California Surveyors Forums

Hi folks,

We work in the LA, Orange, San Bernardino, and Riverside Counties area and our "go to" person for setting the wells for well monuments is unavailable to help at this time. Does anyone have any recommendations they can pass on?

Thanks,

The City of Glendale has a crew they use.
I don't think they are City employees.

This can all be done by the land surveyor. It is hard manual labor but hey, don't we do that lots of times anyway ? This can be necessary for a surveyor to know how to do when there are only one or two well mons and a contractor is not willing to get involved for that amount of work.

To start, the asphalt must be jack hammered out in a 18" dia. circle. Use an electric unit jackhammer running off a generator. If you don't want to stand in the intersection a long time, rent out a small 2 wheeler saw-cutting machine and cut out a 18" square. That will get the first step done quicker.

Then use a heavy 6 foot gad bar time to bust down 2 feet through the road section. Also post hole digger to scoop out. Unless isolated, be sure to partner up, and alternate, one guy always watches the traffic. Keep checking your 3'x3' ties to make the hole stays centered. If on a steep road grade, this can get very tricky, as you can see when you drop your plumb bob down in the hole. Keeping the hole and concrete column perpendicular to the surface of the road is the way to go, not using a plumb bob, which points to the center of the earth and not at right angles to the road surface.

Follow the standard drawing and specs booklet of your county for depths and widths of concrete column. You will need about 1 bag of concrete and 2 gal. of water per monument hole. Mix your mud, pour in the hole and top off at specified height relative to surface of roadbed per standard dwg. Best to use a quart size plastic paint container since it is nicely cone shaped and will allow you to form the very top section of your concrete column per drawing.

The prefabricated steel and concrete well (sold by most public water works suppliers at about $200 each) is heavy. Place over and around the column, and adjust so it's top is level with the road surface. Work without the cover, since the well is heavy enough.

The void outside of the well gets backfilled with more mud until 3/4" from surface of road. That will leave room for your new asphalt. I often ask road crews for a gallon of asphalt when I see them, so it is always handy in my truck in a few gallon coffee cans.

The only time to use your plumb bob is the final centering and placement of your pre-stamped brass disc. Sink disc anchor into the top of soft mud column. You are done.

You will feel real good about building your own well mon.

The new storm water runoff rules require any water cooled saw cutter to contain the water and vacuum it up so that none of the contaminated water could end up in the storm water system. I think that all left over dirt has to be cleaned up so that even the little bit between the rocks in the AC is cleaned up. Best to place all dug up debris on a drop cloth.

Things just get more and more complicated and expensive.

Desert tortoise,

You bring up an interesting situation. Do you believe you can contract for installing well monuments in a street with your Land Surveyors license? I looked at the Contractors laws especially B&P Code 7026 and it appears as if there may be a conflict with B&P 8725. I do not see any exemption like engineers have in B&P 6735.5.

Do you call Dig Alert before you start excavating as it appears to be required by Government Code 4216? Do you bond for the monuments as most agencies require?

Land Surveyors seem to complain about others invading our area of practice but could we be doing exactly the same if we go into the contractors’ turf?

Darth Vader

No Darth. I don't offer to provide contracting services to the public for well mons. That was just for myself.

Btw, what is the exemption engineers have ? The B&P 6735.5 you quoted has to do with use of word "certify". If you don't mind, please provide the code section again.

No, I did not notify dig alert per the government code 4216. So guilty as charged there.

I had the current road plans and determined from that and my two different detector devices that there was nothing on centerline or two feet below centerline.

Looks like I over looked the environmental reg there.

We have so many laws these days no one can begin to know them all. I figure just getting out of bed I have broken some law so I really don't care anymore and this is why.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5-5a6Q54BM

Desert tortoise,

I did error on my section of the PE Act. It should have been 6731.1 not 6735.5. I apologize and sincerely thank you for catching my mistake. No tongue in cheek, I sincerely mean that.

6735.5
A registered civil engineer may also practice or offer to practice, either in a public or private capacity, construction project management services, including, but not limited to, construction project design review and evaluation, construction mobilization and supervision, bid evaluation, project scheduling, cost-benefit analysis, claims review and negotiation, and general management and administration of a construction project.

Also, if you are doing the work for yourself I might also be incorrect. I just don't hear of many surveyors going out and setting monuments in a street that are not part a work for someone else and of course part of a written contract.

Darth

Does anyone have some companies to suggest? I have some questions that I would like to ask someone who does this type of install on a regular basis.