Apps for land survey - Property lines

[bdog]

Thanks Dodge Man. Unfortunately I do not have plat. I just bought the property a couple of weeks ago and the guy I bought it from had it since 1987 and he said he never had it surveyed. It was a rush transaction I have been trying to buy it from him for nearly ten years but he would never sell and then all of a sudden he left a note in my mailbox saying he would sell it to me as he was in a bind and needed the money. We closed 6 days after he left that note. I do think it was surveyed at some point but I don't think Texas is a recording state but I will double check.

And you are correct on the 60'. The actual corners are in roads and I am not sure if the spikes are intact as I know the roads have been repaved several times. I think my best bet is the 60' in 1/2" rods. Then again adjacent to this 5 acres on the other side of the road they just broke up 60 acres and sold it off in ten acre lots which I saw survey markers on. They likely found and used the section corner but I don't know.

I will be using a R10 to navigate with. I have six of them and use them almost daily but that is all done in state plane coordinates. The only survey plats I ever really work with are for oil wells and they always have eastings and northings for the points as well as bearings and the basis for them. I am kind of a nerd with this stuff I have 5/8" stud welded up on my property and have collected three weeks of static data and have a really good OPUS solution for my base. I use it all the time to survey various things on my property like anytime I bury a water or electric line, etc.

 

[dodge man]

We just bought a new R10 system less than a year ago. Two R10s, internal low power radios, an external 35 watt radio and they are both VRS capable. It was 46k total for them. We already had two data collectors. Trimble is pretty proud of their stuff.

I can tell by reading your description it has been surveyed. If it’s older probably pre dates GPS. If you have state plane you can calculate the difference between grid north and geodetic north. I believe it’s the Greek letter Theta. If you have ever used NGS data sheets you can find one in your area that would get you close and it’s called the convergence angle. It might show up on your OPUS sheet but I’m not sure, it’s been a while since I’ve done an OPUS.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I've looked at a few around me and none of them make those kinds of mentions. They're all ...

... from a large oak tree along a field formerly owned by Jimmy John meandering generally westward along the Willie Lou property ...

Problem is, few people alive today remember Jimmy John or Willie Lou.

Yep, my deed references a road that has been moved, a creek, and the land of a bunch of guys who died in the 19th century.

 

[bdog]

We just bought a new R10 system less than a year ago. Two R10s, internal low power radios, an external 35 watt radio and they are both VRS capable. It was 46k total for them. We already had two data collectors. Trimble is pretty proud of their stuff.

I can tell by reading your description it has been surveyed. If it’s older probably pre dates GPS. If you have state plane you can calculate the difference between grid north and geodetic north. I believe it’s the Greek letter Theta. If you have ever used NGS data sheets you can find one in your area that would get you close and it’s called the convergence angle. It might show up on your OPUS sheet but I’m not sure, it’s been a while since I’ve done an OPUS.

Thanks again. Yes Trimble is proud of their stuff but it just plain works. All of mine are the older R10 model 1's. I don't doubt the new ones cost that much. Mine were all ex rental units we bought used and we use TSC-3's. We upgraded to them from R8's just a couple years ago. I have never used the internal radios as we always use the external radios due to the distances we need to cover. We often put our main base radio antenna on top of the 30' extendable mast and then we have two other radios we use as repeaters.

I have never used VRS but the salesman demonstrated it to me at our shop. It looks slick. A lot of the places we work there is no cell service so I haven't really considered it but if I just worked around a metro area where it was available that is what I would use.

 

[dodge man]

We have spotty cell coverage also. The accuracy is a little worse with the VRS, especially the elevations. I think VRS is dependent on how close the bases are to your location. Illinois does not have a free VRS system so we are paying for the Trimble setup. A lot of states are free. Between U.S, Glonass, Galileo and the Chinese I am often tracking 22 satellites. When I first started using GPS over 20 years ago we were lucky to have 9.

 

[oosik]

I just realized - I have photo editing software that can help find property corners. You MUST first have one established corner. Then dial in the direction and distance. It will get me within +or- five feet of the other corners. Continue on from there. Good for FINDING - I would not consider it accurate for survey.

Movavi Photo Editor 5 Pro

 

[Junguda]

Ok Dodge Man (or anyone with experience)... the survey looks like a boundary survey... vs construction survey... what’s the difference... and can both be used 400 ft from nearest turn (corner marker)...?

 

[California]

A big fabric or steel tape measure on a reel (at least 100' long) and a compass app on your phone should get you close enough to find the pins with the metal detector.

Aaron Z

Beware the HF cheap fabric 100 meter/330 ft tape. I use this for laying out replacement trees in the orchard, its ok for that. But going the width or length of the property with multiple runs of tape, forget it.

When the neighboring orchard alongside mine sold, I set a temporary flag where I expected the boundary was, knowing I only needed precision sufficient to distinguish which row of apple trees belonged on which side of the boundary. When that property was formally surveyed, my flag was within a few feet - close enough for my intended purpose but my adjustments for tape stretch and elevation change had left me certain I had not attained any precision. Rent a steel tape if you need reasonable accuracy.

 

[California]

I haven't seen a mention of 'call all the survey firms in the vicinity'. One may have set some precise reference points at a defined distance from you.

In particular that new subdivision across the street from you likely still has monuments visible that you could start from.

I saw new survey monuments across the canyon behind me in a proposed vineyard. I called the surveyor and confirmed he had precisely defined my back line. I went over and nailed a marker - visible from my side - to a tree by my back corner. Soon the idiot owner there moved my informal marker to the bottom the canyon so his 4-wheeler trail would appear to be on his property. I went over and painted a foot wide white belt around the tree by the true corner marker. It took a couple of years to finally convince the neighbor to keep his 4-wheeler on his side of the property line, in the boring vineyard rows on his side of his new boundary fence.

 

[California]

How accurate is it to find coordinates on Google Earth for a specific corner, then use a phone's gps to go out with a metal detector to look for a pin there?

 

[dodge man]

Never really heard of the term "construction survey". We do construction staking but this is where we stake parking lots, building, highways etc and don't worry about boundaries.

When looking at deeds and surveys, each situation is unique, kind of hard to give any kind of info that is usefull over the internet.

When people call and want their conrers found, no matter what the price, I tell them you have to put a value on my services. They can be expensive and it not like its something you can lay your hand on when I'm done like a new car. You have to decide if its worth hiring someone to do it for you. There is nothing wrong with you measuring and trying to find your corners, but you also suffer the consaquences if you are wrong. If you are looking for advice on the internet I'd say you don't have the necessary skills. Good luck.

 

[California]

When people call and want their conrers found, no matter what the price, I tell them you have to put a value on my services. They can be expensive and it not like its something you can lay your hand on when I'm done like a new car.

How about a surveyor going back and locating a pin set by the same surveyor 20 years prior? Is un-assisted satellite GPS close enough to make this simple? (I have one back corner clearly pinned but can't find a pin for the other back corner in heavy brush.). Is a couple of hours of billed professional time, sufficient to research the surveyor's prior records then go stake an existing pin?

 

[dodge man]

I will rarely go out and just find one pin set by another surveyor. How do I know he did a good job the first time? There are a couple surveyors I would trust and do that though. 20 years ago was also not a sure thing it was done with GPS. Bad things happen to pins also. People move them, what looks like a corner might be a random piece of junk. If you find several then you know how they fit.

One thing to understand is that GPS doesn’t work well in trees, if it all. So if there is heavy tree cover you can’t use GPS. I only use survey grade GPS, anything else is worthless for my work.

 

[Oldoak]

I will rarely go out and just find one pin set by another surveyor. How do I know he did a good job the first time? There are a couple surveyors I would trust and do that though.

That is just the point I was about to bring up. A lot of surveying had been done in my area over the years (rural farm and woodland) being broken down into smaller acreages. Several times it has come up where even surveys conducted by professional, registered surveyors didn't match. Who's to know whose survey was right?

I'm not really asking a question. Just throwing out what I have actually seen happen.

 

[Jstpssng]

That is just the point I was about to bring up. A lot of surveying had been done in my area over the years (rural farm and woodland) being broken down into smaller acreages. Several times it has come up where even surveys conducted by professional, registered surveyors didn't match. Who's to know whose survey was right?

I'm not really asking a question. Just throwing out what I have actually seen happen.

There is a point when dealing with old deeds when surveying stops being a science and turns into an art. What continually frustrates me is when I've been respotting a line for a day or more; then suddenly find a new surveyor's pin which is 40 or more feet off the line which has been accepted for years. I will generally accept his findings, as he is the one with the license; yet I also am accountable to our clients for my time; and the simple courtesy of a letter when a major discrepancy is found would be nice. When I was working for myself respotting property lines I sometimes found myself eating a day or more of work/expenses, whereas had the surveyor taken the time to notify his client's abutter- AKA, my client- that a discrepancy was found, it would have save me some money. Unlike a surveyor, the nature of my job didn't allow me to build that into my bids.

 

[dodge man]

Surveying is like every profession, there are good ones and bad ones. Surveyors call multiple corners driven in one spot pin cushions. They drive me nuts. They are often done under the mistaken line of thinking that a distance in a deed should hold no matter what. Say someone has a deed that say 200 feet wide. What do you do if you find a pin at 199 feet? Drive a new pin? Except the one you find? Give up? I normally would except the pin if it fits the adjoiners deed.

Sometimes deeds don’t fit together perfectly either. On paper they leave a gap or create an overlap. How do you resolve that?

I will say as a matter of fact I don’t contact the neighbors if I find a problem after I’m done. I am not my clients advocate, I don’t favor them because they hired me but I do advise them on the course of action they can take if there is a problem. My job is not to go around talking to adjoiners unless I think they can show me corners.

I have learned some people get very emotional over boundary problems. I have seen people I consider reasonable go off the deep end. They usually end up in court, paying a lawyer a lot of money, standing in front of a judge who would like to throw them out of his court.

 

[bcp]

When my area was divided into 2.5 to 5 acre properties, probably in the 1960's, corners were apparently done by tape and compass. Then people built things. My NW corner moved about 25ft E and 10ft N when surveyed. The whole east line moved the 25ft. The neighbor who lost the property at my line gained the same on his east line, etc.

One property line nearby now has a zig-zag to go around a garage built to the first lines.

Bruce

 

[California]

When my area was divided into 2.5 to 5 acre properties, probably in the 1960's, corners were apparently done by tape and compass. Then people built things. My NW corner moved about 25ft E and 10ft N when surveyed. The whole east line moved the 25ft. The neighbor who lost the property at my line gained the same on his east line, etc.

Yeah. My eleven acres and the neighbors' similar parcels were subdivided off a much larger orchard in 1905. A few years ago the easement that comes in a quarter mile to reach my place got fenced down to barely wide enough for a harvest truck, as the orchard on the far side of the easement was torn out and replaced by a fenced high-end vineyard. Legally they could have fenced off most of the width of the easement.

And - that easement boundary must have been laid out by compass. When the parcel alongside and beyond me was sold in 2005 a survey showed my far corner was several ft inside the fence of the (different) vineyard across the lane. That survey revealed my line of mature trees all down the quarter mile mutual boundary with the neighbor beside me, has my trees planted right at my property's boundary - so the harvest haul path beyond is all on his side. So far I've convince the successive owners to not fence our mutual boundary because its to our mutual benefit to cross the line to turn around when discing or spraying. But its inevitable that parcel will eventually be sold to a weekender who thinks he needs more security and a boundary fence will make my last row of trees un-maintainable, or worse, he may butcher the quarter mile of trees to get his fence on the line. The realtors who have sold that property twice recently, both insisted on a fence there. I've so far been able to talk both new owners out of doing it, I told them the ambiance of looking out and seeing unbroken orchard for some distance was part of the charm of what they bought.

Country living entails constant change when you least expect it.