How to figure out property line over hills/woods

[Steve C]

Well, I guess I was told wrong info. First time too.

I will have to check it out in detail next time I am back there. What you say makes sense. Memory is a bit hazy, but there may be more jogs (don't have a better word) than the size of the earth would account for.

No straight lines roads around here

Steve C. - Sorry to hear Miss Leaper got away
Dave.

Thanks....I didn't realize how important it was at the time or I would have burried the boyfriend behind the garage.

So instead of being 60 years old and unemployed with a medical insurance cost of $900 a month for me and my wife that is only good for another 6 months I would be paying $2 a month and be happily retired for the rest of my life instead of looking forward to a life of poverty without any medical insurance, even though I have paid for it for the last 42 years and have used it very little.

 

[dave1949]

Thanks....I didn't realize how important it was at the time or I would have burried the boyfriend behind the garage.

So instead of being 60 years old and unemployed with a medical insurance cost of $900 a month for me and my wife that is only good for another 6 months I would be paying $2 a month and be happily retired for the rest of my life instead of looking forward to a life of poverty without any medical insurance, even though I have paid for it for the last 42 years and have used it very little.

I don't have any good ideas for that problem. I stopped working in Oracle databases shortly after 9/11. Got laid off when business went down, so either I could have moved somewhere if I could find another similar job or just stay put. I dinked around at some retail stuff for several years just to have some money coming in. Once you've worked for years where thinking is required and appreciated, you are not fit for any other type of work - seriously. Decided it just wasn't worth it to move. My wife works in education and really needed to stay in Maine to make her retirement benefits worth something.

To be honest, at 60 I would say you will be very fortunate to be hired to work in your engineering profession again, unless you work for yourself in some capacity. In your geographic area, that would be difficult I am guessing.

I am about done with house building and really need to reinvent myself in terms of income. I keep looking around, I know it will have to be something self-employed. I wish you luck.
Dave.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

This has been some great reading. It seems surveying threads get to be very popular on TBN. I had to even look up some of my high school trigonometry to remember how to place that point where the tree (or hill) was between the two corners. If I ever retire, I'm going to go back to school and learn to survey, I think it's cool. I've borrowed an optical theodolite once and had a lot of fun with it. I have a builders level that will measure verticle angle also, but it is only scaled to degree for vertical and minutes for horizontal. I've used it along my property lines where I can see the other corner, just to make sure I'm not going over.

check out total stations at engineersupply.com.

 

[Pilot]

Joseph,

Using the survey distance might be OK if your slopes are short, not very steep and you aren't trying to be very precise. If otherwise, it won't work.

Let's take an extreme example.

Suppose total HD is 2,600 ft. as shown on the survey. But your first half, 1,300 ft. HD is on a 45 degree slope and the last half is flat. And your error at the end of your run is 50 ft. off to the side.

On that first half you would actually measure out 1838.5 ft.staking every 100 ft., then 1,300 for the last half for a total distance of 3138.5 ft.

2 ways to go from here, both wrong.

1. You prorate the 50 ft. error over 2,600 ft. as shown on the survey and start offsetting every 100 ft. The first 100 ft., you offset from your line 1.36 ft., the next 100 ft. you use 2.72 ft. etc., adding 1.36 ft for every 100 ft distance. Instead of 26 stakes you set 32 and you have set 42.16 feet off to the side, not the 50 feet of error you had.

2. You prorate the 50 ft. error over the 3138.5 ft., offsetting 1.6 feet for every 100 ft. distance. Let's say you start from the end of you line, the flat portion. At 1,300 ft. you have offset 20 ft., not the 25 you should be half way out. So your final line is crooked, 5 feet off half way out.

Calculating horizontal distance really isn't that hard. Just take notes as you go for each segment, recording slope distance & slope. After you run your line, you'll want a break anyway, so kick back with your favorite beverage and take 10 minutes to figure the HD for each segment. Now you know the actual distance for each stake. Prorate your error for each stake (not using the 100 ft. you measured on the ground, because that is SD) and go out and set your very accurate line!

BTW, I used a uniform 100 ft. for each line segment because it is easy for examples. When actually running the line, just measure the segments you actually have, so one segment may be 75 ft and the next may be 150.

 

[Josephm]

Pilot, thanks for the input. I get what you are saying. I guess to get it correct, I will have to do what you are saying - although I may end up having to chop it into very small segments - because my topo map in some spots is pretty wildly varying.

I guess I could also get a laser measure gadget from the hardware store and use that, making use it is exactly horizontal and shoot from stake to stake.

I am hoping that I can get it very close (within 10' or so) with the vertically-flippable transit. The run I am doing is probably less than or close to 1000ft.

I checked with a tool rental place and they rent transits for a very reasonable price.

Joseph

 

[dodge man]

You can measure horizontal pretty easy, just have the guy at the low end hold a plumb bob to get the tape level. We use what is called chaining pins to mark every 100 feet. If the hill is pretty steep you may have to tape shorter distances, say 50' or 25' since you can't hold a plumb bob that high. Thats the way it used to be done all the time until the EDM was invented. Its not as accurate taping and plumbing, but close enough for building a fence.

 

[Pilot]

Dodge Man,

You are right about holding the tape level, of course, being a professional surveyor, but I have to laugh a little. My time in Illinois was at Chanute AFB at Rantoul where the land is so flat you could calibrate a level by laying it on the ground. I understand Illinois does have some slopes somewhere, but someone hid them from me.

Out here in Oregon, depending on whether one lives in the hills or valley bottoms, one could easily have a 25, 50 or 100% slope (in forestry we use % slope because it's easy to measure tree heights with the same instrument we use for topo work) and to hold the tape level you'd be taking very short segments!

I wonder what it's like where Josephm lives?

 

[buckeyefarmer]

My time in Illinois was at Chanute AFB at Rantoul where the land is so flat you could calibrate a level by laying it on the ground. I understand Illinois does have some slopes somewhere, but someone hid them from me.

LOL, That reminded me of a time I was visiting a farm in northwest Ohio, and the farmer said something about his barn on the hill. Us southern Ohio hill people looked around trying to figure out what he was calling a hill. couldn't have been more than a ft or two higher than where we were standing. I mean it is flatter than flat up there. We still get reminded of it and get a chuckle out of it, especially my dad.

 

[survriggs]

Hang in there Dodge Man!!! Good advice! ..........they can use some of the methods described here.............This is a good discussion and I enjoy reading something that pertains to my profession.

Ralph

Whoa! It was not my intention to leave anyone hanging. The "methods described here" was referring to using a compass, running a random line to the other corner and correcting the line back which was explained in prior posts or the 'wiggle in' method (which will be more precise). Instead of repeating, I was basically complimenting a fellow professional, Dodge Man and attempting to be a friendly participant in this discussion.

Steve C:
GPS has been a great advancement to the surveying profession. No we have not reduced our rates to reflect the advantages of GPS. We use the increased production capacity to offset the cost difference between a $10K total station and a $75k gps system. I also fail to see in my post where I indicated that anyone was "doing it wrong". As you pointed out it is hard to tell the tone of a printed reply, but consider mine a friendly response and as far as I know I've never met a dumb farmer. ))

 

[Egon]

There are several other options if you know the Bearings of the lines.

You can use a transit and take a noon sun shot to give you True South or you could adventure out at night and site on Polaris for North. Once you have one true direction and the bearing of line it's pretty straight forward to run a line using the transit.

Of course you could also take a star shot but they get to be a pain as they keep moving on you and there are several calculations involved.