Setting up transit bearing to match magnetic north

whburling · Sep 29, 2016

I want to trace out my property lines. they are defined by 4 markers.

I am trying to use the bearing information that defines the property line along with the iron pins and line length.

I am very uncertain that I am using the bearing information appropriately. So I am describing my approach down below and ask for any insights and corrections.

The approach I am considering is to set up a transit level and site it from one known boundary marker to another.

from my property survey map i know the bearing aligning these two points

Because the survey bearing is based on true north, i must convert the bearing to magnetic which i can do because i know the declination for my property. At this point I will make the conversion for all bearings on the survey map.

i am then considering setting the bearing of the transit so that it matches the converted bearing of the survey map. A hand held compass might offer a rough check?

In my mind, I have thus synced my transit level to the survey map

Without moving the tripod, I should then be able to site a third point (another leg) using just the transit and its "horizontal scale" and find the boundary marker with a tape on that sighting. EVEN IF THE MARKER HAS BEEN REMOVED (which it probably was by my dead neightbor long ago), I am hoping that the above procedure should allow me to have reasonable confidence in where the transit sighting and length define its intended location.

I guess I must do this all over again for the next point until I finish

Is this thinking correct?

One reason I am trying so hard to do this by "bearings" and length is that the survey map was done by a professional who realized that the lengths on the property deed do not match reality. He thus best fit the boundaries (which are new) and defined by bearings and references to any of the old iron pins he could find. i am sure he followed some algorithm that is used by my state for just such situations (which are apparently quite common).

What I am saying is that at least one and maybe two of my boundary markers are defined purely by bearings and distances and hence this interest.

bil

I should then be able to

peakbagger · Sep 30, 2016

It depends on your state but generally there a hierarchy of what takes precedence for evidence of land boundaries. A registered land surveyor takes into account all the evidence and ultimately forms an opinion. Based on that opinion, he reestablishes the boundary usually by installing new property markers. Once the surveyor installs the markers, if someone doesn't agree with it they have to hire another surveyor to form an opinion and hopefully they can agree, otherwise its time to go to court.

A lot of folks think that acreage,distances and bearings are cast in stone, they aren't. They should be regarded as clues to locating physical monumentation out in the field. There is no standard method of correcting inaccurate distances or bearings. The normal approach to a survey is to review the chain of deeds for the land and the surrounding lands. Frequently the land was subdivided from larger parcels so the chain of deeds will include the larger parcels. The surveyor then heads out to the field trying to locate any traces of property boundaries. This may include iron pins, stone monuments, rock walls, barbed wire, blazed or painted trees, unusual trees and usage patterns. They usually use a metal detector to look for buried objects. If the deeds reference any unusual physical features they try to locate those. Frequently older deeds will reference corner trees and they may be long gone but the surveyor will look for stumps. Once they have found everything they will use a more sophisticated version of a transit (called a survey station) to locate everything they have found that might be applicable on the ground. Contrary to popular belief they may not run point to point along the property lines, they usually make a big loop around the property, starting and ending at the same point. By making a big circle, they can correct for any slight errors that crop up as they run the survey as the ending coordinates should equal the starting coordinates.

Once they have all the field data, the surveyor heads back to the office and plots out all the points on their computer. Things like rock walls and barbed wires may meander but using statistics, they can establish a best fit line by taking multiple shots along these features. This is where the hierarchy comes in. Their goal is to establish the intent of the property owners over the years when land was subdivided. as the original surveys tended to be very approximate errors can crop up over the years and that's where the survey has to take into account intent. Even though iron pins exist they may not necessarily be correct but they are a strong indication of intent especially if they are called out in prior survey. A frequent error is that the distances were measured along the ground without adjusting for elevation change, surveys distances are generally stated as true distances that are corrected for slope. The surveyor collected elevation data as part of his survey so he can form an opinion if this error was in the prior survey. Ultimately the surveyor lays out his best informed guess on the screen and then establishes the coordinates of any missing corners.

The surveyor then heads back to the site and by setting the station back on the prior survey points they established previously they can locate the missing corners. They will spend some time digging and searching for any evidence of past markers and if they don't find anything, they install a permanent marker. Once the pins are set, they have a choice, if the line is clear of obstructions they may be done but if its treed the owner may elect to pay for the surveyor to paint blazes on or or near the line (usually not done in urban areas) or possibly brush out the line. The surveyor has a choice on this, they can establish a few intermediate points along the line and then connect the points using a sighting compass or they can set up on the line and cut a line between the corners. The problem with running along a line is that its a shared boundary and if there are obstructions like trees in the way, the surveyor cannot cut them unless the neighboring owner agrees. There are methods of offsetting around obstructions but they can get tedious. If in the woods they frequently mark trees right on the line with blaze in line with the property line. Trees near but not on the line will be marked with blob of paint facing the line.

When I surveyed years ago, I would usually be in rural lots, it was not unusual where people would sell land they didn't own. Even though there were steel pins in the ground they were on someone else's property. It also was not unusual where the distances in the deeds along the property line of a much larger prior subdivision of a lot didn't add up. Folks would ignore the inconsistencies until the value of land went up and at some point it would come to head and a surveyors may have to spend months going back decades trying to establish the intent. Frequently the resulting survey makes no one happy. Most areas have local surveyors who usually have a handle on past problems and may have surveyed nearby properties in the past. In some cases they may decline to do survey if they suspect its a can of worms.

If you do decide to do an amateur survey, be aware that in most states its illegal for you to set any permanent markers. In your case it sound like you need to hire a pro or just establish adverse possession by acting like its yours.

whburling · Oct 1, 2016

Thank you for such an extensive reply.

In fact, years ago, My wife did hire a professional surveyer to do exactly as you mentioned. He took many readings and with an "intent" he created boundaries he felt best fit the intent. My wife filed that survey map in the Town Hall so that it enabled the new surveyed boundaries to be in the public domain. The survey map has been in the public domain for close to 20 years now.

I have that survey map in my hand.

the deed only contains boundary lengths and general directions. the surveyer basically retained directions of boundaries but gave them very specific bearings. Only one boundary length was preserved as that length was fairly obvious.the rest were influenced by changing water boundaries (I live on a tidal estuary) and by 40 foot drops down to the water.

My goal that I was seeking to do was not to play amateur surveyer but merely to transfer the data on the survey map to the ground so that I could see what the surveyor ended up defining for the property. Your reply to me suggested that the surveyor should have placed markers in the ground and so my effort is really making more work for myself than necessary.

But I know the owner of one adjacent property destroyed one marker before I became married to my wife. the remaining two markers were redefined by the surveyor and I suspect he did not place markers marking the property. .

So.....starting with known pins, I wanted to set up the bearings that were on the survey on my transit and restablish property boundaries that the surveyor defined for my wife.

I suddenly realized that my transit does not have a compass built into it. So I was at a loss as to how to proceed

Then I realized that, in principle, if i sited on one boundary line whose end points had iron pins in the ground, I could then set the transit horizontal scale to the survey map bearings....

the above gist, I thought, had to be adjusted for two real world issues: (1) instead of using the pins, I use points the surveyor defined as the best fit AND (2) I felt compelled to convert the true north surveyor bearings into magnetic north bearings when setting my transit horizontal scale.

My question on this forum is really about asking if my choice to convert the surveyors true north bearings into magnetic north bearings was appropriate. It felt right but for some reason I can not wrap my rational mind around the question.

The best I can do is to argue that any magnetic correction would be applied to all the surveyor bearings and so the end result should not be any different than if i used true north bearings. A relative correction, if applied to all points does not result in a change to the whole. I think that is rationale.

Where it fails is if I use a magnetic compass to check out any of my sightings. If I were to do that, I know I would then need to convert the true north bearings to magnetic north bearings.or vica versa depending on whether I was going from compass to map or map to compass.

Can you help me with this question?

peakbagger said:
It depends on your state but generally there a hierarchy of what takes precedence for evidence of land boundaries. A registered land surveyor takes into account all the evidence and ultimately forms an opinion. Based on that opinion, he reestablishes the boundary usually by installing new property markers. Once the surveyor installs the markers, if someone doesn't agree with it they have to hire another surveyor to form an opinion and hopefully they can agree, otherwise its time to go to court.

A lot of folks think that acreage,distances and bearings are cast in stone, they aren't. They should be regarded as clues to locating physical monumentation out in the field. There is no standard method of correcting inaccurate distances or bearings. The normal approach to a survey is to review the chain of deeds for the land and the surrounding lands. Frequently the land was subdivided from larger parcels so the chain of deeds will include the larger parcels. The surveyor then heads out to the field trying to locate any traces of property boundaries. This may include iron pins, stone monuments, rock walls, barbed wire, blazed or painted trees, unusual trees and usage patterns. They usually use a metal detector to look for buried objects. If the deeds reference any unusual physical features they try to locate those. Frequently older deeds will reference corner trees and they may be long gone but the surveyor will look for stumps. Once they have found everything they will use a more sophisticated version of a transit (called a survey station) to locate everything they have found that might be applicable on the ground. Contrary to popular belief they may not run point to point along the property lines, they usually make a big loop around the property, starting and ending at the same point. By making a big circle, they can correct for any slight errors that crop up as they run the survey as the ending coordinates should equal the starting coordinates.

Once they have all the field data, the surveyor heads back to the office and plots out all the points on their computer. Things like rock walls and barbed wires may meander but using statistics, they can establish a best fit line by taking multiple shots along these features. This is where the hierarchy comes in. Their goal is to establish the intent of the property owners over the years when land was subdivided. as the original surveys tended to be very approximate errors can crop up over the years and that's where the survey has to take into account intent. Even though iron pins exist they may not necessarily be correct but they are a strong indication of intent especially if they are called out in prior survey. A frequent error is that the distances were measured along the ground without adjusting for elevation change, surveys distances are generally stated as true distances that are corrected for slope. The surveyor collected elevation data as part of his survey so he can form an opinion if this error was in the prior survey. Ultimately the surveyor lays out his best informed guess on the screen and then establishes the coordinates of any missing corners.

The surveyor then heads back to the site and by setting the station back on the prior survey points they established previously they can locate the missing corners. They will spend some time digging and searching for any evidence of past markers and if they don't find anything, they install a permanent marker. Once the pins are set, they have a choice, if the line is clear of obstructions they may be done but if its treed the owner may elect to pay for the surveyor to paint blazes on or or near the line (usually not done in urban areas) or possibly brush out the line. The surveyor has a choice on this, they can establish a few intermediate points along the line and then connect the points using a sighting compass or they can set up on the line and cut a line between the corners. The problem with running along a line is that its a shared boundary and if there are obstructions like trees in the way, the surveyor cannot cut them unless the neighboring owner agrees. There are methods of offsetting around obstructions but they can get tedious. If in the woods they frequently mark trees right on the line with blaze in line with the property line. Trees near but not on the line will be marked with blob of paint facing the line.

When I surveyed years ago, I would usually be in rural lots, it was not unusual where people would sell land they didn't own. Even though there were steel pins in the ground they were on someone else's property. It also was not unusual where the distances in the deeds along the property line of a much larger prior subdivision of a lot didn't add up. Folks would ignore the inconsistencies until the value of land went up and at some point it would come to head and a surveyors may have to spend months going back decades trying to establish the intent. Frequently the resulting survey makes no one happy. Most areas have local surveyors who usually have a handle on past problems and may have surveyed nearby properties in the past. In some cases they may decline to do survey if they suspect its a can of worms.

If you do decide to do an amateur survey, be aware that in most states its illegal for you to set any permanent markers. In your case it sound like you need to hire a pro or just establish adverse possession by acting like its yours.

peakbagger · Oct 1, 2016

Okay, it is very odd downright unprofessional for a surveyor to not set new pins. Normally the survey plat will have symbols and the ones of interest is IPF and IPS. IPF = Iron Pipe Found IPS = Iron Pipe Set. He should have located IPF's and set new IPS's. Your original method would work except for one problem assuming you had a compass built in . On some transits there is clip on compass for finding true north. Magnetic north moves, there should be a date when the survey was done, you need to look up the declination on that date and then look up the current declination. and figure in the difference.

You are correct in that if the deed was written correctly you really don't care if the bearings are magnetic or true as long as you have know two corner points. If you have bearings on all sides you can calculate the interior angles which is what you use to turn angles off the line you know. Unfortunately geometry kicks in at some point. A triangle can be laid out with one distance and two angle. When you get to four sided figure you need two distances and two interior angles. The more sides, the more info you need.

maple1 · Oct 2, 2016

I am having a hard time reading what you are trying to accomplish. Your very first sentence says the boundaries are defined by four pins - but then there is wording later that might say there aren't pins? Are you just trying to find them? Likely anything beyond that will require hiring a surveyor - as 're-establishing property boundaries' might be contravening some laws or prejudicing your boundaries, depending exactly what is there now & what you would end up doing.

How large a property are we talking? Boundary renewal is likely something a landowner could do, if there is enough evidence left from or based on the prior survey that could be found to connect say with new blazes - if we're talking about a woodlot situation. In that case, I would likely just use a good compass (emphasize good), factor in the declination to convert the true bearings from the plan to come up with a magnetic one (accounting for the year), and start from a known pin & see what you can find along the way. There would likely be a need to go back & forth along a line to refine your line of searching once you get to the other end of a line & see how good or bad you hit a corner. But I'm quite sure I wouldn't do any new corner marking - just do that to find what is already there.

EDIT: OK, I re-read your first post. It sounds like the corners are or should be intervisible, as you mention setting up on one & looking at another. So if you wanted to stay set up at that one point/corner and look towards the other one (which I think I also read you saying), then I would first calculate the interior plan angle at that corner from the (difference in) plan bearings. Take a reading on your compass/transit/whatever down the one 'known' boundary, apply the interior plan angle to that, then turn to that calculated bearing & you should be looking down the other boundary. I would not get too much into converting between true & magnetic & bouncing around between points while doing that - more chance of inaccuracies being introduced. Although those inaccuracies may or may not be insignficant when compared to the tool and methods you are using. And I would still definitely not do any new corner marking.

whburling · Oct 3, 2016

Your comment, that it is "unprofessional for a surveyor to not set new pins" is also my point of view.

I did dig extensively....and much deeper than any of the original pins searching for the "new" pins. I did not find any. I also attempted to locate the surveyor but as you might have suspected, he was no longer in business. I could not find either his personal house or his business. I was hoping that he might inform me that he did or did not install new pins and what his recollection was when he did the survey. the lack of new pins may not be his fault. It costs money to install these new pins. Perhaps my wife was not willing to pay him to do what he knew was a professional job.

On another note, somewhat related, is that apparently surveyors in the past have used pins of one edge of my property for their surveys (even though there is only one other survey(not of adjacent property) that has been filed with the Town Hall and hence placed in the public domain. For one pin, this must have happened at last four times as within an 6 inch radius there are MULTIPLE pins with survey tape on each pin. At another pin location, there is a pin whose the radius from the original is of far greater magnitude to have been the "new" pin (compared to information on the survey map of my property).

Regardless, I feel confident that I can identify the original pin found by my wife's surveyor and one other.

I very much appreciated your mention that the declination that I should seek must be associated with the time the survey was made. Never occurred to me but makes a great deal of sense.

I am waiting to receive the David White ALS-900 that I bought used on Ebay. I don't think it has a compass built in
so any attempt by me to relate my survey to actual magnetic readings seems almost impossible except to maybe with +_ one degree accuracy (which seems unacceptable over a distance of 200 ft or so).

It mystifies me that a surveyor can obtain any magnetic readings with an accuracy much better than 30 minutes resolution and hence converting any true north survey bearings into magnetic bearings including seconds baffles me.

Perhaps surveyors do not use magnetic based instruments but instead use true north based instruments based on longitude and lattitude which hopefully can define location with half a second (as surveyors seems to use a 1 second resolution). Seems odd that such an accuracy can be achieved as the earth is not round and I believe the military create intentional errors with their satelites. I know these errors can be overcome by land stations which can transmit corrections to the military intentional errors, but I live near a military base....will the government permit the needed accuracy near one of their submarine bases?

I also appreciated your pointing out that my proposed method uses "interior" angles. I implicitly meant to use such term, but with age (I am 71) my mind forgets vocabulary at times.

Hopefully, as I lay out the lines on physical earth that emulate the lines defined on the survey I will discover more physical pins which, as the survey map shows, are related to the defined bearings shown on the survey( but which are not defined in the deed). Since my survey map shows "new" distances, I will have a chance to confirm that my sightings are at least within a foot or so (guess). If I fix one interior angle, I am assuming that there will be only one solution if I know all four lengths of the property quadrilateral.

I do intend to put in markers but will label them by etching the metal tags that these markers were not put their by a surveyor but instead by the property owner attempting to emulate the professionally created survey map of his property.

Thank you so much for all your help.

peakbagger said:
Okay, it is very odd downright unprofessional for a surveyor to not set new pins. Normally the survey plat will have symbols and the ones of interest is IPF and IPS. IPF = Iron Pipe Found IPS = Iron Pipe Set. He should have located IPF's and set new IPS's. Your original method would work except for one problem assuming you had a compass built in . On some transits there is clip on compass for finding true north. Magnetic north moves, there should be a date when the survey was done, you need to look up the declination on that date and then look up the current declination. and figure in the difference.

You are correct in that if the deed was written correctly you really don't care if the bearings are magnetic or true as long as you have know two corner points. If you have bearings on all sides you can calculate the interior angles which is what you use to turn angles off the line you know. Unfortunately geometry kicks in at some point. A triangle can be laid out with one distance and two angle. When you get to four sided figure you need two distances and two interior angles. The more sides, the more info you need.

Lake Girl · Oct 3, 2016

In attempting to find your original pins, do you have access to a metal detector? I know our corner property just about drove the surveyor nuts as there were multiple angles along two legs of the property. The highway was constructed after the property was surveyed and they were allowed their % of land for roads at that time... explains why we own half the ditch! Another leg followed the curve of the original dirt road. MTO and the roads board have expanded the road to a two lane without concern for infringement on private property. Every time they work on the road, they encroach a few inches more (likely to end up in small claims). We own most of the road where it intersects with the highway and had to offset the pins along that leg as they would have been in the roadbed. Interesting in that an original pin must be buried deep at that intersection as the metal detector still picks it up!

Edit: One of those offset pins along the dirt road was accidentally buried but was relocated with the detector...

whburling · Oct 3, 2016

maple1 said:
I am having a hard time reading what you are trying to accomplish. Your very first sentence says the boundaries are defined by four pins - but then there is wording later that might say there aren't pins? Are you just trying to find them? Likely anything beyond that will require hiring a surveyor - as 're-establishing property boundaries' might be contravening some laws or prejudicing your boundaries, depending exactly what is there now & what you would end up doing.

How large a property are we talking? Boundary renewal is likely something a landowner could do, if there is enough evidence left from or based on the prior survey that could be found to connect say with new blazes - if we're talking about a woodlot situation. In that case, I would likely just use a good compass (emphasize good), factor in the declination to convert the true bearings from the plan to come up with a magnetic one (accounting for the year), and start from a known pin & see what you can find along the way. There would likely be a need to go back & forth along a line to refine your line of searching once you get to the other end of a line & see how good or bad you hit a corner. But I'm quite sure I wouldn't do any new corner marking - just do that to find what is already there.

EDIT: OK, I re-read your first post. It sounds like the corners are or should be intervisible, as you mention setting up on one & looking at another. So if you wanted to stay set up at that one point/corner and look towards the other one (which I think I also read you saying), then I would first calculate the interior plan angle at that corner from the (difference in) plan bearings. Take a reading on your compass/transit/whatever down the one 'known' boundary, apply the interior plan angle to that, then turn to that calculated bearing & you should be looking down the other boundary. I would not get too much into converting between true & magnetic & bouncing around between points while doing that - more chance of inaccuracies being introduced. Although those inaccuracies may or may not be insignficant when compared to the tool and methods you are using. And I would still definitely not do any new corner marking.

First, I appreciate your responding. I know that I am not very clear as I don't know, yet, what I am talking about. I am facing a problem but do not really know how to express that problem. As I post here, and learn, it seems that my original problem has transformed into others.

My central issue is that if I use the survey map (that was professionally created on 4 Jun 1992) as a reference, the pins defined in my deed and found on my property do not define my property and the distances found in my deed do not define my property as well.

It seems the surveyor retained existing landmarks such as fences and roads and from these existing features created bearings that closely but not exactly emulated their direction. Only the road distance was retained. All other distances associated with the bearings on the survey map were newly defined. Iron pins were not part of the new property line. They were referenced relative to the new boundary line (also by bearings and distances from the property line) . Most within a foot. there is one, referenced 20+ feet away, but the survey map new bearing is without question correct as it is not only based on information found in my deed but also the information found in a deed for another property owner. Since the pin for that location would be on the water line, that pin and the pin on the other water line have probably long been washed away by changing water lines.

In one case, an adjacent property owner may have removed one of the original property markers (bolt in concrete) when he constructed a driveway. He is long since dead. I was lucky that it was one of the two markers on the road whose original deed distance was retained on the survey map. Since the remaining pin was carefully defined on the survey map, it will be easy to recreate what I believe to be the original marker location. I am going to place a marker there but it will be tagged with a piece of metal on which I have etched that this marker was not placed by a surveyor but by the property owner according to his best effort to recreate a boundary established by a surveyor (map#, located at Ledyard, Ct town hall)

Thus my property(only 15k square feet) is currently defined by bearings defined by a professional surveyor in 1992.
I want to recreated those bearings on the ground but handicapped by at least one missing bolt and by two boundary corners that may never had pins.

Thus as I see it, I must recreate the bearings.

Previously I proposed a method. It seems as if I am on the right track as long as I do not seek to convert to magnetic bearings and use the survey true north bearings and surveyed distances.

In my method, I do NOT ever find true north. Instead, I set my transit along the one survey map boundary that I trust (as that bearing is well defined and close to the original pins) and set the transit to the true north bearing declared for that bearing. With that single bearing, I can then calculate the interior angles from the survey bearings and survey defined distances to create each boundary corner in turn.

Perhaps the only challenge will be in dealing with a 40 foot banking leading down to the water. It is my understanding that survey distances are as the crow flies, so I will have to measure(hopefully with the transit) the angle down to where I believe the boundary corner will be found and use that angle to calculate the horizontal distance 40 feet up in the air.

Thank you again, for your response. I appreciated your help

maple1 · Oct 3, 2016

How old is your deed description? I suspect it is older than the 1992 plan, as you mention magnetic. And its math info very likely wasn't measured or derived as accurately as the 1992 plan would have been capable of. It sounds like you should have a new or revised description drafted based on the 1992 plan. And the 1992 plan should clearly state whether pins were driven in 1992, or not.

BTW, the distance in a deed is down there on the priority list when it comes to re-surveying boundaries, especially a deed derived from an older survey or a non-surveyed situation. Why the distance (or bearing) of a boundary might not be the same distance (or bearing) as called for by deed is likely the hardest concept for lay people to grasp.

The instance of multiple pins in a 6 inch radius is 'pin cushion' effect - and often due to poor surveying practices. Or due to landowners dragging out their own tape & compass & putting their own pins in where they thought they should be based on their measuring attempts. Which is not a good thing to do, tags or not. I would strongly advise you not to set your own pins - if anything is to be placed, or anything found needs to be truly verified, you need to hire a surveyor.

whburling · Oct 3, 2016

maple1 said:
How old is your deed description? I suspect it is older than the 1992 plan, as you mention magnetic. And its math info very likely wasn't measured or derived as accurately as the 1992 plan would have been capable of. It sounds like you should have a new or revised description drafted based on the 1992 plan. And the 1992 plan should clearly state whether pins were driven in 1992, or not.

BTW, the distance in a deed is down there on the priority list when it comes to re-surveying boundaries, especially a deed derived from an older survey or a non-surveyed situation. Why the distance (or bearing) of a boundary might not be the same distance (or bearing) as called for by deed is likely the hardest concept for lay people to grasp.

The instance of multiple pins in a 6 inch radius is 'pin cushion' effect - and often due to poor surveying practices. Or due to landowners dragging out their own tape & compass & putting their own pins in where they thought they should be based on their measuring attempts. Which is not a good thing to do, tags or not. I would strongly advise you not to set your own pins - if anything is to be placed, or anything found needs to be truly verified, you need to hire a surveyor.

I have traced my deed back to 1934. At that time a parcel was divided to create my and other properties. There are no bearings in the deed. Only distances and mention of pins, holes drilled in rock, rod in concrete and water (as a tidal shore is one of the four property lines)

The distances in the deed can not mathematically match the deed AND pin declaration.

I was not aware that I could change the deed to reflect the 1992 survey. I imagined the filing of the 1992 survey in the Town Hall was a legal way of establishing a surveyor's opinion of how to interpret the deed and making it available to the public if they wished to contest that opinion. Separation of deed and opinion seems like a very good idea.

I am happy with the surveyor's attempt to resolve discrepancies and accept his bearings and bearing distances defining the property line. Is believe he faced a very difficult task and did a commendable job (albeit did not appear to place new markers in the ground).

All I want to do is to re-create the above 1992 defined property lines. I believe that an ordinary citizen should be able to recreate the 1992 defined property lines on the ground.

While I can appreciate that if I put something in the ground (with a metal tag) that it could add confusion to a layperson, as it did for me.

However, it is impossible for a surveyor to be confused. He is using instruments that measure to one second (which means his instrument must be accurate to at least 0.5 second). I suspect that his distance measurements are all calculated and hence their accuracy is limited to the pointing accuracy of the device and how well they set up their distance target. If the instrument is well designed and built, and the target set up well, the device should be able to measure to at least one inch and maybe even a 0.1 of an inch or better.

there is no question surveyors are professionals, not in that they can operate complex equipment, but in that they must make judgements (invariably based on incomplete, conflicting information) which are in the best interest of the whole community and not just one member. Thankless and difficult and requiring education of law and of experience.

A layperson, on the other hand, should be able to reproduce a survey and predict property markers within practical accuracy (half a foot) and maybe even within 2-3 inches.

My request was in soliciting help in doing just that.

Respectfully,
bil

whburling · Oct 3, 2016

Lake Girl said:
In attempting to find your original pins, do you have access to a metal detector? I know our corner property just about drove the surveyor nuts as there were multiple angles along two legs of the property. The highway was constructed after the property was surveyed and they were allowed their % of land for roads at that time... explains why we own half the ditch! Another leg followed the curve of the original dirt road. MTO and the roads board have expanded the road to a two lane without concern for infringement on private property. Every time they work on the road, they encroach a few inches more (likely to end up in small claims). We own most of the road where it intersects with the highway and had to offset the pins along that leg as they would have been in the roadbed. Interesting in that an original pin must be buried deep at that intersection as the metal detector still picks it up!

Edit: One of those offset pins along the dirt road was accidentally buried but was relocated with the detector...

I appreciate your suggesting i use a metal detector. I will rent a good one once I learn how to use my transit so that I have a reasonable idea as to where to look.

Lake Girl · Oct 3, 2016

Saves the labour of fruitlessly digging when a pin may/may not be there!

maple1 · Oct 3, 2016

The bigger problems arise when the layperson places something in the ground in an attempt to recreate a prior survey, and does not get it in exactly the right place - and chances are, he won't. The half-foot accuracy you speak of might be a good estimate. But then when a surveyor does come along at some point in the future (or anyone else who needs to rely on an accurate corner marker) after the landowner who put it there is not around anymore, and his 'tag' has disappeared, he discovers a discrepancy that depending on what else is there to find & go by, and how much time has passed, can be quite problematic in resolving.

The half-foot error only serves to cause defects in the underlying boundary fabric, and prejudice your boundaries.

Getting yourself close enough to look for & find something that is already there, fine - but owners should not be placing pins at their lot corners, except perhaps for situations of both or all common landowners doing it together in the absence of a prior survey to confirm a previously undeterminable (not sure that's a word but whatever) one. But even that should then be properly documented with a proper survey plan & boundary agreement. Have you consulted with the adjoining landowner? You could also be opening yourself to liability should a problem arise in the future, even if you do happen to get it in the right place.

If you are insistent on marking a corner, I would advise to do it with something more temporary - such as a short wood stake, at most.

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Setting up transit bearing to match magnetic north

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