r/Surveying

I want to hear one surveyor say something positive about another surveyor’s work product…Just once.

To work for a construction company as a Surveyor for housing projects for 6 months. Have any of you guys worked there before? How is construction work like there? Working overseas is interesting and an exciting challenge so I'd like to read your experiences.

How did the transition go, was it better or worse prior to the acquisition? I have a feeling it’s not going to be as good in my company.

I bought land and the neighbor has a fence. The survey from 2022 done by the previous owner shows the neighbor has put their fence 5 feet into my land. When I brought this up to the neighbor they told me to kick rocks and sue them. This is significant because the city said it's going to be close if they approve us for 3 bedroom so we need every foot we can get. I spoke with an attorney who sent me an engagement letter and a retainer for $2500 and suggested I get a survey of my own in case the neighbors try to dispute by saying that I haven't done a survey myself. I figured I'd go back to the same company the previous owners used and they'd just copy and paste no problem. However, now the same company is saying the neighbor's fence is actually only 1 foot inside my land. I feel like whichever survey we rely on will be to our detriment: if we go with the 5 foot and sue, we might find out the 1 foot was correct and be out 5-20k legal fees thanks to the surveyor. Or we follow the 1 foot survey and then find out years down the road that the 5 foot was right and we could have had a bigger house. I'm tempted to just tell the company we're going to get a 3rd opinion and not pay them since we can't trust them, but I'm sure they will send me to collections and at a time when I need my credit score to be good so I can take a mortgage. What would the experts here advise?

Would love to hear your focus music on today.

For me right now I have pandora metal mix, playing this second: "Soldiers of the Wasteland - Dragonforce".

I can do metal for some stuff (like today's reviews of private submitals and GIS updates). Sometimes I need no vocals if I'm really thinking / focusing on a task like LSAs, easements deeds, or Legal Descriptions. For that I'll go doom metal, stoner metal, no vocal house, no vocal deep techno, Ajunabeat style stuff, etc.

I am wondering if anyone else has encountered this problem. We were doing some leveling work between some mag nails set in pavement and some capped iron pins. The capped pins had a depression in them and the nails were not quite flat to the pavement. The differences were as much as 0.017' to 0.020'. I wondered if anyone ever considered using a 3d printed shoe on the bottom of the leveling rod that would have a point that could be placed in the same location as our prism pole so that we would be leveling to the same elevation that our prism pole would shoot.

Any and all suggestions are welcome.

Thanks

Hello,

I (26M) am looking into surveying as a career, specifically land surveying. The caveat is that I have a condition where I am very sensitive to sound and can't be on the side of a highway, on a construction site, etc for prolonged amounts of time. I am highly capable and know I can handle the physical and mental demands of the job, but the environment needs to be right.

Are there lanes/niches within surveying where I can work mostly undeveloped sites (before construction begins, wildlands, or otherwise rural/quieter areas? I am in California for context.

Seriously, aside from the dirt cheap cost, someone clue me in on literally anything this equipment can do as well as Trimble equipment. Processing in the office is an exercise in frustration, their office software sucks, the field software sucks… but hey, it’s 1/3 the price of Trimble and it’s got some gimmicky bullshit sideshot laser on the head unit!

I’m genuinely considering looking for work elsewhere after my current project wraps if the push to replace all of our reputable, field-tested equipment with this cheap shit carries on.

I hired a land surveyor back in September of last year for a county project (residential replat).

The surveyor finished the three documents (boundary survey, plat page 1 and 2) as per county requirements in January.

I submitted these to the county with my application for replat the same day.

Within a month, the county sent the requested changes back to me. I had kept the surveyor posted throughout the process of receiving new (unofficial) changes from the county, so they would have an idea of the changes requested before they were officially sent back.

Most of the changes were simple document changes, ex.) removal county commissioner’s legal agreement, add square footage and acreage of proposed lot, remove signature block on this page, replace signature block with xyz text, etc. Maybe 8 of these small changes total, only two pertaining to survey data.

After a month of the surveyor having the official changes requested by the county, I reached out to the email address I was in most contact with. No response.

After another email and non response, I sent one to all emails I had on file for them. I received a response from an email address I rarely communicated with prior. They apologized for the delay and assured me they would prioritize finishing it.

A month went by. I emailed them requesting updates, briefly explaining that we are intending to build our home after the replat is finalized, hence the anticipation on our end. No response.

A surveyor I know personally told me it is unacceptable and that those changes would take a couple hours maximum. He advised me to email daily, concerned that the initial survey could even expire. He was not concerned about the contract and he has told me that the surveying board (Florida) would find the lack of responses and the delays to be unprofessional.

He believes that because they are paid in full, they no longer care to provide the service in a reasonable amount of time.

My biggest concern is that our contract protects the company against delays, stating:

“Circumstances outside of our control such as inclement weather, lack of boundary control, and workload at the time your authorization is received could delay estimated turnaround time. Reasonable efforts will be made to complete work at the earliest possible date. If work is cancelled for any reason you will be invoiced for time and expenses incurred to the point of cancellation. Under no circumstances shall (Land Surveying Company) be liable to Customer for any claim or damages INCLUDING CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES arising or resulting from any delay in (Land Surveying Company’s) performance of its work hereunder, regardless of whether the delay is caused by factors beyond its

control or whether the delay is caused by acts or neglect of (Land Surveying Company).”

My husband has been offered a job in Melbourne as a senior cadastral surveyor. We are from interstate and while the offer sounds good, unsure if it’s in line with market rates. He is recently licensed however has been a surveyor for over 15 years. Can anyone share what they earn? Even if it’s a range?

Ran into a bit of an awkward situation today. I’m scheduled to stake out a residential boundary, but the homeowner already called in an 811 ticket for a fence install. When I got there to start the survey, the locator was actively marking out sprinkler lines. In my experience, that can get messy fast, locators don’t always love it when you’ve got fresh stakes going in while they’re trying to do their thing. Now I’m second guessing my timing. Is it better to hold off until the 811 ticket is fully wrapped up before setting control points, or do you usually just coordinate and work around them?

My party chief and I have been running Trimble IBSS for recent work. We have a TSC5 which runs fine and has no issues, but we recently just got a TSC510. We’ve been having issues with the SIM card in the 510, we’ve tried 3 different active SIM cards and experience the same issue. There is nothing wrong with the connection initially but after some time we start to roam and lose connection with the sim.

Has anyone had any similar experiences or any advice?

We would like to continue purchasing Trimble in the future but if this is a common problem we aren’t really sure. Thank you in advance :)

I was checking my NMEA data and noticed that the number of satellites in view is always higher than the number of satellites actually being used for positioning. What is the difference between "visible" and "used" satellites?