That one time a surveyor missed the mark by 6 feet

I was setting up a tower crane on a job site near downtown Nashville last spring. Surveyor guy said his marks were dead on, but I double checked anyway and found his north reference was off by a full 6 feet. What do you do when site plans from the engineer don't match what's actually on the ground?

2 comments

2 Comments

blakem371mo ago

Bro I had almost the exact same thing happen on a job in Chattanooga two years ago. The surveyor we had swore up and down his control points were perfect, but when I ran my own check with a total station his north line was off by almost 8 feet. We ended up having to call the engineer and they found out the surveyor had used the wrong datum from the county gis database. It's crazy how often site plans and reality don't line up and people just trust the paper without double checking.

kaiharris1mo ago

Damn that's rough. Eight feet off is a huge mess to clean up. I feel for you man, nothing worse than having to tear out work because someone else's numbers were wrong.