this sort of thing goes on. That aluminum disk looks as if they took care to leave it undisturbed, but did they?
JA, PLS, SoCal
Some of our most often used long term control points are set in irrigation boxes.
That monument had to be set in the box, rather than the box being set over the monument.
Happens often, one way to know when it occurs is to stencil the cap with the lot lines.
I helped a friend do some surveying in Las Vegas some time ago… they have section corners in valve boxes in the middle of major intersections. I’ve never seen a place where the monumentation was so well preserved and documented. Makes a great argument for mandatory recording states.
- Posted by: @jerry-attrick
I just wonder how often this sort of thing goes on.
Happens all the time. My good friend was putting up his fence, and he did the same exact thing. I just shook my head.
@norman-oklahoma
Posted by: @norman-oklahomaThat monument had to be set in the box, rather than the box being set over the monument.
Same friend…his front corner was installed inside the water meter box…of course the fence builders pulled to a rebar set in the ground a foot or so away, it was for tying off a support for newly planted tree.
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong. I showed up on this guys front porch, looking for a bench mark. The guy comes to the door and asks; what’s you fellers looking for? “The NGS claims that there is a brass cap, set in your concrete step here.” He say’s; yeah, it’s right here, and takes us inside his house, pulls a piece of his fireplace off, and show’s us the brass cap…
He had remodeled the front of his house, and preserved the mon for anyone that wanted to use it. He was surprised, that we were the only ones to come sniffing around, in all this time. We sat up the level; set the rod on the cap; and proceeded to level out the door. The bench was still in good condition and matched VERY close to the elevation we measured.
God bless the good people on this planet!
Dougie
I hope everyone has a great day; I know I will!- Posted by: @dmyhillPosted by: @jerry-attrick
I just wonder how often this sort of thing goes on.
Happens all the time. My good friend was putting up his fence, and he did the same exact thing. I just shook my head.
@norman-oklahoma
Posted by: @norman-oklahomaThat monument had to be set in the box, rather than the box being set over the monument.
Same friend…his front corner was installed inside the water meter box…of course the fence builders pulled to a rebar set in the ground a foot or so away, it was for tying off a support for newly planted tree.
I don’t know how many rodpersons (my green self included) would locate the grounding rod next to a utility pole for a property corner.
and to @jerry-attricks comment: I’ve seen the aftermath more than once of a fence builder, utility company pole/transformer/service box setting crew that would pull the rod place the pole or whatever then stick the rod back in the loose dirt “right where it was”
Found two of my bars yesterday at the edge of concrete poured around chain link fence corner posts. The pipe corner posts were precisely where the bars had been. A third bar was found directly below the fence where it was supposed to be.
We were working staking roads on a new subdivsion that I had recently pinned. The power company guys were laying in their lines, and I noticed they had one of the corner pins laying on the surface. I asked the guy working there, and he says “Oh yeah, when we get done here we will put it back”, I said did you reference it before you took it out? “No” says he. Well how are you going to put it back? “Oh, I remember where it was” says he. I told him do me a favor and just toss it. Whether he did or not I don’t know.
So, did the monument fit the record position?
It’s hard for me to say actually. This project was started before I came on board and the only work I’ve done on it is in the field. So far the monuments are landing within a few tenths of the calculated points I was handed. An odd one might land within a few hundreths so maybe that’s a sign the boundary is still being tweaked.
- Posted by: @norman-oklahoma
That monument had to be set in the box, rather than the box being set over the monument.
I wondered that at first but it was kind of under the lip of the box and there’s no way you could pound a 2-foot bar in there straight and then somehow get a hammer in there to tap down the cap. It still made zero sense why they had to put the box right there though; my pictures don’t show it unfortunately but there was tons of room behind and around where I was standing.
I also like the generous interpretation of the ROW by whoever installed the fence. ??? There was at least a foot, maybe 15-18 inches between the fence post and the pin. Of course, the fence could have been there first, but the ROS where these pins were set is dated 2014 and the fence doesn’t look particularly old either.
Survey monuments are in motion. Not just natural causes, frost heave, snow, sunshine, rain, erosion, little old ladies, in their flower bed, Fifi tied to the rebar, mowers, bushogs, trees that fall over, but power angers, all the stuff above, trucks, trenchers, water lines, cows, horses, goats, crustal motion, lightning strikes, it’s a fundamental fact. Monuments move.
Nate
@dougie
Need to cut a hole in his roof and get a GPS on Benchmark there.
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong.- Posted by: @scottb
We were working staking roads on a new subdivsion that I had recently pinned. The power company guys were laying in their lines, and I noticed they had one of the corner pins laying on the surface. I asked the guy working there, and he says “Oh yeah, when we get done here we will put it back”, I said did you reference it before you took it out? “No” says he. Well how are you going to put it back? “Oh, I remember where it was” says he. I told him do me a favor and just toss it. Whether he did or not I don’t know.
In the great recession, a number of plats stopped midstep. Some of them had been recorded, but the corners were still in the process of being set. (This was allowed then, and was noted on the face of the plat…the surveyor promised to set them…but no bond was typically asked for to make sure they and the centerline monuments got set.)
Some of our work in the great recession was setting these corners, I am guessing some of it was without compensation to the company, but to simply fulfill the promise on the plat (I was in the field then, so not sure.)
One plat (by another company), the surveyor retired, the company folded, and some corners had been set, but no centerline monuments, even though they appeared on the plat. We were hired to stake houses and lots there, and while doing so, I noticed a contractor pounding in a rebar and cap…it had been dug out. He said he was putting it back. All I could think of was the pain he was creating if he was allowed to continue. There was so little control that anything that was found was likely to be used.
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong. @kevin-hines “they have section corners in valve boxes in the middle of major intersections.”
Used to see the same thing in Orlando-Orange County-Florida back in the 1970’s. Don’t know if this practice continues.
Yup. Continues today. The only reasonable method to simplify preservation of the true section corner monuments. Far safer than digging through asphalt in the middle of traffic. Or some distance away from the centerline but still in a traffic lane.
Pop the lid, take the shot, reinstall the lid, get your butt off the road.
For a while around here the utility company wouldn’t put in the underground stuff until all the lot corners along that line were set. Not just rough lathed, actual corners set. So we’d set them. One day we were working in a different area in the sub. when we saw the utility guys come through with a ditch witch right on the lot line in a 12′ easement plowing out the corners. Following the machine, a guy would stand still watching the spot the pipe came out of while another would grab the pipe and hand it to him so he could put it back in where his eyeballs said it should go. Boss put a stop to that pretty quickly. Always wished he would have been hit in the head by one of the pipe flying out.
Mike- Posted by: @bstrandPosted by: @norman-oklahoma
That monument had to be set in the box, rather than the box being set over the monument.
I wondered that at first but it was kind of under the lip of the box and there’s no way you could pound a 2-foot bar in there straight and then somehow get a hammer in there to tap down the cap. It still made zero sense why they had to put the box right there though; my pictures don’t show it unfortunately but there was tons of room behind and around where I was standing.
I also like the generous interpretation of the ROW by whoever installed the fence. ??? There was at least a foot, maybe 15-18 inches between the fence post and the pin. Of course, the fence could have been there first, but the ROS where these pins were set is dated 2014 and the fence doesn’t look particularly old either.
In the Greater Vancouver Area, many BM’s and HCM’s are set in a pipe with a lid in the middle of a road intersection. Map of some examples:
https://www.richmond.ca/__shared/assets/BenchmarkMap21730.pdf
Easy to find. Sometimes not so easy to tie in during traffic.
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