Fence Line App for my phone?

[fishheadbob]

Deeds are a nightmare. 100 acre parcel first surveyed about 1808. Mine references points like old oak tree, fence between beech trees (which fence, which beech trees), center line of creek, old elm tree- they all died in the 1950s, and so on. Irons for the same corner can be off by 30 or 40 feet. Glad I'm not a surveyor.

 

[grsthegreat]

Reminds me of the old joke about asking an old farmer for directions to the highway…..
well, continue down the road for a bit until you get to the spot where the old school used to be, then turn right in a bit……

 

[LD1]

I’m sorry, there are problems LD1.

Sighting a pin 40 feet away and extending a line? Not good. The rule in surveying was long backsight, short foresight. In this case you are backsighting a point 40 feet away and using it to extend a line hundreds of feet. Any error in one of the pins, your equipment or your skill will get multiplied several times over by the time your 1000 feet away. Picture your rifle scope off a couple inches at 40 feet. How much error is in your rifle bullet at 500 yards?

Compass bearings can be based on so many things that’s a dangerous system. I used a compass all the time to help me find corners, I was good at it, and I would get way off after a couple of thousand feet.

Obviously a survey is gonna be the most accurate.

I was just suggesting ideas based on limited info.

If you DONT have LOS to the farthest point....work with what you have. It will be WAY more accurate than a phone GPS. Sure a little error over the 40' is gonna be amplified. But not being able to actually see the property, or the back pin....I would rely on my judgment, and other property indicators to determine if I can accomplish it to some degree of accuracy, or rather I am gonna be WAY off.

Im not a surveyor. And dont have the LOS problems due to trees that eddy has. But I did locate all 4 markers for my 8.5 acre property, and installed about 1500' of fence. Oh, and I also stayed at a holiday Inn last night

 

[airbiscuit]

Reminds me of the joke Buddy Hackett told on the Tonight Show about how they resolve property disputes in Texas

 

[JethroB]

Deeds are a nightmare. 100 acre parcel first surveyed about 1808. Mine references points like old oak tree, fence between beech trees (which fence, which beech trees), center line of creek, old elm tree- they all died in the 1950s, and so on. Irons for the same corner can be off by 30 or 40 feet. Glad I'm not a surveyor.

My deed goes back to 1943 when my grandad bought it. It refers to the creek on one side then the existing deeds of 3 others on the rest. I now have 7 adjoining neighbors. None are of the initial 3. My 98 acre property is shaped like a cowboy boot, I live in the toe. State forestry service is going to come help me burn it all soon. Close enough should be ok. I hope.

 

[caver]

When I would help on a cave survey we did fore-sight and back-sites and it was still easy to screw it up. We used compasses like this. When closing a loop in a cave one little error gets amplified.

 

[bcp]

Place your fence as best you can, then don't worry about it. If a neighbor disputes it, say you'll be glad to move it to align with his survey.



Bruce

 

[dodge man]

When I would help on a cave survey we did fore-sight and back-sites and it was still easy to screw it up. We used compasses like this. When closing a loop in a cave one little error gets amplified.
View attachment 728706

I used one very similar to that. You can look through the black thing at the bottom and read the dial while you sight what your looking at.

 

[s219]

If there are metal stakes/pins at the property corners, you can use a whole range of approximate methods to get in the ballpark and then use a metal detector to find the pin. Mobile apps, compass bearings, triangulation to ballpark the point from other known corners, etc. You can tolerate a bit of error in those devices/methods to get in the ballpark and then let the metal detector do the final locating.

I do this all the time, and the ballpark can be as much as a 10' radius but most times I come within a foot of the pin, sometimes within inches. So while it's important to caution about the accuracy and error, if you are sensible you can work with these imperfect tools to get the job done. Of course, once you find the pin you might not be able to prove or trust that it's in the original location. Most times I find them, it's pretty obvious they have not been disturbed, but I couldn't swear that on a stack of bibles. Get a surveyor if it needs to be legal.

Once you have located corner pins, then quite a bit can be done with line of sight. How much and how far is only limited by the visibility.

 

[Root Cause]

Their. (for the grammar police)

Theiy're is actually correct. It is up to you to pick which ones make you happy.

 

[airbiscuit]

I don't suppose you can see headlights looking from on end to the other? Project a Laser Level vertically from one point on a misty night? One thing that I've learned is that it's harder than you think to walk in a straight heading.

 

[Dragonpharm]

2. SETTING OUT STRAIGHT LINES

Not sure how much help this might be but I found it recently while trying to locate my property lines. In our case I've found the necessary pins but am struggling to connect them due to line of sight issues. We have trees and a hill between pins. As mentioned earlier our local GIS map online is very inaccurate. Very certain our neighbor's driveway isn't mostly on our land.

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

I use an app called HuntStand. On Android. It allows me to edit and place markers on property. It's primary use of course was for hunting. It has various map overlays, one of which is property lines. I used that, in conjunction with my plot survey, GPS and compass to find my property lines. It was pretty accurate since I found most iron rods. My only issue was water. As in moving creeks. I question now as to where the survey claims the creek is, and actually where it is. But a survey is recorded, Mother Nature has her ways.

I suggest using it as a trial and see if it will suffice to meet your needs.

I would be very hesitant to trust a property line overlay layer on a consumer grade gps system. I went to the county records office, and got their property layer with all the recorded property lines in the county.

I’m highly confident in where my corners are because the rebar with survey caps are still in place.

I can turn on the property layer in Google Earth and zoom in. The property lines are displayed about twenty feet west, and 15 north of where they actually are.

 

[riptides]

I would be very hesitant to trust a property line overlay layer on a consumer grade gps system. I went to the county records office, and got their property layer with all the recorded property lines in the county.

I’m highly confident in where my corners are because the rebar with survey caps are still in place.

I can turn on the property layer in Google Earth and zoom in. The property lines are displayed about twenty feet west, and 15 north of where they actually are.

I used a combo of the mapping layers, my survey and a compass.

The mapping overlay gave me the quick "path" to walk down as it identified the actual tree line a pin was set into. And believe it or not the software image was an older photo of google maps at the time, taken in fall. That identified an area between hardwoods and cedars for another property line. Since I had the "photo" with the property overlays I had a better reckoning of where I was.

Heck, I got lost back there walking one day, totally disoriented, had to follow the creek home. LOL.

 

[John_Mc]

I use Gaia GPS…but these GPS apps areNT perfectly accurate.

Eddie - How accurate do you want?
GPS-enabled smartphones are typically accurate to within a 4.9 m (16 ft.)

The problem is not JUST with the smartphone accuracy (and BTW, handheld dedicated GPS units have the same problem. You don't get better until you upgrade to the really expensive equipment and have some sort of augmentation system and/or post processing in play.)And that 16 ft accuracy is for when you are standing in an open field with good satellite connections.

Further, the initial data showing up no most of these maps is not survey grade to begin with. I can find lot of places in my rural community where the parcel boundaries shown are off by 25 feet or more. 50 feet is not uncommon, and I have seen greater errors. Most of the data in these apps comes from old local town or county tax maps, which never were intended to be survey grade.

 

[JDZ735M]

Most of the data in these apps comes from old local town or county tax maps, which never were intended to be survey grade.

Like anything, its only as good as what goes into making it.

 

[airbiscuit]

Did you ever come uo with a strategy for mapping out your fence line?

 

[EddieWalker]

I have a landmark that I can measure from that should put me within a foot or two of where it is. The landmark is a marker for an underground natural gas pipeline. If the marker is accurate, then it should be good. If the marker is in the wrong place, then I could be off more then I want to be.

The marker is on my neighbors land. He said that it has never been moved. The pipe line people have been out several times in the last decade to make sure it's accurate.

I have to trust that it's accurate, or I can try to create a line between the two pins. Just standing at one of the pins and looking towards the other pin, it all seems to be about right.

I might hire a surveyor, but I haven't approached anybody yet. My place is a muddy mess right now. To install this section of fence, I have 7 big oak roots in the way, and probably 30 small to medium trees to remove and haul to the burn pile.

 

[airbiscuit]

I keep thinking it would be nice to have a straight line between your two pins. How much does the elevation change between them? I keep thinking about using lights (or a beam from a laser level) to do it. If you had a drone and a few friends with flashlights you could get it

 

[EddieWalker]

First picture shows the outline of my place and where I am going to put my fencing.

Fencing is red

Gates are green



The area that I'm trying to figure out is the North East line. I have the pin at the far right, near the road, and the one going North West along the line. Both pins have blue circles around them.

The area circled in yellow is a cliff that drops off quickly. The trees along it are all that's holding it in place. My neighbor and I have spent years trying to get more to grow there, and keeping what's there alive. I plan to run my fence around this area, into my side of the property line. On his side is a Natural Gas Pipeline, so fencing on that is a really bad idea.

The area with the orange circle drops down quite a ways, and then comes back up. That is where the remaining trees are that I have to take out. Then are blocking my view from the pin on the left and looking to the right to the purple circle.

I want to run my fence from the pin on the left ( blue circle) to the purple circle, where I will put a fence post and create a corner for my fence.

Figuring out where the fence post will go in the purple circle is my goal. If I go into my neighbors land, I'm going to be on the Gas Pipeline Right of Way. If I go into my land, I'm giving up my land. A foot doesn't matter too much, but several feet makes me uncomfortable.

Just outside the yellow circle, close to the purple circle, is a metal post in the ground that marks the Gas Pipeline. The survey says that my property line is 25 feet from the middle of the pipe, which also the edge of the 50 foot wide Pipe Line easement.

My original plan was to run a wire from pin to pin, but once I started dealing with all the trees along the top of the cliff, I abandoned that idea. I can easily take them all out, but I really want to keep them there.

If the marker is accurate, them I'm golden. If the marker is off, I'm stressed. I was hoping that a GPS program existed that I could draw a straight line between pins on my phone and then figure out where the line is by walking between the pins. That isn't realistic, so I have to hire somebody to figure it out, or trust the marker.