Feedback On . . . Surveying
Reader offers feedback and improvements on previously published article.
September/October 1975
By Dave Beiter
I've just read Aimee Gelwick's "Surveying for the Homestead" in MOTHER NO. 34 and would like to suggest some shortcuts for use when accuracy isn't essential.
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Around here, do-it-yourself surveying—most of it pretty crude—is very common. Kentucky law allows any person to measure land and enter his findings on a deed. There's no need to hire a professional or to use standard instruments. In fact, to judge from the look of the average record, the fellow who did the work never even saw the property he was laying out . . . much less a compass. You'll often run across "official" boundaries that cross themselves or fail to close by thousands of feet.
Other states quite likely have higher standards for surveys to be placed on record. Be that as it may, you're perfectly free anywhere to locate the corners of a tract with the help of an old-timer and measure the land for your own purposes. And, believe it or not, you can do so quite easily—with very simple equipment—and still come up with reasonably accurate results. (A 10% error in acreage is acceptable under state law, but I like to keep the limit to 5%. My surveys generally check out to about that if I pace the distance up a steep mountain through briers, and to about 1% if I use a tape measure.)
OK. if you accept a 5% error in area, your distance measurements will automatically be off by 2-1/2% and your angles by 2° 50'. One practical result is that you won't need a transit . . . much too accurate (and expensive) a device for this kind of less-than-perfect work. You might as well forget the several hundred-dollar instrument and lay out angles with a Silva Ranger compass (No. 15T from Recreational Equipment, Inc., 1525 11th Avenue, Seattle, Washington 98122), which will cost you $19.30 and do the job just as efficiently. Accuracy to 1° is normal, and you can get error down to 1/2° with some care. Other advantages. The compass is nearly indestructible (no fancy carrying case is needed), fits into a pocket, and uses you for its tripod . . . a fact you'll appreciate after you've hauled a transit up a couple of ridges and through a blowdown.
Speaking of ridges, Aimee's Fig. 7 showed how to measure distances accurately on an incline with the aid of a plumb bob. This can also be done by taping the distance from top to bottom of the hill, determining the angle of slope, and figuring out the horizontal distance by means of trigonometry. Then again, given the tolerances I've set, you can duck the whole business most of the time. If you ignore a vertical angle of 12° 50', for example, you'll end up with a 2-1/2% error in distance—always on the long side—for that stretch of ground. This is acceptable for practical purposes . . . and in my neck of the woods you'll still be doing a lot better than the guy who carried out any previously existing survey of the property.
