California Surveyors Forums

Usually when I did out an old iron pipe or other monument I just fill the hole back up with gravel. If neighbors give me an ugly look I carry some cold patch asphalt and I will put that down on the top couple of inches. Anyone else have any tips or tricks. Just wondering.....

Cold patch has saved me a lot of grief form nearby property owners who get angry with "us" making pot holes in "their" roads.

Tightly packed native material with a 2x2 and tack seems to hold well enough for us to be long gone.

We carry an old broom and make a good effort to sweep the debris off of the road. This seems to carry a lot of weight with the locals.

unless you have an unlimited budget, it isnt cost effective to carry some sewer pipe and small lids for make-shift monument wells.

A couple of weeks ago I dug up a couple of original pipes in a 1926 subdivision that were down about a foot and a half. Since the street is in a tony area and had recently been repaved, I decided not to leave a gravelly hole behind. Instead, I packed a couple of inches of sand over the pipes (to make things easier for the next guy who decides he has to see the pipes with his own eyes) and set 3/4" aluminum rods with 2" aluminum caps over the pipe centers. Next I packed native soil to within 2 inches of the surface, then filled to the surface with a 50/50 mix of sand and anchoring cement. I left the caps exposed but about a half-inch below the surface of the road so they'll be more likely to survive any implements that scrape across the road surface.

The end results look pretty good, provide a couple of nice marks to perpetuate the pipe positions, and should be pretty durable. I'll document the caps on the ROS I'm preparing for the project. And if someone really wants to eyeball the original pipes, it won't be too much work to chip through the sand/cement mix to get to them.

In our area we follow meth addicts around and wait til they get done stealing copper wire from airconditioner motors. We can then grab the magnets and use those in the holes. . . JUST KIDDING !!

All of these suggested methods sound romantic and even some of them are cost effective. I am interested if there is any state law regarding monument "cover-up-ment"

I'm not sure what a "Tony" area is but the client there must be able to afford all of that deluxism.

The oddity of all this resealment is that some crotchity crab-A$$ like me will break out the pick and destroy everything just to "see" the actual monument itself. And you wont believe how some field crews describe a monument character......

When I returned from the field today I found an unexpected package in the mail from Dave Wooley. It contained 9 ring magnets, presumably the kind that Lo-Ink sells.

Thanks, Dave -- hint taken! I'll put them in my truck and make use of them next time I set aluminum caps in concrete.

Dave's sent me "Care Packages" before, too.

I bought a roll of rubberized magnetic material, intended to stick on walls and such to create a magnetic strip, from Big Lots for a few bucks. The roll will make a few hunderd pieces to be added to pipes and monuments to make them sing.

The only problem I can see is that some of us judge the depth and size of the monument by its PinFinder signal strength. A bit of magnet in the pipe will make a 1" IP a foot down sing like a 2" pipe just below the surface!

What is asphalt? Have I been in the hills to long? Got to go feed my mule.