Need to find survey marker rod!

[Coyote machine]

A while back I was dumping dirt off the side of my dirt road onto the space by my property line and inadvertently buried my survey rod. I had a surveyor doing work next door and asked him to use his metal detector to find the stake. He gave me an area to dig in and I had my hired hand do some digging but he did not find the stake.
So without going to a lot of trouble or having to rehire a surveyor for just one pin, what to do to locate it and recover the pin without moving it from where it's supposed to be. I do have my TLB, but I don't want to just dig it up.....

Any Ideas?

TIA,

CM

 

[Jstpssng]

Rent, buy, or borrow a metal detector. When you find where you think it is, dig very carefully. How deep did you bury it? It shouldn't be very deep... considering that you only own property on one side of the marker.
Good luck. ;-)

 

[Coyote machine]

There's probably 3-5'deep in the general area. If I knew where to dig, even close, I'd likely have found it when my worker dug before...
I'm most interested in any method(s) involving using the other markers, for instance, to locate the buried one.

 

[Jstpssng]

How big is your lot? do you have a good deed description? if it isn't very big you can triangulate from your two nearest corners to get an approximate location... but if it's buried that deeply you may find yourself having a full survey done.

 

[Coyote machine]

I'm not having a survey done for one roadside pin. I'm bordered by my road and an old cemetery next to the pin, so it's not an issue- I just want to locate it.

 

[jeff9366]

When I bought my land I drove 30" lengths of 1-1/2"" capped galvanized iron pipe into the ground so only 4" protruded, inside of the pin.

Too late now, but worth the addition when you find your missing pin.

 

[duke7595]

Get out your deed it will have the "land description written out" You can reference your P.O.B and then follow the description . Example: North 300' then East 100 '
You always start from P.O.B. (point of beginning) and you end there as well. The example i used is very simple to give you an idea, however, most land descriptions
are not. Just follow your's using a compass and a good tape or accurate range finder, before you know it you will be digging up you're marker.

 

[dave1949]

Get out your deed it will have the "land description written out" You can reference your P.O.B and then follow the description . Example: North 300' then East 100 '
You always start from P.O.B. (point of beginning) and you end there as well. The example i used is very simple to give you an idea, however, most land descriptions
are not. Just follow your's using a compass and a good tape or accurate range finder, before you know it you will be digging up you're marker.

It might be easier to use the cemetery deed description depending on how old it is, but doing this should get you close.

A surveyor probably wouldn't need to do a complete survey. I had a missing pin re-installed on a corner this summer. The surveyor used reference markers that I didn't know existed. One was about 1000' feet up the road, a second was about 30' from the actual corner, and the third was back in the woods about 80'. He looked them up on a laptop database, then got out his fancy tools and tripod.

Cost about $300 but there was no way I was going know where that corner pin was supposed to be without a surveyor. I think the original pin got dug up by the state in a culvert replacement project. They started with a metal detector until they were satisfied the pin was missing.

I drive 7' studded t-posts in near the surveyor's pins and keep the tops painted yellow so I can see them from a distance through the trees.

 

[sixdogs]

If it's a fairly recent survey the pin was likely located by GPS and putting a new one doesn't require a survey.
Short of that, a good metal detector should eventually pick something up.

 

[Jstpssng]

If it's a fairly recent survey the pin was likely located by GPS and putting a new one doesn't require a survey.

Assuming he has the same surveyor find it. Asking someone to replace one pin based on somebody else's work is about like asking someone to rebuild three cylinders in your truck.

 

[dave1949]

Assuming he has the same surveyor find it. Asking someone to replace one pin based on somebody else's work is about like asking someone to rebuild three cylinders in your truck.

I had the same survey outfit come back that did the original survey. It did help that they have all the records on file and are familiar with the layout.

I hunted that missing pin for months off and on since we bought that piece last year. I was sort of hoping the surveyor wouldn't walk right to it, and look at me like I was blind or something. On the other hand, that would have been cheaper. :laughing:

 

[rinconryan]

If the road your talking about is public, your corner was most likely set at the edge of the right of way. If you know the width of the right of way you could measure from the center of the road to get closer.

 

[Ken45101]

Again, measuring from the adjacent pins should bring you very, very close. How close depends on how accurately you measure.

 

[Jstpssng]

I had the same survey outfit come back that did the original survey. It did help that they have all the records on file and are familiar with the layout.

I hunted that missing pin for months off and on since we bought that piece last year. I was sort of hoping the surveyor wouldn't walk right to it, and look at me like I was blind or something. On the other hand, that would have been cheaper. :laughing:

Oh, I hate it when they do that. There's even a term for it... looking with your eyes closed.

 

[JerryK]

The area I live in, the electric poles are set in the R/W on the property lines [330' intervals] So, if you live on that side of the road, the pin should be just inboard of the pole. If there is a power line easement, the pin should be on the road side of the pole. And if you are on the other side of the road, the pin will be exactly opposite of the pole. While the poles are survey'd before they install them, I'd go with the pin to be exact...

 

[J_J]

Coyote machine,

I have one of these, and have located all my corner markers.

If the surveyor found the rod with a yellow stick type metal locator, just keep digging in that area.

Those yellow sticks are really good.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/JOHNSON-40-...US_Measuring_Layout_Tools&hash=item4d0df9eef5

Johnson Level's Magnetic Locators will detect ferrous metal objects above and below ground, and are perfect for locating survey corner markers, PK and Mag Nails, valve boxes, steel and iron pipes, well casings, steel tanks, lost tools, downed and buried fence lines and more...

 

[dodge man]

I am a land surveyor and when I read these threads, I'm always left shaking my head. The only way I can compare it would be asking on this forum, my appendix needs to come out, its a simple operation, can I do it my self?

First off, GPS isn't a magic bullet, a home owner can not set a missing corner with GPS, it takes a expensive system, say $20,000 or more.

Second, do you know who did the original survey? If I think it will only take a few minutes, I will often just stop at some ones place on my way home from work and locate it for free if I did the original survey.

Third, like someone else said, the best way to pinpoint a corner is to measure from two other corners. Say your southwest corner is missing. The best way would be to measure from the northwest corner and the southeast corner and pinpoint the location. Of course this only works if the distances are fairly short and the property is somewhat rectangular in shape.

 

[Bird]

I guess you could say surveying is as much art as science.:laughing: When I bought 10 acres in Navarro County, I was talking to a banker about getting a survey and he told me that on the last property he had surveyed, he had 3 different surveyors survey it and they came up with 3 different surveys. The steel pipes were all still in place at the 4 corners of my property; a perfect rectangle, and exactly 10 acres. But when I sold it, the buyer wanted a new survey, which was fine with me, as long as he was paying for it. Well, the surveyor he hired decided the property was actually 3" wider at the back than at the front, so a tiny bit more than 10 acres. And of course since it was fenced, nobody moved any fences.

 

[Jstpssng]

I guess you could say surveying is as much art as science.:laughing: When I bought 10 acres in Navarro County, I was talking to a banker about getting a survey and he told me that on the last property he had surveyed, he had 3 different surveyors survey it and they came up with 3 different surveys. The steel pipes were all still in place at the 4 corners of my property; a perfect rectangle, and exactly 10 acres. But when I sold it, the buyer wanted a new survey, which was fine with me, as long as he was paying for it. Well, the surveyor he hired decided the property was actually 3" wider at the back than at the front, so a tiny bit more than 10 acres. And of course since it was fenced, nobody moved any fences.

That could be a case of better equipment now than when your lot was originally laid out.(If not a case of one surveyor was better than another... or a combination of both) My math is a bit rusty, but given that the parcel is rectangular I believe that gives you an error of closure of around 1:2800.
Dealing with old deeds can be interesting to say the least; I've seen 3 "100 acre more or less" parcels carved out of a two hundred acre block.

My deed would scare you... no metes and bounds, just "by the land of, by the land of," Only one sideline and part of another has pins and descriptions... two abutters deeds read the same and the fourth side is the town road.

 

[JamesHW]

I am fortunate to have a good 60 era survey of our 80 acres originally purchased in 1905. The original deed mentions a large stump for one corner. The surveyor set galvanized posts in the back corners which you would never find in the woods if they were just stakes. I was able to this week pretty much walk the Northern line based on the line trees and walked right up to the NE corner post. The Southern line is easy because someone recently surveyed it and hung pink ribbons which correspond to red paint marks on line trees which I previously never noticed. This was likely NY State as the adjacent property is a wood lot owned by the State which was last logged 10 years ago or so.

A few years ago I had taken the map of the plats in the area which include roads and in an old copy of Photoshop overlaid this onto a 60 era USGS topo map of the area and estimated the coordinates of the corners and got the coordinates of the corners. I recently loaded a Topo Maps app on my iPhone and downloaded the same USGS and held the phone over the posts and dropped a pin onto those coordinates. Checking my estimates of the coordinates from my previous work against what the GPS and Topo Maps was saying the actual location was I was pleasantly surprised that the NE corner exactly matched my estimate! The SE corner was off by .0001 for the latitude and .0003 for the longitude. This actually corrects my photoshop estimate since my work had the SE corner post just on the Eastern edge of a small ravine while actually it is on the Western edge of the ravine. I like the old USGS topo maps since they accurately show the ravines and old fire roads on my property, some of which are well established and some of which are barely discernible.

It is all academic since there is zero activity on heavily timbered N, E & S sides of my property, but useful to know.