Marking a property boundary

Surveyors don't use boundaries. They SET boundaries, but they survey from POINT TO POINT to do it, and survey marks are marks of POINTS - corners on the property. The only things, and the important things, to keep track of are those survey points. Lose them, and you'll have to have a new survey done to re-establish the property corners.

It's also an enormous convenience to keep track of surveyed boundaries, but it's the survey points that establish the extent of the property. If you can, get those survey points marked in concrete, then beside it (preferably IN the wet, un-set concrete) pound a steel post deeply into the ground, with only about a foot protruding. This can if necessary be located with a metal-finder. Then beside THAT drive another steel post sticking up about 4 feet from the ground. Mark the steel posts with bright paint, with bright plastic caps on top so they are safe from impaling anything, and so they won't get rusted out from water getting inside or running down the side.

The post and paint is just a convenience to help you find the survey marks. It's the official survey marks that are important.

Make sure you know what symbols are used to mark the survey points.

bury a metal marker and GPS coordinates to each marker as well, that way if the surface marker is removed you can plot the line without surveying

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àigeach carnaid
chaora dhubh
"Don't raise your voice, improve your argument."

cruachan

major brought up a good point.

I have a much smaller piece of property (5 ac.) and luckily its square with the corners already marked and I have been wondering how to mark the borders. I was gonna call out the surveyor again to help but I could Just go buy a GPS and do it myself(I think)

Those things are accurate to +/- 3ft i think so it should work right?

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if the tree is ON the property line, it is not your tree. all property owners own part of the tree.

Fordson's idea: i have had cases of "neighbors" moving or removing survey pin sets and pipe sets. I had the surveyor relocate the boundary sets and drive a pipe set below grade and set a pin set in the pipe above grade.

taping: if the tape is tied by someone that perspires with a lot of salt, and the local rodents lack salt in their diet, they will eat away at the tape, sometimes removing it...

Thanks for all the ideas everyone. We did get an electronic file from the surveyor with the the survey. I'll admit that we've struggled a little getting it on a GPS unit. We're having some trouble with the projection. I need to purchase my own GPS unit and see if it will pick up back amongst the hills. Maybe it will in winter while the leaves are off.

I like the idea of the concrete markers. It would certainly be a workout and a challenge to get to some of these spots. Maybe we could at least get the major points marked. To give you an idea of the shape, I'll try to attach a map. The pink hash is the farm boundary.

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Wow! What a Job, Good Luck to You.

I found out that using trees as corner markers on a survey doesn't always turn out so well. For many years, one corner of my property was simply described as "an 18" hickory tree". Of course, that tree eventually died, fell down and became one with the forest floor. Had to pay the surveyors $400.00 to come out and set a new market and write up a new legal description.

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What the Forest Service does (when possible) on a corner is mark 3 trees with a ring of red paint around the tree at breast height, then a blaze at the base, also painted. The base blaze faces the corner, and is marked as to distance and bearing from the corner pin. That way, if the pin gets "gone", and even if you loose a tree or two, you have backup as to where the corner is.

What corners?

I mostly see meandering lines. In the Midwest, most farms of any size are described as sections or sub sections. This is a legal description, and was originally based on a geodetic survey and it's markers. A re-survey of a given farm property often finds these corner points several feet or more in-correct. If a boundary fence has been established using these corners and the fence has been in place for a certain number of years, the fence then denotes the boundary even if the original corners were found to be inaccurate.

Land that was settled early in the country's history tends to be described more like "Starting at the bent oak south of the knob go due east 300 paces to the Siloam Creek and then South along the creek 400 rods to iron peg driven by the Scrivner road bridge at Siloam landing...... etc, etc..... The surveyors that have to deal with that sure earn their money.

After seeing the OPs map, one can assume this is a surveyors nightmare and the property description must be hundreds of pages instead of the usuall paragraph.

If there is currently a fence around the property and you are happy with it's location, do not let it fall into disarray!

I do not know if it is legal there, but here the best thing to do is to take 4 stakes and criss-cross the corner point with string stretched between nails driven into the top of the stakes. One then removes the marker, digs a post hole, fills it with concrete, then places a two or three foot rod (or 3/4" pipe with a cap on top) down into the concrete almost flush, using the crossed strings to place it in exactly the same place as the marker. Yep, it is a pain to get the gravel, sand and cement up to the location sometimes, and if you know someone with a pto driven concrete mixer it really helps. Or, if you can get your neighbors to agree on the placement, set in a 3'" diameter iron pipe corner post in the concrete for a fence corner you can all use it for your fences if you chose to build them.

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Moving to that big black hole in the night satellite photo. (also the hole in cell phone coverage )

There is not a fence around the property currently. We have continued to add to the property piece by piece as neighbors have wanted to sell. Our two latest purchases have been to gain us road access at different points. This way we own all the way to the road instead of just having an easement.

The survey was quite extensive and took a good 6 months. The bill was over $20K so that is why we want to make sure we keep the markers in good condition.

If this is true, you got a deal. A two man crew or more for 6 mos. 20K is cheap.

Orange marking tape usually fades fairly quickly, and if it is in the direct sunlight it may fall apart in a year. I like the PVC idea best, white actually shows up better than blaze orange in the woods. It would cost a fair amount if you purchased it new, but you might be able to get together with a plumber or contractor and get scraps for next to nothing. It really doesn't make any difference up in the woods if one sleeve is 2 inches and one is 3.

Paint tends to be more expensive than one thinks and doesn't necessarily hold up well, but if you have some odds-and-ends cans of some exterior paint laying around, that might work too.

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Moving to that big black hole in the night satellite photo. (also the hole in cell phone coverage )

Handheld gps with trees...may as well toss property corner 30' in the woods...they aint even close to being accurate for a property corner.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2

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Not 3', maybe 30'...a waas system might get yo closer than 30', but with a tree canopy all bets are off.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2

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if it makes any difference to you...

A monument for the state is a cast iron rod that's 15 feet long and set 4 feet (just under the frost line. (at least in MN).

And why did that project take 6 months? We mapped an entire section (Including quarter corners) to include researching and finding the county and state monuments in one semester. AND we did all the CAD file work to make both an overlay AND a CAD file with Lat/Long coordinates of today AND from the original settings of the monuments to adjust for magnetic changes since it was originally done. That's only working on it 3 hours a day, M-F for 2 1/2 months.

And we were only 2nd year Land survey students.


Unless you are getting a GNSS quality gps and the subscription to go with it for the radio corrections, getting a GPS to do your own stuff is pointless. Just to lease this stuff is $1500 a month.

I hope you are also getting copies of his field notes for that that price as well.

For keeping any markers looking good indefinitely? Have 'em powder coated. I've gone back and checked out powder coated steel railings my DH built and they looked great 10 years later!

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Christie Acres
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I thought 6 months was a long time myself, should have taken a two man crew about a week and a half tops and about 3 days of computer work. They could have performed a field run topo on 1500 acres in 6 months!

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2

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When I bought this place I had it surveyed and drove T posts in every 30 feet and 3 inches inside my property line and kept the tops day glow orange and the numbered pegs on the corners cleaned off with pvc pipe around them despite one neighbor attempting to remove the corner pins on the north side of my property two times since 2002 when the owner of the property behind me chose to erect their stock fence 15 feet inside their property line that squares with mine.

After having the original survey company restore the markers and T posts twice myself, the surveyor visited my neighbor and served him with notice and pictures from my hidden aerial surveillance camera system he mounted in my trees that explained they had record of him attempting to obscure the defined survey for attempted squatter encroachment claim of the 3300 square feet of my property he was trying to claim based on the fence the owners behind me had erected.

My surveyor also told him that the notice was a courtesy warning however after having me call them out twice to resurvey the 1996 survey in less than a 10 year period, a copy of the courtesy notice would be filed in their office in the event their firm was called to testify in a class C felony boundary dispute in court.

When the neighbor confronted me of threatening him with a court case I was able to truthfully tell him I only called the survey company to resurvey after I founf my northern boundary line obscured after he or the electrical ROW crews had done tree removals within 10 feet of my pegs and T posts and they came up missing and the notice and photos was all their doing. What I didn't tell him was the surveyor I use is the same family as the surveyor my father used for all his properties and my family has dealt now with grandfather, son and grandson of the 50 year reputable survey company.

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dangit, you just like spending my money....lol....oh well, looks like i'll get the surveyor out there to help mark the lines, any other way to figure out where the line runs with only the corners marked?

To the OP, good luck on marking those boundries, that looks like a mess and a half...lol

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U.S. Constitution -10th Amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

To those wondering about the length time, I doubt the surveyors had this as their only job. The 6 months included all the research time which made up the majority. The field crew was 3 people but I'm not sure how many people they had working on the research.

With a piece of property like this, there are many landowners/neighbors involved with some vague guidelines (crest of the hill, bottom of the hollow). Just on our farm alone I think there were about 7-8 different land purchases to form the entire farm. So there is a substantial amount of time that has to go into getting everything to match up. Some of the previous surveys were very old/not been surveyed as far as I know in the past 50 years.