Know anything of Land Surveying?

neverbilly · Feb 17, 2016

I cut firewood from my gf's land and at the back of her place, there are two boundary fences. One is old wooden posts, and I figure the steel post fence behind it is of more recent vintage. So, perhaps the prior owner had it surveyed, because the steel fencepost fence was built around portions of three boundary lines. Reason we want to know is because the steel fence is at least 20 more feet. By about 200 feet. So, almost another tenth of an acre. Not much, but there are some dead trees that could be taken.

So, I need to figure out the length of her northernmost east-west boundary line. I know the length it is on the official property description from the deed. Does anyone know... if you measure the length of a line between two points... there is also slope involved. Her land, from west to east, slopes downward. If I measure that, it is the slope distance. Actually, it would include a couple of dips and rises, lol. It is not the horizontal distance (on a horizontal plane). So, if the deed says 400', do you know... is that horizontal distance? This is kind of hard to explain. Suffice to say, if I measure it with a tape measure or even a yardage laser thingy like I have for golf, that involves a slope.

I also just downloaded an iPhone app, but still, it will give me the distance between two points but it involves the slope from west to east, if I have it measure the distance between two GPS points.

EDIT: Memory is coming back... I have watched surveyors work many times (prior to GPS survey methods becoming common) and they use a tall stick and the lead guy will walk out as far as he can until the transit guy cannot see the top of his pole any more. And they will take a reading. They do a series of those. On really hilly land, they might have to take a bunch. Due to slope. So, I am thinking that, yes, the property description deed call measurement is the distance in the horizontal plane. So, I am going to have to make allowances for slope. (NOTE: Neither free version iPhone app works well at all!)

DougA · Feb 17, 2016

It is measured as a straight line. Almost always (at least in our area) there are square steel stakes pounded into the ground but should be sticking up about 1 inch. They are hard to find but if you know approx where the boundary corner is, you can use a metal detector.

Oldman47 · Feb 17, 2016

Land, at least in the US, is always surveyed in a level line regardless of the terrain. Actually there is no such thing as a level line when the distance gets big, the earth is round you know. You can think of it as measuring the distance between 2 lines that start at the center of the earth and penetrate the surface where you are taking the measurement. You measure along the curvature of the earth between those lines.

neverbilly · Feb 17, 2016

Oldman47 said:
Land, at least in the US, is always surveyed in a level line regardless of the terrain. Actually there is no such thing as a level line when the distance gets big, the earth is round you know. You can think of it as measuring the distance between 2 lines that start at the center of the earth and penetrate the surface where you are taking the measurement. You measure along the curvature of the earth between those lines.

From a curiosity standpoint, do you have any idea if a surveyor takes curvature of the earth into account when doing a land survey? Say, a tract of a dozen acres or so that has one boundary line of 1/4 mile. Or do you know if they start taking curvature into account when a certain length threshold is reached?

peakbagger · Feb 17, 2016

I learned to survey old school with steel tape and transit. I still have theodolite kicking around the house. Your are correct that deed should call out a horizontal distance (no slope). Our steel tape was 150 feet long so we had to break up every line into 100 foot chunks and set intermediate points. If the slope wasn't bad between the points we would hold the tape level and call it good, otherwise the chief on the transit would tell us where to hold the tape vertically and he would record the vertical angle in the field notes which he would adjust to horizontal distance later. This is supposed to be how it works, the reality is the deed generally calls out a distance plus or minus along with the acreage +/-. We frequently encountered rural lots that were definitely plus or minus but quite bit and it wasn't unusual for folks to end up with a couple of acres more or less than the deed. We had a few sloped slopes where it was obvious that who ever laid out the corners used sloped distance. Generally in surveying the evidence collected in the field take precedence over the actual distance and angles. Evidence is any indication of where the adjoining property owners recognized a boundary . Generally barbed wire fence, old stone walls or even changes in tree type may factor in. Be careful with magnetic bearings, magnetic north can vary over the years and you may have to compensate a few degrees to correct back to the survey date.

Ultimately if there is disagreement, each side will hire a surveyor and they will argue the case in court presenting their evidence as to why they in their opinion have the best case for the location of the land. Unless there is good evidence one way or the other, the surveyors will usually recommend to the owners on each side that they should just agree on a line. If it goes to court, the judge usually brings the parties into chambers and recommends that they do the same thing or ultimately just makes the decision for himself. I know of few cases on large wood lots that the two owners get together and drive a permanent post at disputed corner in front of witnesses and sign a witnessed statement that they have agreed that the steel post is the agreed upon point. Ideally if they file that document at registry of deeds that becomes pretty good evidence although since they weren't surveyors it could be challenged. Many modern subdivision surveys are required to be filed at the registry of deeds and folks who pay for private surveys should pay extra to have theirs filed

The deed should call out if there were "monuments" set in the field. A monument could be steel pipe a granite post a concrete post or a hole in a rock. If they are called out then that's what you look for in the field and that's where a metal detector is handy. If the deed is just distances and bearings than the best thing to do is talk with the neighbor and agree upon what is what. You also can agree to split a survey and agree to be bound by the surveyors recommendation, its a heck of lot cheaper than going to court and the results usually are the same.

One thing I do with any property I have owned is get a piece of rebar and drive it down next to the actual property pins well below ground line. Its quite surprising especially where land is valuable like rural lake front for pins to "move". If surveyor comes back they can figure out where it should be and their detector can usually find pins 3 or 4 feet deep. Try to use iron or steel, unlike treasure type metal detectors, survey detectors only pick up magnets and ferrous metal. Do note in most states its illegal for anyone other than a licensed surveyor to set pins or move them. In many areas even blaze lines on property boundary can only be painted by a surveyor. Once painted they can be maintained by anyone. Line trees can get big and tempting but unless both parties agree to cutting them down they have to stay.

Oldman47 · Feb 17, 2016

The survey reports filed on my properties always say things like "a pin found" or "a pin set" for each corner. I suspect, since I am in farm crop country, people really do care about that last partial acre of tillable land so boundaries are seldom done informally on a deeded and agreed basis these days.

maple1 · Feb 19, 2016

peakbagger said:
I learned to survey old school with steel tape and transit. I still have theodolite kicking around the house. Your are correct that deed should call out a horizontal distance (no slope). Our steel tape was 150 feet long so we had to break up every line into 100 foot chunks and set intermediate points. If the slope wasn't bad between the points we would hold the tape level and call it good, otherwise the chief on the transit would tell us where to hold the tape vertically and he would record the vertical angle in the field notes which he would adjust to horizontal distance later. This is supposed to be how it works, the reality is the deed generally calls out a distance plus or minus along with the acreage +/-. We frequently encountered rural lots that were definitely plus or minus but quite bit and it wasn't unusual for folks to end up with a couple of acres more or less than the deed. We had a few sloped slopes where it was obvious that who ever laid out the corners used sloped distance. Generally in surveying the evidence collected in the field take precedence over the actual distance and angles. Evidence is any indication of where the adjoining property owners recognized a boundary . Generally barbed wire fence, old stone walls or even changes in tree type may factor in. Be careful with magnetic bearings, magnetic north can vary over the years and you may have to compensate a few degrees to correct back to the survey date.

Ultimately if there is disagreement, each side will hire a surveyor and they will argue the case in court presenting their evidence as to why they in their opinion have the best case for the location of the land. Unless there is good evidence one way or the other, the surveyors will usually recommend to the owners on each side that they should just agree on a line. If it goes to court, the judge usually brings the parties into chambers and recommends that they do the same thing or ultimately just makes the decision for himself. I know of few cases on large wood lots that the two owners get together and drive a permanent post at disputed corner in front of witnesses and sign a witnessed statement that they have agreed that the steel post is the agreed upon point. Ideally if they file that document at registry of deeds that becomes pretty good evidence although since they weren't surveyors it could be challenged. Many modern subdivision surveys are required to be filed at the registry of deeds and folks who pay for private surveys should pay extra to have theirs filed

The deed should call out if there were "monuments" set in the field. A monument could be steel pipe a granite post a concrete post or a hole in a rock. If they are called out then that's what you look for in the field and that's where a metal detector is handy. If the deed is just distances and bearings than the best thing to do is talk with the neighbor and agree upon what is what. You also can agree to split a survey and agree to be bound by the surveyors recommendation, its a heck of lot cheaper than going to court and the results usually are the same.

One thing I do with any property I have owned is get a piece of rebar and drive it down next to the actual property pins well below ground line. Its quite surprising especially where land is valuable like rural lake front for pins to "move". If surveyor comes back they can figure out where it should be and their detector can usually find pins 3 or 4 feet deep. Try to use iron or steel, unlike treasure type metal detectors, survey detectors only pick up magnets and ferrous metal. Do note in most states its illegal for anyone other than a licensed surveyor to set pins or move them. In many areas even blaze lines on property boundary can only be painted by a surveyor. Once painted they can be maintained by anyone. Line trees can get big and tempting but unless both parties agree to cutting them down they have to stay.

Good post.

The ones prior to that were more concerned with measuring - and there is more to Land Surveying than measuring or just staking out the distance a deed calls for. A deed distance is actually about the last thing on the priority of evidence list a Land Surveyor must abide by. Who knows exactly how accurately the original parties to the transaction actually measured out that 1000' (or whatever it is) the deed calls for? Nobody. Throw in what the adjoining deeds call for and how they were measured, and you could be all over the map.

You could try to assert some ownership rights to whatever you think is yours, and roll the dice & see what happens. Or you could call in a professional for an expert opinion - usually every situation is different, there could be a ton of variables & multitudes of evidence to weigh. If either side of the boundary has been surveyed in the past, there should be some evidence or record of that - either in/on the ground, or on paper.

peakbagger · Feb 19, 2016

The land outside of the original 13 colonies are generally tied into the Public Land Survey System which lays out a survey grid that all surveys are tied to. If you have heard reference to lot ?? range ?? or section or quarter section they refer to the PLSS townships. In theory surveys in township lots are easy compared to non township areas as they are all ultimately tied to the township corners but it all depended on how good the original survey of the townships were. Obviously if the local natives were whipping arrows at the surveyors, the quality of the survey may go down and that error can be perpetuated down over the years as the land gets subdivided. Survey grade GPS units can locate a point down to centimeters by using some very fancy math and local receivers to correct for errors in the GPS system so the days of having to run survey lines for miles are far less. Unfortunately prior surveys didn't have access to GPS so the calculated location of a property corner based on reference to township boundaries may not line up in the field and that's where the surveyors opinion based on the preponderance of the evidence kicks in. There are all sorts of peculiarities that pop up in a region and in theory a local licensed surveyor is supposed to be aware of them. Unfortunately in the past surveying was less of a profession and frequently the surveyor didn't look at the big picture and just did a local subdivision without determining the quality of the underlying deed.

Logging barrons in early northern NH and Maine were pretty infamous for getting creative with property lines and geography in general. They would claim land and log it then worry about who owned it after the fact. In Maine a company bought rights to buy all the timber in a particular watershed, in at least one case the trees in the next watershed were worth cutting so they built a dam in one end of a lake in the adjoining watershed and raised the level high enough that the water flowed into the watershed they owned so they cut the next valley over. Much of the land they cut on was state land which at the time was regarded as unproductive land by the state so it wasn't managed. There are also documented cases where the loggers installed wood fired donkey engines on the top of a ridgeline, they would cut the trees on the adjacent slope of adjoining watershed and then haul them up with the donkey up and over the ridge and then let them roll down to where they had cutting rights.

I would have loved to be a surveyor years ago but in Maine, it tended to be seasonal work that didn't pay that well and the state surveyors board tried to keep the number of licenses low so that they could keep their prices high. It wasn't unusual for some folks to have to take the tests a couple of times. That and when I did survey, I managed to get a nasty reaction to poison ivy which pretty much doomed me as a surveyor.

jaychino415 · Feb 20, 2016

As someone who works in the land surveying industry, distances described on deeds are on a horizontal plane. Typically they have a bearing and distance written on deeds. If you see old post or rock mounds be careful removing them, the might be the actual property corners especially if your land was laid out using USPLSS (United States Public Land Survey System). They might have notches marked on them. Often times if you're in farm areas, surveyors will actually set 18-36 inch long iron pipes, pins very deep (up to 3 feet deep) to prevent them from being destroyed when the farm decides to till his or her land. If you hire a surveyor make sure he or her is licensed in your state and prepares a map of some kind, so you can have as a record.

Gps apps from phones and hand held gps units aren't very accurate. The error on them is usually 12-30 feet.

Total stations or transits that the surveyor uses can have an accuracy up to 0.02 of a foot and angular measurement of 3 seconds of a degree.

GPS units that they use can have an accuracy of 0.05 of a foot. This can vary depending various conditions.

Wood Duck · Feb 20, 2016

The easiest way to find a point these days is to use a GPS. A decent GPS unit with a good signal will get you much closer than a foot of accuracy, which should be plenty close enough for you. Of course you'd have to figure out the coordinates for the point you are looking for, which should be possible from a deed or map of the property.

Gboutdoors · Feb 20, 2016

Look up the app map-o-meter if your town or county is up to date the lot lines and buildings will show on the map. I have found this to be within a few feet with good reception. And the measurements with this have been spot on. We had our 23 acre lot surveyed at purchase and the app is dead on as far as corners and length go. Not to be used for legal purposes but good for fences and signs !!!

!

greg13 · Feb 20, 2016

Why not just talk to the neighbor? If it is his property he probably would not object to you removing dead & "dangerous" trees.

homebrewz · Feb 20, 2016

If there is a survey map of the parcel in question, there should be a copy on file at the county clerk's office or equivalent. The map should be stamped and signed by a licensed surveyor, and it should give you an idea of the horizontal distances and bearings of the property lines. Regarding some of the aps out there, make sure they aren't based on tax map data, which is common to find online. Tax maps tend be inaccurate and best for giving an idea of the area and shape of a parcel.

Babaganoosh · Feb 20, 2016

greg13 said:
Why not just talk to the neighbor? If it is his property he probably would not object to you removing dead & "dangerous" trees.

Bingo

RustyShackleford · Feb 25, 2016

Wood Duck said:
The easiest way to find a point these days is to use a GPS. A decent GPS unit with a good signal will get you much closer than a foot of accuracy...

A foot ?

I did something cute with a cruddy GPS, that was only giving me within 20ft or so, maybe because of heavy forestation. I put the GPS coordinates into Excel, then put in a polygon with the same line-lengths and angles as the survey plat. Then I had Excel do a "goal seek" where it varied (1) the GPS coordinates of the polygon (any reference point, such as the SW corner) and (2) the deviation between the plat angles and the GPS coordinate system, in such a way as to minimize the maximum or RMS error between the derived GPS coordinates and the measured ones. This allowed me to predict the GPS coordinates of a couple of corners I couldn't locate, and then locate them fairly quickly with a GPS unit.

TonyVideo · Mar 13, 2016

There should be maps in the county surveyor's office. I live in a typical square County and find it interesting that some of the County roads have a quick jog in them either left or right. They are typically on main 1/2 or mile increment roads that is laid out in a grid pattern. I was told the jogs in these straight line roads is to account for the curvature of the earth to maintain the correct distance between them.

Dune · Apr 10, 2016

Treat their fence as their boundary.
Cut up to it. The law of adverse possesion will grant you the land if you use it for 20 years without action on their part.

maple1 · Apr 10, 2016

Dune said:
Treat their fence as their boundary.
Cut up to it. The law of adverse possesion will grant you the land if you use it for 20 years without action on their part.

But it seems there is more than one fence....

Dune · Apr 10, 2016

maple1 said:
But it seems there is more than one fence....

Right. Use the one which benefits you.

maple1 · Apr 10, 2016

Yes, one could do that. Might even be the 'best' course of action. But it should be done with the expectation that the neighbour might get upset & tell you to get back on the other side of the line. Which may then in turn lead to the issue getting resolved - after some further discussion which could go in any number of ways. Could make things better for the future, or worse. Tough call. A lawyer would likely say use it like it was yours then see what happens.

I wonder how this went? Been a couple of months since we heard from the OP.

Know anything of Land Surveying?

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