Hi everyone, I knew I wanted a career but I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I’ve worked for ADT doing Install/programming for a year. I’ve been delivering packages for FedEx since, I can’t do this forever. I’m able to get 2 years covered for school and then transfer the next 2 to another program. Just looking for any words of advice or maybe recourse suggestions on a different way of going about it. I’m (23M)single father to a 18 month old, the scheduling to pull off the schooling, work(local survey office mentioned Cad work for them while I school), and take care of her is monumental but I’ve slapped down at the plum bottom so I’ve got more motivation than I’ve ever dreamed up. I tried college during Covid but as an 18 year old with extreme FOMO i bombed out the whole year and acquired the ADT job and life took its twists and turns and now I’m here. Just seeking advice I suppose.

Hello everyone,

I’ve recently accepted a position as a survey drafter in a civil engineering firm. My role will primarily involve using Carlson Survey in conjunction with AutoCAD to produce survey drawings. While I’m familiar with the basics of survey drafting and have used AutoCAD before, it’s been a while since I’ve worked in this area, and I’m looking to sharpen my skills.

I’m seeking advice on the following: 1. Learning Carlson Survey • How can I enhance my understanding of Carlson Survey and its integration with AutoCAD? • Are there specific tutorials, resources, or books you’d recommend to refine my skills? 2. Improving AutoCAD for Survey Drafting • What are some key techniques or workflows in AutoCAD that are specific to survey drafting? • Any resources or tips for streamlining survey drafting tasks in AutoCAD would be incredibly helpful. 3. Best Practices for Survey Drafters • What are some best practices or tips for succeeding as a survey drafter in a civil engineering environment?

My goal is to build confidence in my role and contribute effectively when I start in two weeks. Any advice or insights from those experienced in this field would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you for taking the time to read. Really hoping someone with expertise in the field can help us.

We have lived in our home for over 7 years, and we’ve always based our understanding of the property lines on what the original owner told us. The first new neighbors also did their landscaping according to these assumed boundaries. However, the second set of new neighbors recently had some work done on their property, which required an updated land survey.

The survey company they hired couldn’t find the original pins, so they used measurements from other properties down the street to establish new pins. Unfortunately, these new boundaries are unfavorable to us. In the backyard, we’re now losing 2 feet of property, which is especially concerning since we have small lots and limited lakeshore—something that’s very important to lakefront homeowners.

In the front yard, the new survey shows that we actually have more property than we thought, but this creates another issue: their sprinklers are now 1.5 feet over the line, and the landscaping done by the first new neighbors is essentially on our property or on the line.

We’re left with several questions and concerns:

How accurate are surveys when the original pins cannot be located? Is it possible for someone to gain 300 square feet of lot area based on a survey (photos attached)? Could the elevation of the property play a role in this? We feel stuck, as this situation feels like a lose-lose for us. In the front yard, the sprinklers and landscaping are already in place, and it feels too late to change anything. In the backyard, losing property is very frustrating.

Unfortunately, we can’t afford to pay for a survey of our own. If we were to go with the new survey, would we have any grounds to request that the neighbors move their sprinklers or landscaping? This is not a situation we would have agreed to if the boundaries had been accurately determined from the start.

We’d greatly appreciate any insight or advice on what we should do next.

Thank you!

I am currently undecided in college and land surveying came up as a good match for me in a career test. I was curious about what the job is about and what you guys do on a day to day basis and what’s the good and the bad of the job?

I’m at the point of hiring a land surveyor for my property. A few monuments/markers i have been unable to find, that are listed in my &/or* my neighbor’s deeds. I’m suspecting my neighbors have been attempting to encroach, & may have attempted to conceal or removed a few pins to do so. I’m wanting to get a fence put up along the property lines so me & my dogs can utilize our full backyard; along with just obviously establishing whose yard is whose, so we just know & don’t have any issues going forward.

So i am wondering if a surveyor will always put new monuments/markers in, or if there is any reason they wouldn’t? Like for example, if a neighbor paved over a lot corner, or shenanigans with pouring blocks of concrete. Idk, lol. Any reasons? Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question. NYS, & no underground power-lines. Thanks in advance

I work for a small construction company and we use aged trimble hardware for surveying. I wonder if anyone has experience using software from other vendors with trimble hardware. For our uses, the software should read and write dxf, at least read dwg, and support gnss corrections from a web NTRIP source. Thanks!

Hello I bought a house and I need a survey to show the house in relation to the property lines. I am trying to show that the house is not encroaching on to the adjacent lots. What type of survey do I need?

Thanks in advance

I’m currently knocking out my gen eds at a local technical college. I’ve always loved working outside and have been pretty good with math. So far this seems like it could a fitting career for me(atleast more than anything else i’ve explored). My main concern is that I live in Wisconsin. How does it go in winters? Is there still a good workload and is it worth being outside in the cold. Thanks yall.

Has anyone did this or is there a program for this so that you can look around a 3d model recorded with a drone on a vr headset? (sry for my bad english)

HI There,

I am buying a new home, and wanted to know the difference between obtaining a new survey vs a survey inspection. If i stick with a survey inspection, would i need to obtain a new survey since it checks for any additions to the property?

I'm a land survey technician who just switched companies, and the new company doesn't have ArcGIS. I used GIS at least weekly in my previous position for various tasks. I've already put in a formal request for at least one seat for myself after a very frustrating experience trying to determine and adjust the coordinate system on a shapefile to make it line up. I'm currently drawing up a document about the benefits of using ArcGIS in Surveying, and justifications for the time it can save. I already have some things on my list about it's ability to manage county data much faster, extracting just the area you're working in so you don't have to try to process large shapefiles in C3D or ORD, and reprojecting data as well as some other capabilities.

I was just discussing the idea of getting a seat with one of my coworkers, who sort of snubbed the idea as though we don't need it. I really don't want to spend a large amount of time on simple tasks that take minutes in GIS....but I'm having trouble explaining it in terms that the survey team here will understand. We have other departments here as well, but I'm struggling to communicate all of the benefits I've seen ArcGIS play in surveying in particular and in a multidisciplinary company as a whole.

If you use GIS in your surveying process, what areas do you use it most in? How do you feel it saves you time? Why is it worth the license for your company? And do you have any suggestions on how I can communicate it to the team here?

Thanks in advance for the help!

Are you licensed? Maybe have a drone pilot license, and can hold some dialogue around civil engineering matters? If you are looking for your next opportunity, let’s talk! Client is confidential, seeking to fill and assist with relo.

Fence and property lines

Hello All

I apologize if these questions are rather obvious on the answer side but here goes

I am living in a block of townhouses and we are trying to put in fences. We have a copy of the land survey done from when the block was being built (the townhouse block is about 3 years old) but there is some dispute over the property lines. When we measured according to the survey it seems like our property line bleeds onto the back of one of our neighbours houses by 6 inches. The logic in my head says this can’t be possible but my question is, is there an instance where this could in fact be the case?

There is an easement on the corner of our two yards for the neighbour to be able to access the corner of their roof should they need it but I’m not sure if that makes a difference.

Does it make sense for me to just look for the monuments that were placed and go solely off of this? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Is it unheard of for GIS lines from a county government website versus a plat of survey to be off by about 40 feet from each other? I just was curious that’s what the distance was from when I measured from where GIS website showed to my actual plat survey line.

I was doing a 13,000 acre boundary and came across a lake and as I was walking searching for pins I hear a shot then branches snapping 200’ away then another 100’ away and as I duck behind a tree a third and final flys past only 50’ away. It was an old ass lady.

I come from the old SDR days, and transitioned to Carlson. Now we have one DC running Topcon Magnet, and I'll be honest I've never gone through the mxl file to see if it's actually legible, it just looks like a bunch of pseudo code.

I've never played around with trimble, microsurvey, or other DC software.

What do you folks think is the best?

I have a C3d topo with a Surface that needs to be moved horizontally. Any tips on how to move the Surface while preserving all the edits done to the Surface?

My family owns some land in the low country of South Carolina and we want a more detailed topographical map than we have been able to find. I did some research but the more I dig into it the more I have absolutely no idea of the price range we will be looking at. I understand there are millions of variables that play into this but am really just asking to see if it’s even worth it. If so then what is a very rough estimate of what we might expect our costs to be?

I own a landlocked piece of property that is accessed by a deeded easement across my neighbors property. I have built a small house on my property, that was approved by my town, with the orientation of the lot with the front yard facing the nearest public street (North to South). All was approved and construction was completed.

Recently, I submitted preliminary plans for an addition to my house in what was left of the buildable area on the site according to my town zoning ordinance (40' front, 25' rear, 10' sides). The Zoning Administrator, who is new and didn't originally approve my plans, says that my access easement along the side of the property, is actually my Front yard, thus making my house non-conforming and leaving no room to add on. He re-orienting my property East to West.

The Zoning Administrator claims the original zoning approval was issued "by mistake" and I will have to appeal his decision and apply for a variance.

I can't find a single case of a landlocked parcel that it's front yard is determined by its access easement. Any thoughts on my situation?

Thanks for any information

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping to get some advice on a communication situation I've been having with a local surveyor. I think my questions are fairly straightforward, but I might not be communicating them well, so I wanted to run it by the pros here.

I have a privacy fence, about 70 feet long, along one side of my property. Recently, I had that side staked because the neighboring house was sold, and while the new owner hasn’t moved in yet, they’ve been making updates. The staking shows that the fence encroaches onto my side by as much as 10-12 inches in some places, less so in others.

I want to document exactly where these deviations happen on either side of the fence. I initially asked the surveyor to place stakes every 20 feet along the fence area property line, but he said he couldn’t do that with confidence and that such close spacing wouldn’t be accurate. I then asked if he could at least drop stakes near the points where the fence deviates, but I didn’t get a clear answer.

Additionally, I’d like to know if these deviations would be marked or noted on the drawn survey. That is, what is the best way to more permanently be able to document the deviations other than just pointing to stakes in the ground?

For context, the previous owner of my house and the previous neighbor co-built the fence, which straddles the line partly due to an older structure on the neighbor’s side that predates modern setbacks. There’s no record of an encroachment agreement in my closing documents.

I mainly want to make the new neighbor aware of the encroachment since the fence needs maintenance, and some stakes are already in place that make the encroachment obvious. I’m just trying to get this officially documented on the survey. After that I will approach the owner to see what's up.

Any advice on how to better communicate my needs to the surveyor or handle this situation would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

I am closing on a property in December, and I'm only curious about one side of the property. The left is bordered by/easement of a private drive (there's a little tiny corner of land that is ours over there but it is city utility and marked by a post, the top is against a county road and has a treeline cut back from the city property so it's obvious, and the right side also has a tree line with the neighbors and I mean a DENSE treeline. The back part however is the main issue.... When this plot went up for sale before family bought from family. Before they were sharing land, and then they fenced it off after a survey on the front and right neighbors side... But the back part looks odd. I mean odd as in the bank showed us what they could of our property lines and they're nothing like what we walked. The sellers told us a small 10ft wide strip behind the neighbors house on the right goes with the land, but it doesn't. Not to mention it looks like they mainly did a treeline fence cut when the survey showed about a 20ft gap between the tree line and the property marker... Is it possible to get a one sided survey? I really just need to know the property line for that side and that side only? My question may be stupid, i don't know.. First time home buyer here and I can't find the answer... I just don't want to pay $2500 for only needing knowledge about the current family shared property line...

Can anyone give me any insight?

Sorry for format, on mobile.

I applied for the apprenticeship with Technical Engineers Apprenticeship and also applied for entry level Land Survey Technician roles whenever I find them on a job board like LinkedIn or Indeed, but haven't heard back from any of them. Currently working a low-paying full-time job to make ends meet so school is not an option right now. I'm wondering if there's any other way I can break in to Land Surveying that maybe I haven't tried yet. Anyone from Northern California - specifically the Bay Area that can advise?

I own a lot in South Carolina. The survey on file does not seem accurate. What does a land survey tell you? Will it show if the lot is buildable or not? I have been told there is a creek on the property would a survey give any type of information concerning the creek?

I’ve noticed there are very few job openings on Seek or LinkedIn. Has the construction industry been slow lately?

With the creek flowing right through the middle of the property, is it feasible to build on this land or would I need to divert the creek first? If divert, what costs are we looking at?