Not a lot of people realize that land surveying is actually a fusion of art and science. Yes, different equipments are available for the surveyor’s use, but the land surveyor still has the last say on the results.
Despite this though, a land surveyor still has several guidelines to follow. If you’ve had an experience with a dishonest surveyor, or are wary about hiring one, this article should be able to help you out.
A surveyor should always start a project with fairness in mind. Your client as well as everybody party involved in the project is expecting you to be fair and just so make the best possible assessment with the evidences handed to you.
Before a project commences, the surveyor assigned to the project should come forward if there’s a possibility of conflict of interest. This is very important to preserve their relationship with the client. A surveyor should avoid professional impropriety by declaring involvement or any prior affiliations with any of the involved parties. It is also the surveyor’s responsibility to keep any information regarding the project as well as the client confidential even after the project is done.
Several cases were reported where the surveyor overcharged the client. This usually happens when the client doesn’t know anything about land surveying. A land surveyor running his business with ethics will never do this. Fortunately, there are more honest land surveyors than dishonest ones.
A surveyor should charge a project according to the length of time needed to get it done as well as the level of technical complexity required for it. For the surveyor’s sake as well as the client, one should never sign plans, certificates or reports unless these are personally supervised by him. Not only is this unfair on the client’s side, doing so could put his reputation in danger should the results get disputed and he doesn’t know anything about them.
Just like with other industries, a land surveyor should never undermine the capability of other surveyors or the people from the land surveying industry.
New technologies come up for land surveying all the time. When a surveyor knows that a project is beyond his skills, he should tell the client about it. There’s no sense accepting a project only to come up with a subpar result. It will only hurt your business and your reputation.
Surveyors should also be responsible enough to study, do a thorough research, practice and utilize his skills before offering clients a new service. If a surveyor is new to flood determination, for instance, then he needs to make sure that he knows how to perform it before offering it to his clients.
Surveyors do not work alone. They usually have a staff to support them. The land surveyor needs to be responsible for their actions at all cost, for actions or work carried out by them.
Land surveying is amongst the oldest professions on this planet. After man has decided that a section of land should fit in with a tribe, the demand for surveying began.
Land surveying is fascinating. The methods used try to choose which part of land is owned by whom, hopefully ending arguments once and for all.
In short, surveying is actually a process using mathematical means to survey land.
The first accounts of surveying land goes back to ancient Egypt. Experts have discovered evidences which the ancient Egyptians used basic geometry to redraw the lines of boundary once the Nile River overflowed. An Egyptian land register dating back 3000 BC was also found.
Following the Egyptians, the Romans – also among the most powerful civilizations within the ancient world – practiced land surveying. They took it a pace further and made “land surveyor” a state position throughout the Empire. These folks called agrimensores, best known as Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum. Whilst they used simple tools, people were very thorough with their jobs and would create straight lines and proper angles using these tools. After the lines were measured, they would create shallow ditches to mark the lines. In fact, a lot of the furrows they made exist today.
One of the recorded land surveying in the “modern” times is that of William the Conqueror who wrote the Domesday Book in 1086. This book serves as a menu of names of land owners, how many land they owned along with other information about the land. While it was a marvelous measure of information during this period, the bits of information weren’t 100% correct. The locations weren’t accurate and the maps had not been created to scale.
One among history’s greatest icons had also been a passionate surveyor – Napoleon Bonaparte. The interest in surveying land was actually simply a product of his desire to conquer the planet. Napoleon Bonaparte founded a registry called cadastre. This consists of a registry of properties of a county, ownership details, locations and as many details concerning the land’s value. Yes, Napoleon Bonaparte can be regarded as a land surveyor – and a very smart man.
The strategy used for land surveying also have evolved over the centuries, over time. In the past, people would use whatever may help them determine the length from one point to another. This simply means using chains with links and even ropes. Obviously, this didn’t give accurate results but they did not have the technology we’ve got in the past.
Today, land surveyors enjoy the best technologies to help them with their job. There’s GPS, or Global Positioning System, which is one of the most accurate technologies being utilized today. Total stations are also very important to a land surveyor, which employs the utilization of an EDM or Electronic Distance Measurement device along with a theodolite which enables for further precise angle and distance measurements.
Buying land, whether commercial or residential, is actually a costly endeavor, even when prices have eased somewhat lately. This is the reason locating a parcel which you like and making a deal for it without performing a land survey within the area is likely to be the greatest mistake that you could make.
Here’s why it’s extremely important that you have land surveying done first:
Land surveyors can determine whether you’re actually getting what you’re gonna pay for. This determine whether or not the sidewalks, trees, driveways and even the bird bath is part of the property you’re going to buy. Land surveying would also see whether the neighbors are encroaching into your property, which will then mean you’re likely to have problems later on with your neighbors. Getting a land surveyor doesn’t only mean they know what you’re getting or otherwise not getting – land surveyors are the experts, and so they can help with building regulations, wetland regulations, etc. Please note that these regulations may change anytime, but land surveyors ought to be updated on these regulations, or they’ll refer you to somebody who is.
Let’s say the present landowner (the one selling the land) supply you with old land survey documents? You should still hire your personal land surveyor to find out if the boundary monuments remain in position. Also, land surveying done a couple of years back might not show recent changes to the land. When the existing survey is older than about 10 years, you need to get the latest survey. Technology and surveying standards are much better now and could give you more confidence in the survey work.
Second, that survey was completed for that owner. He might have instructed the surveyor not to show some things on the drawing. At least have a land surveyor get out there and evaluate the parcel using this survey in hand. We have witnessed numerous cases when a whole new land survey would save the customer thousands so don’t be a victim.
I’ve heard many say getting a land surveyor is nothing but unnecessary expense. I’ll let you know what’s unnecessary: the worries brought on by paying 1000s of dollars for something and finding yourself not receiving whatever you were expecting. If you’re smart, you’d hire a professional land surveyor prior to making any land purchases.
The art of finding
property corners is being lost. The following picture shows what inspired this article. The two rebar, a #4 rebar and a #5 rebar, shown in the photo to the right are 1.9 feet apart and set in 1994 or after according to the client. Did surveyors not have Minimum Technical Standards and magnetic locators or at least an aqua locator in 1994? How many of you surveyors had your crew come in and the party chief tells you that they had to set an iron because they couldn’t find an iron pin? How many of you accept this or do you check it out yourself?
There is a lot of iron ore in the rocks around these two rebar, which will mess with magnetic locators if your not patient.(Photos taken 03-16-11)
Any time I go into an old subdivision, pre-1980-85, before surveyors started using rebar and see capped rebar at corners where galvanized iron pins, solid bars or old irons should be, I always ask myself how hard did the surveyor look before setting the corner. Setting a new pin Increases the land surveyors liability AND causes confusion as to the true location of the property boundaries.
In old neighborhoods, especially those that go up and down steep inclines, very seldom do the irons on the ground match the recorded plat or deed, in angle or in distance, and if you try to use a pre-set data collector and a
total station, 9 out of 10 times you will not find all the property corners – not because they're missing, but because you're probably in the wrong place or weren't looking hard enough. We should always remember that in old subdivisions and old boundary surveys, surveyors used plumb bobs, chain, theodolite, and no one knows what the closure of the survey may have been, if it even had one.
Almost all survey crews today have a magnetic pin finder and either a bushaxe or machete. But for some jobs, these aren't adequate. As a Professional Surveyor I use the tools shown to the left. Without them, how do you expect your crews to locate property corners if they can't even dig them up? The magnetic locator in this picture is about 17 years old. It is held together with JB-weld and duck tape. The reason I don’t buy a new one is because new isn’t always better, when it growls I understand why, when it screams I know why, most of all I've had very good luck with it finding corners. I have
always used an aqua locator, the small black box in the picture, near fences or when I doubt what the magnetic locator is doing. An aqua locator works as deep as 2 feet. I go thru a sharp shooter a year, the pick is for hard ground, the post hole diggers are for when the sharp shooter doesn’t work getting out the dirt.
The next question is how low will you go to find a property corner, in other words how deep will you dig before you give up and set a property corner?
The following pictures were taken 3-16-11 but the work was done about a week before. (That is why you will see a post in the picture.) I re-dug the hole to get the photo of this rare find. The first item I found was the bottom of a coke bottle. (center of the photo)
How many of your crew members would quit here thinking this is garbage? Would they keep digging and discover the property corner UNDER the bottle?
One open-top iron pipe found – the original property corner on this subdivision lot.
How deep does your crew dig to find a property corner? I personally go until I'm absolutely sure.
The deepest I have ever had to dig to locate an iron is 3 feet. I have found old irons that a tree has grown over or around as much as a foot in the tree. This lot was a 100 by 200 according to the plat, but on the ground along the road it measured 98 feet, along the rear of lot, 96 feet and 198 feet in depth. Boy, this one sure matched the plat. This lot originally was an Autauga county gully that has been filled. The plat was recorded in 1969 and all lots shown on the plat along the south line were shown to be 160 feet plus or minus. Do you believe the rest of the subdivision is going to match the plat?
Due to improper equipment, lack of skill and training, or proper time and effort by land surveyors and survey crews to locate or find property corners in old subdivisions, more and more corners are being set instead of being found. I have always believed it is better to find an original corner than to set a new corner.
Ask anyone that knows me, they will tell you, before Glen Tanner quits looking and sets an iron, the ground will look like it has been attacked by armadillos and groundhogs. The art and skill of finding property corners is disappearing. We as surveyors need to teach and emphasize the need to look for and locate property corners. I find about 90% of property corners in old subdivisions. It isn’t always easy and some of the time it is very time consuming. I have been known to go back on a different day, after having had time to look at my field data, and start fresh with a better idea on where to look before setting an iron pin. It does work but it takes time, it is something we don’t allow ourselves or allow our survey crews – time to look.
Isn’t our duty as a
land surveyor to follow in the footsteps of the original land surveyor as closely as possible, not to re-interpret or move a corner to where it calculates. Many of you surveyors are going to say that your "clients aren’t going to pay for it" or "I didn’t allow that much time in the job to be going back." That's our job, Isn't it? Isn't it required by the Standards of Practice? Isn’t it our ethical duty to protect the public and to do these things regardless of what the client is willing to pay or how much time we have allowed in the job?
The art to finding old irons is to listen to property owners, who know the area, or how it was surveyed, but most of all taking the time to look and dig. That's right – dig – a lot. My magnetic locator doesn't have a brain, it didn’t go to school, it doesn’t speak English, Spanish or French – But, it will lie to you. Learn to understand your equipment, something that may take months, even a year or two. Understanding the squeaks and squalls of the magnetic locator signal being sent to the user is important. Remember be patient, learn what what to look for and
most of all – dig, dig, dig. THIS is the art of locating old property corners.
If you need help locating your property lines in the Auburn area, please call the land surveyors at (334) 826-9540. Our field crew strives to live up to the high standards Glen talks about in this article.
We pay good money to hire somebody just to get them do what needs to be done. If you want to make the best of your money, it just makes sense to hire the best. I'm sure nobody wants to pay good money and get lousy service in return.
If you're looking for a land surveyor, here's a few things that you'd like to remember.
You'd need to choose from a pool of land surveyors in order for you to find the best. Looking for land surveying companies in your area would be a very good start. Aside from the yellow pages, you can also check the newspaper and the internet. Compile a list of the companies' contact information which includes their phone number, email address and website.
Make sure that the person you'll be working with is a licensed surveyor. Ask for a copy of their license so you could check its authenticity. You can also check with the Better Business Bureau for any complaints against the company.
Another important thing to remember is to hire someone whom you'll be comfortable working with. In order to determine this, meet with the land surveyor you're planning to hire. You'll be able to decide by the way he talks to you or answers your questions. Aside from seeing if you'll be comfortable around him, you'd also be able to measure how knowledgeable he is.
Make sure that you thoroughly read and understand the contract before signing it. Read everything, especially the fine print. Also make sure that you'll get the services that you'll pay for, and that there are no hidden charges. Signing a contract makes you legally bounded to its terms, so make sure that you fully understand what you're signing up for.
It's not really that hard hiring a land surveyor. Just remember to hire someone who is honest when it comes to doing the job so that you get the best bang for your buck.
While we here in Alabama may not have to worry TOO much about snow melt, this does affect our
flooding potential, especially in the northern counties of the state. Folks in the Huntsville area, and many other areas of the state, have seen their
FEMA flood maps change recently. Many who were “out of the flood zone” are now shown “in the flood zone.” While, technically, the flood zone hasn’t really changed, the new, and more extensive drainage studies that were done, have identified more areas that are at risk of flooding. Well, this new study could be just in time for you IF you pay attention to your flood risks.
If you live along, or near, a major river in our area, then you should pay attention to this issue as an article on
this year’s flood outlook warns.
It's kind of hard with this much on the ground to start talking about flooding and planning and thinking flooding, but when you've got this much snow and we're coming into the time of year we're coming into, if you're wise you'll start planning for flooding, said Marion County Emergency Management Director John Hark.
Another factor for river flooding is ground saturation level based on the amount and frequency of spring rains. If you get a couple of days of light to moderate rain, then on the next day you get a “toad strangler” (technical term) then the ground will likely be saturated and cannot soak up any more water. This means that the majority of the storm water will runoff and cause the streams and rivers to swell more than they would normally in an equal size rain event. This is actually called the “antecedent moisture condition.” We normally count on the ground to soak up from thirty to sixty percent of the rainfall it sees. With a high antecedent moisture condition, this could be reduced to as low as ten percent, about equivalent to runoff from paved surfaces.
If you are unsure of the flooding potential or flood risk in your area, please contact a land surveyor before it is too late. A land surveyor can conduct a
flood survey or
elevation survey which will determine the elevation of your house in relation to the
base flood elevation. Armed with this information you will know if you need to purchase flood insurance through
FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program. Flood insurance will minimize the risk of flood damage to your home. You might not be able to prevent a flood, but you can sure prevent it from costing you a tremendous amount of money. See this article to
estimate the costs of flood damage to your home.
You can use the included instructions to find your home on the new Flood Insurance Rate Maps. If you have trouble, please call us today at Pro17 Engineering at (334) 826-9540. Don’t wait till the river starts to rise.
The ALTA Survey Standards are being revised and will become effective February 23, 2011. Recently, committees from both the NSPS and ALTA 
met to review and approve the upcoming standards. The National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS), which is a member organization of the American Congress on Surveying & Mapping (ACSM) is a trade organization for the profession of surveying and mapping. For years ACSM has been the leader among surveying organizations in working with ALTA to develop these nationally recognized surveying standards. ALTA is the American Land Title Association, and is the trade association and national voice of the abstract and title insurance industry.
The ACSM website has a "Summary of Significant Wording Changes" document, which spells out changes to the ALTA survey standards, which have not changed since 2005. Some of the noted changes are:
- Expands on the "Relative Precision" of the survey
- Expands on documents to be provided by surveyors
- Requires more measurements when a water feature is one of the boundaries
- Suggests that new legal descriptions might not be necessary
- Requires a lot more information on easements
- Reinforces that the title opinion should be furnished to the surveyor before the survey begins
- Expands Table A to include a number of new items which may be requested by clients
While none of these are major changes, surveyors AND those ordering an ALTA survey should be aware of them. One item that I've heard a lot of noise about is item #21 on Table A, which, if checked, would required the surveyor to obtain professional liability insurance for the particular survey project. Many surveyors don't carry professional liabilit
y insurance because of the expense of this type of insurance. This will significantly change the price of an ALTA survey if the item is checked.
Surveyors and Clients should discuss the Table A items in detail each time anyway, but this is a big red flag that should be addressed. We'll see how this plays out in the future.
I read an article with the above title that reminded me of surveys I've been involved with over the years. In most cases the land owner hired a logging company to clear cut their property and the loggers got over the property line in their zeal to get the "big trees that were out there." In all the cases, it would have saved the landowner a LOT of money to get the boundary marked by a land surveyor.
“If you want to be certain and not rely on (assumptions) … it should be properly surveyed,” said Herb Suderman, a real estate attorney.
This is a common occurance in rural areas because of more logging being done there. BUT, this same type problem happens regularly in town by landowners building home additions, driveways, fences, swimming pools, storage buildings over the property line.
Even if you're sure you're not over the property line, there are also easement lines and setback lines on most lots that must be avoided.
Please check your property lines and your property survey drawing before undertaking any building or clearing project. As the cliche' goes, "you can pay me now or pay me later." And, I'll add to that cliche' and say that it always costs you more later.
“In rural areas because it’s more expensive to survey a large parcel of land, often the surveys are not done,” he said, adding that can cause some “big surprises.”
And, while you probably don't REALLY need to survey twice, at least once is highly recommended before you "clear-cut" your land.
FEMA's Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) are issued after a flood risk assessment has been completed or updated for a community. This study is known as a Flood Insurance Study. The FIRM shows the Base Flood Elevations (BFEs) and insurance risk zones in addition to floodplain boundaries. The FIRM may also show a delineation of the regulatory floodway.
Once the "insurance risk zone" (commonly referred to as the flood zone) is determined, actuarial rates, based on these risk zones, are then applied for newly constructed, substantially approved, and substantially damaged buildings. FEMA uses these rates to determine the insurance rate you will pay for flood insurance.
To view these maps online, go to FEMA's Map Service Center and enter your address (hi-lited area shown here) search for your home. This will allow you to then select the map that covers your area. The Flood Maps are somewhat cumbersome to use online. I suggest going through the tutorial on the bottom right of the address search page in order to learn how to maneuver around in this GIS map.
If you are located in the City of Auburn, you might also check out the Auburn Interactive GIS Maps for more information. The City also has an interactive FEMA map of the existing and proposed flood maps.
Call Huntsville Land Surveying at (256) 715-2002 if you need help with this process or if you discover you are near a flood zone and need an elevation survey completed. We are here to help you minimize your flooding risk.
Not a lot of people realize that land surveying is actually a fusion of art and science. Yes, different equipments are available for the surveyor’s use, but the land surveyor still has the last say on the results.
