Myers Depot Metal Detectors

Any surveyors or GPS freaks out there?? GPS' & Bearings

TheCoilist

TheCoilist

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Joined
Aug 16, 2010
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Location
Virginia
I am in the process of buying some property. We have a survey that gives us a generalized survey map and the bearings, etc. I was wondering if there is a way to use a Garmin GPS unit to input the bearings and such and be able to help locate the corner stakes for the property.

The previous owner claims there are corner posts put in but because of the snow, it won't be easy to find them. So I was hoping to eliminate having to have a company come out and find them by looking for them myself.

The issue is that some of the straight lines are thousands of feet long. And there are no stakes in place in between the corners to make sure I am on the right track.

Ultimately, I need to find the corners so I can put in a fence and blaze trees for property boundaries, etc.


Any help is appreciated!! I am new to GPSing and all that.
I just recently purchased a Garmin GPSMap 64S
 
How old is the survey? Did they say if they put in metal pins, post markers, stack of rocks? Or anything like that? Your best bet would be to just step it off or get a long rope of known length and have someone line of site you while moving closer to the corner. This will get you in the general area.
 
Here's what I have right now. Supposedly there is an updated survey at the court house. This survey was done in 2003.

The legend says that there were "Set Corners" and "Found Corners" but does not say how or what material was used to mark the corners. The seller said "posts" are in place.

Here is the crappy copy of the survey I have in my possession. To make things worse, I am out of state from where the property is and can not access the court house records. Realtor has a call in to them now.

There is an attached text document with more detailed bearing numbers and such, but I guess regardless, I need to find out how to find the posts somehow.

survey.png
 
If it was done in 2003 then it will most likely be a metal rebar pin with either a plastic or metal cap over it indicating the surveyor that did it. I'd just take a metal detector and going by the bearing from the map I would just start stepping it off. Average step of a man is roughly 2 and a half feet. This will get you somewhat close. I surveyed for about 4 years when I was much younger and I was pretty accurate at stepping off distances. So I know it can be done.

When you mention posts though it makes me wonder if they didn't just use a 4x4 post and pile rocks around it. We used to do that a lot when we were working for any mines here in Montana. Then we would attach a box to the post to put the mining claim information inside of and then cover it in surveyors tape so it was easily found from a distance.

Too bad I don't live close or I would come out and help ya.
 
Haha, thanks for the help. Yeah the property is pretty much in the middle of a very rural area, not much help, and I don't want to trespass on the neighbors properties.

We're actually going to fence the property in for liability reasons as there is a protected creek/stream on the property and being out of state most of the time for now, we'd be liable if someone got hurt without having a posted barrier up. Didn't want to spend the money for a new survey to be done... could be expensive from what I hear!
 
In another life I was a surveyor... What you have on the drawing are bearings that you can follow using a regular compass.

They're figured in degrees - minutes- seconds, and in the case of your drawing starting facing north on the west line, due north would be written as N 00-00-00 W. Yours shows slightly off north but less than one degree. If you follow the numbers around the perimeter you can see how they're done. As close to north, south, east, and west as your lines are you shouldn't have any trouble following them, just stay on the primary directions and pace out the distance.

If the survey was done properly, they would have set a 2' long 5/16" rebar with a plastic or aluminum cap marked with the surveyor's license number where they say they "set corners". These should be pounded clear down to where just the cap is slightly at or above the level of the earth. The found corners would have been also rebar markers that matched up with their measurements and may or may not still have the surveyor's cap on them.

They actually make pin finders, just google Chicago tape pin finder to see what I'm talking aobut, but they're pricey tools. If the surveyor did a good job you shouldn't have any trouble finding those corners though.
 
Would they have placed something between corners so I can make sure I'm staying straight? Lol especially when putting up a fence. How do I know I'm still within the property lines
 
TheCoilist said:
Would they have placed something between corners so I can make sure I'm staying straight? Lol especially when putting up a fence. How do I know I'm still within the property lines
Click to expand...

Probably not, unless they flagged something with orange or pink survey tape, which they might have done if it's timber or hilly. If it's relatively flat, unobstructed ground they probably just shot in the corners and marked them. If saving money is your objective, your best bet is to find the corners and drive tall posts good and deep then run string lines to keep you straight. String is pretty cheap and works better than just about anything else, but it would take patience and a lot of string to get it done.

The other probably less frustrating, but more expensive option is to get a surveyor to come out and shoot and mark the lines for your fencing. It wouldn't cost as much as a boundary survey, but it would still cost you.
 
Also, it's not that big of a parcel to string off, it's less than 1/5 mile north to south on the long side, so that's not as far as it sounds. The typical city block is about 600 feet long by comparison, or about 1/8 of a mile.
 
So... if you are having trouble figuring it out you could send me the legal description and I can locate it for you on google earth so you don't have to guess at it. Sometimes having a visual of what's on the ground can help a lot. Feel free to pm me if you want me to do that.
 
BBsGal said:
So... if you are having trouble figuring it out you could send me the legal description and I can locate it for you on google earth so you don't have to guess at it. Sometimes having a visual of what's on the ground can help a lot. Feel free to pm me if you want me to do that.
Click to expand...

I'll PM you after this post.


The terrain is relatively flat, has creeks and streams on the property with a few lower areas, but it's mostly wooded. Being wooded is the main issue.
 
I'm in the same boat you are, I have 11 acres we want to fence for the same reason. I am a bit of an old hand with GPS and use it a lot for MD'ing as well. Good Luck and PM me if you want some help on GPS use for MD'ing...
 
TheCoilist said:
I'll PM you after this post.


The terrain is relatively flat, has creeks and streams on the property with a few lower areas, but it's mostly wooded. Being wooded is the main issue.
Click to expand...

I see what you mean, got the files and can see how much vegetation you're working through. I'll work on it this evening and see if I can't make a good overlay map for you. I'd do it today but the sun is shining and my detector is nagging me to go play. :yes:
 
BBsGal said:
I see what you mean, got the files and can see how much vegetation you're working through. I'll work on it this evening and see if I can't make a good overlay map for you. I'd do it today but the sun is shining and my detector is nagging me to go play. :yes:
Click to expand...


No rush. I appreciate the help. Like I said, I was able to rough it out on google earth myself, but I used the ruler tool and foot measurements on guessed locations. It would be awesome if there was a more scientific method applied so I could take the GPS Coordinates and throw them into my GPS and find the round about areas.

Then I could use one of the metal detectors to find the post (assuming it's metal) to give me a starting point!
 
Over the years I have hired surveyors a number of times to survey acreage parcels. I always told them to give me a bid that included setting a metal "T" post every 300 or so feet along the property lines. The additional cost is small compared to the benefit of knowing where the property line is located when the corners are 1,000 or more feet apart.

Now here are some thoughts on finding existing survey stakes.

Years ago I owned property in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that had previously been surveyed and just like the OP, I needed to find the corner stakes. I was using a good quality sighting compass and running lines 1/4 mile long through flat fairly open woods. I measured the distance with a 300ft tape on a large reel. After about the right distance I searched with a metal detector but could not find the rebar survey stake.

What gives? I knew I could run a reasonable straight line under those circumstances (which included hanging flagging and back sighting as I went).

I literally took my pack off, sat down in the woods and scratched my head. Here's the secret.

The bearings on a survey are almost never based on true north. Nor are they based on magnetic north. Instead, the surveyor finds two known points and *assumes* one point is due north (North 0 degrees East, aka N 0 E) from the other point. All of the bearings on the survey are based on that assumption which is known as "basis of bearing".

This means that you almost always have to adjust the bearings you see on a land survey in order to convert them to bearings based on true north. The needed adjustment can easily be one degree or more.

Now the bad news. There is no way looking at a survey to know how much adjustment to apply.

Some landowners will be lucky and have surveys where the needed adjustment is so small it can be ignored. Of course those landowners will still need to use an up-to-date magnetic declination in order to try to locate their corners using the bearings on the survey. Declination changes faster than you might think. There are web sites where you can enter your coordinates and get the current declination.

And if all else fails (or you would simply like to speed up the process) you might take a look at http://www.propertylinemaps.com/ and get approximate GPS coordinates for your property corners.
 
Jelf said:
Over the years I have hired surveyors a number of times to survey acreage parcels. I always told them to give me a bid that included setting a metal "T" post every 300 or so feet along the property lines. The additional cost is small compared to the benefit of knowing where the property line is located when the corners are 1,000 or more feet apart.

Now here are some thoughts on finding existing survey stakes.

Years ago I owned property in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that had previously been surveyed and just like the OP, I needed to find the corner stakes. I was using a good quality sighting compass and running lines 1/4 mile long through flat fairly open woods. I measured the distance with a 300ft tape on a large reel. After about the right distance I searched with a metal detector but could not find the rebar survey stake.

What gives? I knew I could run a reasonable straight line under those circumstances (which included hanging flagging and back sighting as I went).

I literally took my pack off, sat down in the woods and scratched my head. Here's the secret.

The bearings on a survey are almost never based on true north. Nor are they based on magnetic north. Instead, the surveyor finds two known points and *assumes* one point is due north (North 0 degrees East, aka N 0 E) from the other point. All of the bearings on the survey are based on that assumption which is known as "basis of bearing".

This means that you almost always have to adjust the bearings you see on a land survey in order to convert them to bearings based on true north. The needed adjustment can easily be one degree or more.

Now the bad news. There is no way looking at a survey to know how much adjustment to apply.

Some landowners will be lucky and have surveys where the needed adjustment is so small it can be ignored. Of course those landowners will still need to use an up-to-date magnetic declination in order to try to locate their corners using the bearings on the survey. Declination changes faster than you might think. There are web sites where you can enter your coordinates and get the current declination.

And if all else fails (or you would simply like to speed up the process) you might take a look at http://www.propertylinemaps.com/ and get approximate GPS coordinates for your property corners.
Click to expand...


The property we are buying is in Michigan. The seller happens to live in Florida and claims he would be willing to help me find the corner stakes, but to date it's been extremely slow going getting this purchase done because of the distances between us (and the realtor in Michigan).

How much did it cost you to get a surveyor out and have them run stakes/flags on the properties?
 
TheCoilist said:
The property we are buying is in Michigan. The seller happens to live in Florida and claims he would be willing to help me find the corner stakes, but to date it's been extremely slow going getting this purchase done because of the distances between us (and the realtor in Michigan).

How much did it cost you to get a surveyor out and have them run stakes/flags on the properties?
Click to expand...

Sorry for tardy reply.

The cost varied. For example, in 2002 we paid $1,800 for a survey of 4 acres of waterfront on Beaver Island.

In 2007 I paid $5,000 for a survey of 100 acres in the UP bush. That surveyor used survey-grade GPS gear and tied my property into known section corners over a mile away.

In Kalkaska County in 2012 we paid $1,250 for 80 acres. About 1/2 open ground and 1/2 in trees.

In each case the bids we got varied a lot. So be sure to shop around.
 
Jelf said:
Sorry for tardy reply.

The cost varied. For example, in 2002 we paid $1,800 for a survey of 4 acres of waterfront on Beaver Island.

In 2007 I paid $5,000 for a survey of 100 acres in the UP bush. That surveyor used survey-grade GPS gear and tied my property into known section corners over a mile away.

In Kalkaska County in 2012 we paid $1,250 for 80 acres. About 1/2 open ground and 1/2 in trees.

In each case the bids we got varied a lot. So be sure to shop around.
Click to expand...


Good to know. Thanks!
 
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