How do you accurately find your property line to post signs and paint trees

[Jstpssng]

Use a transit with compass. Set the compass to the bearing on your land survey plat map. Sight down the transit to landmarks at that bearing, moving from one landmark to another as you travel down the line. Hang plastic flagging or set pin flags to mark the line as you go.

This is the best way. Get the line as straight as you can and mark every 100 feet. If you're off when you hit the target corner, adjust proportionately on every 100 foot marker until you get it straight.

 

[bdhsfz6]

I post a 25 acre irregularly shaped parcel. I use a newer handheld GPS that receives signals from 3 different satellite systems. Most newer units have this capability. I typically a get location accuracy of less than 6 feet but this will vary from location to location. In any case, it's good enough for posting purposes.

Using a GPS requires that you know the coordinates of your property lines. Many older survey maps are recorded using meets and bounds (direction & distance) and it's often difficult to convert for GPS use.

To do this, I use Google Earth with an overlay of my property survey map. There is some minor error but again, it's good enough for posting purposes. I obtain the coordinates of the locations I want to post from Google Earth and save them as waypoints in my GPS. It's then a simple task to navigate to each waypoint and spray or post a sign. This makes it easy to post a property line that isn't straight.

 

[Jstpssng]

I post a 25 acre irregularly shaped parcel. I use a newer handheld GPS that receives signals from 3 different satellite systems. Most newer units have this capability. I typically a get location accuracy of less than 6 feet but this will vary from location to location. In any case, it's good enough for posting purposes.

Using a GPS requires that you know the coordinates of your property lines. Many older survey maps are recorded using meets and bounds (direction & distance) and it's often difficult to convert for GPS use.

To do this, I use Google Earth with an overlay of my property survey map. There is some minor error but again, it's good enough for posting purposes. I obtain the coordinates of the locations I want to post from Google Earth and save them as waypoints in my GPS. It's then a simple task to navigate to each waypoint and spray or post a sign. This makes it easy to post a property line that isn't straight.

You also can get your coordinates by walking your lines and locating the corners, whichever way works best.

 

[dodge man]

As a land surveyor, I can’t say any of the advice you got is great. Consumer grade GPS is not that great. The accuracy also degrades when in trees and vegetation. Also gps on tractors often have corrections which make it more accurate.

3Ts described a method that is called “wiggling in”. Him describing how to do it isn’t the greatest but I can’t describe any better.

A compass? Maybe if you know what you are doing, most people don’t. The problem is there are so many basis of bearings on surveys, grid north, geodetic north, magnetic north that it is tough to get orientated correctly.

The best way is to get the surveyor back, but probably expensive.

 

[Root Cause]

Thanks to everyone who offered some ideas.

I am going to try the "wiggling in" method using 3 lights if I can find something solar-powered so I can set them during the day and view them at night.

 

[dodge man]

I’ve only done wiggling in a couple of times using a surveying instrument (total station) and it’s time consuming. That was only using one point in between, in other words I could see both ends of the line. It seems like it would be difficult having to use 3 points.

I don’t know if driving t posts and putting some lengths of pvc pipe over the posts would help. You could probably get 20 to 30 feet in the air that way, just use a carpenters level to plumb it up a little.

 

[JethroB]

Probably not helpful for the OP‘s purpose but a county’s tax assessors website may have satellite photos with estimated property lines super-imposed. Fun to play with and get a feeling of an area and properties including acreage & ownership. Qpublic.net is the mapping provider to counties in my state.

For example Google “qpublic.net county name & state”.

 

[ZTMAN]

I recently posted our 127 acres with the purple paint. Previously used the yellow signs. No real issues finding the deed and an old survey's call out of pile of rocks here and there, big oaks etc. Was able to fine parts of a barbed wire fence as well.
Worked out good because our neighbor had a recent survey and the flags are spot on.

My reason in posting is not the property line discovery , it is the purple painting. I made a template out of a shoe box based on our state law. :
Purple markings must be at least 8 inches long and 1 inch wide. The bottom of the mark must be no less than 3 feet or more than 5 feet from the ground. And painted marks are not more than 100 feet apart.

Cut out a 2"x10" rectangle from the bottom of the box, stapled the box to a scrap piece of 1x so the bottom of the template was 4 foot off the ground. Worked great. No guessing if you are at the right height and width and the sides of the box gives you wind protection.

 

[seville009]

I used Google maps to draw lines to connect the corners of my property. I then could identify the larger trees, etc close to the line to give me a relatively good idea where the property line is. Crude, but good enough for my purposes.

 

[jmc]

Ha. it isn't that big. It's that dense and that steep. I literally could not pull a straight line 20' with the dense vegetation. And if I could, I would not be able to see it. I've thought about using a bright light on one end but no way I would walk that in the dark. There are a few places where you have to crawl up or slide down depending on which way you are going.

Unlike the pool-table-flat rest of Indiana, my part is hills, hollers, sinkholes and caves. My WWII vet neighbor (RIP) said our part was originally settled by families who came up from N. Carolina. I asked him why they stopped here when they coulda gone 30 miles further to the flat, fertile part of Indiana. He quipped, "Compared to N. Carolina, our land musta looked pretty good!"

 

[Creamer]

I have 80 acres. 1320 x 2640. All four corners have been surveyed - at one time or another. I back sighted from each corner to establish a straight line. Pounded in the T-145 steel posts - strung four strands of barbed wire. Mile and a half of fence line.

My 80 acres is a mere "pimple" - compared to the two neighbors I have. One on the North - other on the South. Their lands completely wrap around my property.

Their land is measured in the thousands of acres. They both run cattle - basically open range land. If my property line fence was off a little - nobody would give a toot.

You got the sequence backward. You are supposed to string one strand of wire from corner to corner and then use it to guide you where to put your posts. It also helps keep your fence tighter because if you posts are not in line the tension of the wire will pull them over time and the wire will be come loose.

 

[TractorGuy]

Don't know if one of these would help but I bought one and it shines for a LONG distance. Ad says 300 meters for the green.

Pardon Our Interruption...

 

[Jims1025R]

String up bright helium balloons at the known corners and midpoints, and sight between them

 

[oosik]

Creamer - I must have got the T-posts in a straight enough line. I fenced my property in 1982 and it's still up and tight. I don't think I could string a single wire 2640 feet and get it up off the ground. The far/near points would have to be, at least, 50 feet off the ground. Same problem with the two 1320 sides.

HOWEVER - I sure could have used help. I was all alone on this fencing job.

Now - on the idea of painting the property line trees purple. If I did that then OR today - my next visitors would be men in white jackets.

 

[Jstpssng]

I established a mile long property line using the method I described, after the original survey laid out a 1500 acre tract for what was supposed to be 1050 acres. Both landowners were in agreement (and knew that I was capable of doing it) but you need to be able to flag a straight line to begin with.

The easiest way would be to get the original surveyor back to flag the line, as others have suggested. It really shouldn't cost that much, he already knows what's there and it would just be a matter of connecting the dots.

 

[dodge man]

Depending on the terrain, it might cost quite a bit to get the line flagged by a surveyor. A modern survey grade GPS system MIGHT, work in the woods during the winter. They have gotten a lot better but heavy woods can still make gps not work. If gps won’t do it convention equipment is required which takes a lot more time.

 

[ZTMAN]

Now - on the idea of painting the property line trees purple. If I did that then OR today - my next visitors would be men in white jackets.

I thought the same thing until I came upon a trespasser during last years deer season posted up right in the middle of our drive. Long story short, the fellow played dumb and claimed there were no, no trespassing, signs from where he entered the property.
The signs were there at one time, but trespassers rip them down and claim ignorance. They cannot rip down purple paint, so me and another fellow invested a little time to spray some paint.

 

[Jstpssng]

I thought the same thing until I came upon a trespasser during last years deer season posted up right in the middle of our drive. Long story short, the fellow played dumb and claimed there were no, no trespassing, signs from where he entered the property.
The signs were there at one time, but trespassers rip them down and claim ignorance. They cannot rip down purple paint, so me and another fellow invested a little time to spray some paint.

Paint is easy to make disappear, I do it occasionally when a line has been spotted wrong. Still, it's a lot more permanent than a sign and you can find it even after I've gone over it with gray or brown deck paint.

 

[Jchonline]

Living in dense woods on ridges I can attest to just how difficult it is to keep a straight true line. As mentioned transit is the best if the terrain allows it. I also used the "go home" feature on my drone and it worked pretty well. I set the home as 1 of the property stakes. I walked to the second stake, then flew the drone back home...that way I could follow under it and mark spots on the ground with paint. Then I went back and added metal stakes with caps.

 

[Jchonline]

I thought the same thing until I came upon a trespasser during last years deer season posted up right in the middle of our drive. Long story short, the fellow played dumb and claimed there were no, no trespassing, signs from where he entered the property.
The signs were there at one time, but trespassers rip them down and claim ignorance. They cannot rip down purple paint, so me and another fellow invested a little time to spray some paint.

Ya but paint in no way means "no trespassing". Put the signs in a tree ~10 feet off the ground...where they are still in clear view but can't be ripped down. That coupled with wireless cameras works well for us.