Topographic Surveys - Part 1

As mentioned in my last post, there are times when a client needs only topographic and planimetric information. Instances where this may be the case are projects that only require filling of earthwork, construction of a sidewalk or something similar.

Many times we get requests for topographic surveys that show aerial photography and a big, red circle that says "Survey Limits". While this may seem like all the information needed for the surveyor, I think it's only a very small part of the information we need. The first thing I always ask our client is always the same question: "What's the real purpose of this survey?" Certainly, the answer to this question allows me to have a better understanding of what's really important inside the magical red circle. It also allows me to determine the level of accuracy needed to accomplish the task.

Regarding the vertical datum or basis of elevations for the topography, we always need to know who is going to use the survey. For instance, in some cases it may be adequate to assume an elevation of 100.00 at a particular location. However, if we know that it may be near a flood plain or flood fringe, we may need to use National Geodetic Vertical Datum (NGVD) 1929 as many of the Flood Insurance Rate Maps are based on this datum. Other times, a particular governmental jurisdiction may have a Geographic Information System (GIS) based on another datum such as the North American Vertical Datum (NAVD) 1988 or even possibly on a long established assumed datum.

Similarly, we need to know what horizontal datum or coordinate system the survey needs to be on. Many times our clients have heard of State Plane Coordinates and instantly reply that they prefer that system. However, you need to be warned that state plane coordinates, universal transverse mercator (UTM) coordinates and many other coordinate systems covering large areas are not a one to one conversion to coordinates that can be established on the ground. I'll get into that more in another post as it needs to be a complete post of its own.

Often we see that our clients want a temporary bench mark set on the construction site. My opinion is that having only one bench mark set on the site is a bad idea. If the elevation shown on the plans is shown in error (let's say its 700.91 but inadvertently shown in the plans as 700.19) it could create some major problems with the intended construction of the project. We have a company policy that we never set less than three bench marks on a site so that we always have one that we assume is good and one to check it with in case one is destroyed prior to construction. For larger areas we normally recommend to our clients that we set one bench mark for every six and a half acres. Why six and a half you ask? The optics on a typical automatic level that mights be used by a contractor has a usable range of about 300 feet (and it's about as good as our eyes are). The area of a circle with a radius of 300 feet is about six and a half acres.

Another piece of information needed by the surveyor is the contour interval to be shown on the drawing. Many times the purpose of the survey leads us to the determination of the contour interval required as the more accuracy required, the smaller the contour interval is normally going to be. There are many times that specifications for surveys indicate that not more than 10% of the elevations cannot exceed an error of more than one-half the contour interval, a specification that has been perpetuated since the National Map Accuracy Standards were first developed in 1941 by several government agencies including the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

In the next post, I'll talk about what other information is needed for topographic surveys after the basis of data is established.

What type of survey do I need?

I seem to get questions all the time about what type of survey an engineer or architect should specify to get what their client will really need. While there are many different items that can be included in each type of survey, I'm only going to touch on three and try to give a basic description of each starting with the easiest (and probably the least expensive) and progressing to the most complex.

The most basic survey would include topographic and planimetric information only. Topographic information is elevations of features while planimetric information would be any visible items within the survey limits needed. With this type of work, the surveyor does not conduct any research to determine the location of any corners or lines of deeds or easements. Therefore, if the design consultant is not concerned about the location of property lines or easements, this may be the one you need.

The next highest level of survey would be a retracement survey. The minimum requirements for a retracement survey are defined in Title 865 of the Indiana Administrative Code found at http://www.in.gov/legislative/iac/title865.html. In short, the Indiana Administrative Code defines how research, field work and publication of the survey are to be conducted. Easement or setback lines associated with the recording of a previous plat are shown; however, any other easements, setback lines or zoning restrictions are only shown when they are provided by the client. This type of survey is normally specified if an improvement is contingent on the property line or an easement line. It may also be needed if there is transfer of realy property without a title insurance requirement.

The final type of survey is an ALTA/ACSM Land Title Survey. The minimum requirements for an ALTA survey are defined by the current 2005 standards found at http://www.alta.org/industry/ALTA2005_Standards.pdf. The ALTA survey is normally specified by either a title company or a lender for the project due to the need for title insurance. With this type of survey, the deed, adjoiners' deeds and easements affecting the property being surveyed are provided by the title insurance company and shown on the survey by the surveyor.

A client can specify that they'd like to see topographic and planimetric information in addition to either a retracement or an ALTA survey. However, there can be no "mix and match" between retracement and ALTA surveys - they're mutually exclusive animals.

In the next few weeks, I'll be talking about these different types of surveys in depth so that they are more easily understood by our clients. Please feel free to ask any questions by leaving a comment and I'll try to cover them in upcoming posts.

Signed off by who?

We're working on a survey in a particular county in Indiana that was part of a lawsuit basically involving a five-foot strip of property that was sold twice. The original surveyor did the job correctly but somebody created a property description that caused the overlap with a parcel previously sold by the same owner. I talked to the original surveyor (the only one who has worked on this project) and he said that the description was not prepared by him. Now.....in Indiana, the only two professions that can legally prepare property descriptions are professional land surveyors and lawyers. I could go on for an extended period of time about lawyers and their distinct misunderstanding of survey law but I'll save that for another post sometime. Obviously, some lawyer thought he could write a description and ended up causing a lawsuit.

What we had prepared (and spelled out in our scope of work) was a boundary survey of the five-foot strip in accordance with the state minimum standards and the creation of a description for the same. Since it did not create a new tax parcel and the previous surveys had shown the boundaries correctly, according to Indiana standards, the survey was not required to be recorded. However, one of the attorneys involved in the lawsuit decided that our survey needed to be recorded. Having worked in this county before, I tried to talk him out of recording this survey and stated that it did not need to be according to the Indiana Administrative Code. However, the recordation of this survey was apparently part of the lawsuit so it needed to be done.

Normally when we record surveys, I put my professional land surveyor's stamp on the drawing, sign it, take it to the recorder's office where they stamp it with the recording information and we're done. However, I had been warned that this particular county had some "different" ideas about what was required to record a survey so I called a local surveyor to ask him what verbage needed to go on our plat of survey to get this thing through.

I wasn't ready for what he sent me. The survey has to be certified by the surveyor (makes sense to me), by the owner (okay, I can live with this one), by the auditor (I guess since they're the one assessing taxes I can somewhat understand this one but there's no real exchange of property created by the survey), the mayor (which I don't understand at all as he probably has no idea what he's signing), the clerk-treasurer (who probably is more clueless than the mayor) and the plan commission (huh? we're not platting a new subdivision, asking for a variance or rezoning - just trying to record a stinking survey!).

This has to be the most ridiculous example of waaaaaaaaaaay too many layers of government being involved in such a simple process.

Rant over.

Goin' Metric

I had made it home from work last night and was about to eat dinner when my cell phone rang. Looking down, I could see it was from my wife, Karen, who had told me she had some shopping to do and to go ahead and eat without her. Figuring she was about to tell me what a great deal she had gotten on something (wife speak for "I just spent a lot of money"), I flipped open the phone to answer it. "Honey", she said (now I knew she had just maxed out the credit card), "I can't get the van to start."

Since I had come home very hungry, I gave her the standard "man answer" to all questions when we're trying to buy some time. "Wait about 15 minutes and try it again. If it doesn't start then, give me a call back."

She replied that she'd do that and would probably wander around some stores (more money spent) while she waited for the van to revive itself. "Well, you know, five or ten minutes should really be enough", I replied, thinking I could swallow my dinner whole if needed to keep her out of the stores.

Sure enough, about 15 minutes later, she called again saying that the van would only click when she turned the key and the lights would dim after a few seconds. Yep, dead battery, I thought.

Since she didn't have any jumper cables with her and I had "loaned" mine to my business, I headed out the door, grabbed my toolbox and socket set and stopped by the local auto parts store for a new battery.

Another 20 minutes later, I arrived at the parking lot and found Karen waiting for me. She popped the hood and I started to disconnect the battery. So... "started" may be a bit of a stretch. In my haste to get out the door, I had grabbed my SAE socket set. Of course, my wife drives a Honda Odyssey - a Japanese company who uses all metric parts. After trying to use an adjustable wrench, busting my knuckles and cussing under my breath, I realized that I was getting nowhere. Fortunately, a short trip to Lowe's for a metric socket set (just like the one setting on my tool bench at home), I was able to get the old battery out and the new one in.

So the lesson for today is to always take the time to think about your project before you start it and make sure you have the right tools to complete it. It certainly would have saved me about half an hour, $12, bloody knuckles and a reprimand from my wife from cussing at an inanimate object.

Meeting half way

I've been discussing with the surveying community lately the need for our profession to develop better relationships with other professionals like engineers, architects, GIS folks, etc. It seems that, as a group, we tend to wait until they come to us needing something that we have expertise in. I have a fear that some of these groups will develop their skills in these areas that are currently (at least in my mind) the practice of surveying.

It leads me to my very favorite current saying: "You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes."

In case you're wondering, the saying was not by a person but rather from a very wise bear named Winnie The Pooh.

Over the past month or so, I've been trying very hard to go more than halfway to reach out to potential clients as well as our current clients. With the economic turmoil, it's a little difficult to determine if it's working yet but I'm going to stick with this strategy for the long haul. I'll let you know how it works for me.

If It Doesn't Look Right.....

There have been a few times that we're completing a survey and when I determine the boundaries of properties based on deeds, I miss every single fence and other evidence of the boundaries on the property. Normally, it's some stupid mistake made by yours truly. However, when it doesn't appear that I've made a math mistake, I still try to go back and try to see why the visible evidence seems to be different than my solution. In 22 years of doing this, there's almost always a good reason why the long-standing visible evidence is correct.

Here's a story from Nashua, New Hampshire where a surveyor had a similar situation and has now upset an entire neighborhood. Without giving a legal opinion, I'm going to guess that the fences in the neighborhood are in their correct location and the surveyor has simply missed something. If it doesn't look right, it probably isn't - so check your work before upsetting the neighbors!

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090617/BUSINESS/306179958/-1/XML15

What Keeps Us in Business

I was having drinks with a friend of mine at a convention earlier this year when he asked if he could ask me a "somewhat" personal question. With fear in my voice, I timidly said "yes". Due to the downturn in the economy and the state of government in Indiana, there are some survey companies who have gone out of business, many who have cut back on employees and hours and others who seem to be hanging on by a thread. Anyway, the question my friend asked me was this: "You and John Doe (obviously not his real name) both had companies about the same size. Both of you appeared to do roughly the same type of work. Why is it that John went out of business and you didn't?"

I actually had to stop and think about that for a minute before I answered him. There were several reasons (luck maybe not being the least) but I think there were three main differences between my firm and his.

First, I learned from a business seminar what financial ratios were important and what they needed to be to survive. At the end of every month, I compute the following:

Current ratio (assets/liabilities) and always make sure it's more than 2.5:1
Working capital (assets - liabilites) and try to keep four months operating costs. This is the hardest for us to maintain, it seems.
Debt to Worth (liabilites/owner equity) and keep it under 2:1
Return on Equity (net income/total equity) and shoot for 14% although that's been very difficult lately.
Return on Assets (net income/total assets) and try to hit 8% - also very difficult lately.
Accounts Receivable Days (accounts receivable/sales*365) and hope to be under 45 days.

Any time these are out of balance, it's time for action to bring them back in order. In addition to being a good surveyor, being a good business person is very important.

Second, our firm is not a "one-trick pony". In other words, we're diversified across nearly every area of surveying. I learned early on that subdivision design was a two-headed monster with regards to cash flow and since cash is king, we've never done any of it. Anything else related to surveying is fair game for us.

Finally, and most importantly, we try very hard not to develop clients but rather develop relationships. It never hurts to have friends when you really need a job or when you really need an overdue invoice to be paid. After all, when all is said and done in this world, relationships are really all we have. In addition to spending money and time on things, we try to spend money and time on doing things with people. Try it sometime - I think you'll be much happier.

So give these ideas a try and let me know how they work out for you. I can tell you that they've worked out very well (so far) for our company.