Our family farm in NE Pennsylvania is being amicably divided among a number of children. We need to hire a surveyor. The last survey was done 40 years ago by a nice man with a transit and a bottle of booze; that’s how it was done back then (I wish we were still back in those days). It seems that every time a survey was done, the boundaries got jiggled around. Now we’ve been quoted prices from $3800 to double that (the farm is 175 acres).
What should we look for in a surveyor? How accurate is modern surveying technology at our level, and what kind of tools should we expect the surveyor to be using? GPS? “Enhanced” GPS? There is a lot of forest involved, and I wonder if a GPS unit would be able to “see” the overhead satellites through the dense forest canopy. Should we ask for proof of licensing or certification?
Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
Paul B.
Replies
Your going to want some one more specializing in boundarys as opposed to construction staking, and since there sounds like deed work to be done, you may need an attorney. 3800 sounds cheap for land that much, I just had 2 done for 750.
Paul: We just (2 yrs ago) had our 24 hilly acres in Nawth Jawja surveyed. $3800 sounds very reasonable for a 175 acre tract. Our cost was near that. We paid by the hour for field time & also by the hour for office computer time. Think we paid about $85/manhr for field time. Of course, our terrain was pretty bad for a mere 24 acres. If you are lucky, there will be some sort of control point on or close by your land for them to start at & tie your property into the big picture. We had one - an intersection of 4 land lots That was marked and our property line is a county line, so well surveyed & marked - even though we are really out in the woods. Also, a point that was good for establishing elevation. Another group of surveyors doing some property south of us asked permission to use our lot's southern base line to tie their work into - cost them about a day of work. I mention this only because it is a hidden cost that can run up the cost of a survey - and it's not even on your own land.
Don't think GPS is accurate enough for a survey - at least civilian, non DoD GPS. Our surveyors used computer coupled theodolites for the job, augmented by GPS for ROM measurements. For distance they used laser measurements. I talked w/ the licensed surveyor who owned the Co. He learned surveying the same era I did - mid 1950's, and we collectively shook our heads at the ability of current surveyors to take field notes & do the calculations. They would be lost if the computer connected to the theodolite puked. They spent more time hacking their way through the underbrush w/ a machete than they did making the measurements.
Don
Until my last go 'round I thought all surveyors did pretty much the same thing. For your application they may do so.
You say the farm is being divided. That's the kicker. A boundary survey is a simple matter, even if it's "jiggled". Dividing into parcels is a whole different thing. Most important are zoning issues, if any. Then you get into which particular piece needs to be included into which parcel.
I'd trust any licensed surveyor to have the appropriate equipment, then it comes down to understanding how the division should be undertaken. This is not normally a simple task.
I was creating parcels out of a smaller piece of land. We had to deal with land size/slope requirements (zoning) and septic requirements. The first surveyor I had out fudged his slope readings and almost (I caught it in time) cost me 1 parcel, about $200k at the time. These are the type of things you have to be aware of. First order is to understand exactly what the requirements are. Don't assume the surveyor will take care of it all for you. Some will, some won't.
Hiring by price is extremely risky. You need to understand the scope of the job and be ready to pay accordingly. Which is not to say that you should hire the most expensive.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Having done all aspects of surveying for 30 years, I'll give you some tips.
Make sure the company is liscensed in your state. I'm in Texas, and I can't legally survey in any other state until I pass certification exams in that state.
Get all of your documentation together. Go to your City Hall, or where land records are kept, and get copies of everything you can on your tract, and all adjoiners. A surveyor will do this, and it'll cost you for him to do the research.
Walk your boundries and uncover and flag all of the points you can find. You can rent a metal dector to make things easier. Use your tractor to clear brush along fences to help with doing the survey. It'll save you money.
Make a sketch of how you want the parcels to look, and include estimated acerage.
Modern survey equipment allows an accuracy of up to 1' in 50,000. That means that there may be a total error of 1' in every 10 miles. Your state will have minimum standards that any closure must meet.
Go ahead and have the crew locate all buildings, wells, utilities, and crossing fences. This will help with improvements in the future.
GPS is usually associated with topographical surveys, but it does have the accuracy (vertical and horizontal) to be useful.
After the survey is complete, walk the parcels and make sure all monumentation is in place. Ask the surveyors to "tie" the monuments to trees or other features to make location and replacement easier if they are destroyed.
Hope this helps.
also what we do. after survey. get a post hole digger, dig up the corner rebar without moving rebar. fill with concrete till about six inches from top leaving rebar exposed.cover with dirt.
Wouldn't be doing that if I were you. The kind of "monumentation" a surveyor sets (steel pin, rebar, "X" cut on a rock, etc.) is recorded in his field notes, and the "calls" on the legal description. Any modification of the monument would render it suspect in another survey or legal proceeding.
In addition to others' thoughts on how to specific the work and the field work you can do to speed things along, you ought to confirm the surveyors is licensed with the state and in good standing:
http://www.licensepa.state.pa.us/
Someone made the excellent suugestion about retaining someone who does subdivsions routinely. Septic, well spacing, aspect ratio of lots, frontage, easements, etc. are all important. And can, done well, result in an extra lot or two. Done poorly, and I have seen this happen, can result in an unbuildable lot when setbacks, leach-field requirements, etc are not met.
So don't ask "how many subdivisions have you done?", because everyone will say, "a bunch" or "enough" etc. Ask them to NAME the subdivsions they have done in the last 2 years. (and it ain't a big secret - the subdivision is filed with the county, it is a public document, and their name and stamp is on it.) Something that is veryifiable like that is a lot less likely to be fudged.
There are also be thresholds (dividing to more than, say, 3 lots) that raise you to a new level and might require you to install roads and storm drains to county standards, etc. A surveyor knowledgable and practiced at subdividing could lay out your choices and limitations for you. That is worth vastly more than a $15/hour difference in billing rate.