Question of the day

[Peter Ehlert]

Neither, but I would expect the "surveyor" to have a clue

I admit, I have done worse... and seen Much Worse.
we all need to get a clue

[Gromatici]

Love the chalk, or keel works fine. I've never spayed out an elevation unless their tearing out a sidewalk and it's in the street and their is construction. What's the point of writing the elevation anyway? Obviously someone KNOWS what it is, so you don't need to advertise it. I was surveying when I was 16, so I've marked up a few things myself, but I always tell the crew to take it easy on the paint. It's just an eyesore. Two small spay dots works good too, not a giant triangle or circle.

[E_Page]

The question needs to be asked "Why was the BM marked that way?"

Was there an active or soon to begin construction project nearby? Was the BM marked so that a contractor could find it or avoid destroying it?

Sometimes, there may be valid reasons for marking like that. I don't recall doing that on a residential curb, but have done so along highway projects, and on other projects in the construction phase countless times.

Water based paints begin to fade away after a couple of months and are all but impossible to see after a year.

If this marking had nothing to do with protecting the point, or identifying it for use by grade checkers, keel or marker would have been much prferred, if it needed to be marked at all.

[btaylor]

I paint my control less and less. It just is not necessary a lot of times when you think about it.

The painting that gets me is if there is a monument at a fence corner you sometimes will see someone paint an orange or pink 1-foot vertical blob on the fence post about 3 feet up.

[land butcher]

LOL

I just paint a small circle around the BM and a vertical stripe on the CF - to facilitate the chainmans short memory of the BM location and LOS for the instrumentman from across the street.

CPs get a circle and pt #. I dont paint dots at the topo shots exc where I stop and have to continue on another day or set up.

[Berk Blake, PLS CA]

Having just been in New York City, your gangsta style graffitti is well below the norm. I also think that the paint marking the bench mark probably was heavy enough to break the curb and therefore the mark shouldn't be used for what the paint says it is.

[pls7809]

The worst one I saw was presumably a topo site I drove by in Riverside. There were painted point numbers next to every manhole, valve, FH, CB, etc and also it was painted "manhole", "water valve", "Hydrant", "Catch Basin", etc. on the ground next to the point number. I never actually saw if it was a survey crew that did that or not, but that was my first inclination.

[Mojavegreen]

Here is a couple I found. I also do like Dave does. It cheap and easy.

[Steve Martin]

Dave,

Good discussion. This issue comes up all too often. A Surveyor in San Diego did some letter writing a few years ago after a Survey crew went thru his neighborhood for a utility replacement project and painted up all of the 7' offset tag in the sidewalk. All were circled in paint and the sidewalk was marked with 8 inch lettering indicating a point number and the LS number on the tag.

I think that often young chainmen are taught to mark up points like this to clearly identify points for construction phase which may be months away.

Surveyors need to train staff to minimize their footprint and consider the people who live and work in the area who will have to look at this form of graffiti every day.

Dave has some good suggestions. Better descriptions of monuments, point numbers and locations need to be included in field notes. Sidewalks should not be used as a scratch pad.

[pls7809]

I agree this discussion is great. Should we suggest to the editor of the CA surveyor magazine to maybe run an article about this, in an effort to spread the word. Not sure what the hits are on this forum, but an article in the mag with some pics would get it out there to a bigger number I believe.

[btaylor]

A reason why some like to paint control up too is because for some reason all I see for control sometimes is a little c-nail or mag nail in asphalt, which would be very hard to find otherwise.

It does not cost that much to get stainless steel washers with some stamping on them.

[Mojavegreen]

I just keep some plain washers and a stamp kit in the truck. Stamp it out in the field. Great idea Ryan.

[Steve Martin]

Good Story Steve!

Remind me to tell you some time the one about the homeowner driving home one day to see a line of painted orange sewer offset stakes in the road in front of her driveway, a couple of spots of orange paint on her wrought iron gate, and her two apparently vocal dogs with very orange snouts.

[land butcher]

"The worst one I saw was presumably a topo site I drove by in Riverside. There were painted point numbers next to every manhole, valve, FH, CB, etc and also it was painted "manhole", "water valve", "Hydrant", "Catch Basin", etc. on the ground next to the point number. I never actually saw if it was a survey crew that did that or not, but that was my first inclination."

I see that a lot - thanks to GIS locaters

Those big washers have a tendency to remove themselves in a short period of time, less than a year.

[goodgps]

The BIG difference, is that somebody's paying for Our graphiti to be placed there. We should limit the amount of offsite marking and save it for our clients property.

Many clients want to see their property marked clearly and visibly. That is what they're paying for.

I've noticed, . . . the older the surveyor, the smaller the markings.

"gangsta" scribbling, is vandelism, period. The property they mark, is not of use to them. They often dont mark uo their own "cribs"

Our marking serve a purpose. i do agree, discretion should be employeed.

I'll take the surveyor. . . he/she's also much less likely to come back at night and smash building windows.