Finding property line with a compass
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- čas přidán 17. 02. 2018
- I needed to mark our north east line on our property and I didn't want to pay to get it done (we already had a survey done), so I set out to mark it by traversing the line with a compass.
The compass I used (please don't buy it, it wasn't very good):
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01... - Jak na to + styl
Have a map. Orient your compass to the map. Know the magnetic variation for your area and apply it to your compass. Holding the compass level, look through the sighting line on the compass and identify a distant object on that line. Counting your steps, walk to that object. Repeat this process.
I’ve been fighting this same thing for the last 3 weeks and cane to CZcams to find answers. Thank you for the info. I thought I was going crazy. I’m also too cheap to pay someone to do something, even if I don’t know how to do it but think I do.
I am an experienced Land Surveyor.......I use a SUUNTO handheld compass (about $150 )..........it can be more accurate than you describe,,,,,BUT the North Arrow on your survey map may not be 2018 Magnetic North.........it may be 1940 Magnetic North..........or Solar North......Astronomic North........True North.........or GPS North...........Magnetic North (declination) changes from year to year (and you can make corrections for that)..........dont hold your magnetic needle near anything iron,steel, magnetic, etc(it will pull your needle off)..............Find an old line of your survey , Measure the compass bearing of that line, and the difference between the map bearing and your measurement can be used to compute the correction to put on each of your lines(the correction should be consistent on every line)..............but these issues are complicated for the layperson---you might need an experienced Surveyor to help you........
Hi Dennis, which Suunto compass do you use/recommend? Or if it's not available any longer, which features should we look for. Thanks!
Correct. The compass may help you get out of the woods though.
I am a professional surveyor and I have used a compass to set rough line often. Did you adjust for magnetic declination? Certainly a must along with correcting off a known bearing.
I prefer a compass with a mirror in the lid which allows one to sight over the compass and to use the mirror to align the compass. Also, I always sight to a point and when I get to that point, I do a back site from where I came from to check myself.
Clearly compasses are not precise, but they are a useful tool.
Yep, I did adjust for magnetic declination, I am fairly certain this was just a junk compass! I have used good compasses in the past to work point to point down a property line, and though I won't say I did "perfect" I was able to be accurate enough.
From my research I have found the Suunto MC-2 (Made in Finland, not covidland) to be the most widely accepted budget friendly option among hikers and guides. It has all of the options of a mil-spec with a less degree of difficulty in using. Again, this is what I found during my research, I am a noob at using but am experimenting as I go. Check out the reviews and see for yourself...and if you get lost; blame them!
My first thought and he's therefor giving people terrible information.
Just started learning how to use an old Brunton Pocket Transit myself just to find my property lines. Metal on the tripod might have affected it.
whats a good compass, and whats up with those junk compass apps anyways ??? wow.
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Same exact thing as you bro. No survey map, no markers, just old clues and a general idea. Found my neighbors old survey online and after digging around the 40 years worth of debris I located a pin. Hurray a starting point. Then after some deep searching online I found my own 40 year old survey map which showed rebar corner pins and distances. Got my compass, followed the bearings and after 300+ft I was maybe 80ft off. Did a little research and discovered magnetic declination and a simple calculation later that put my bearings pretty much right on with a simple compass. Other thing I learned is the measurements are actually distances on a 2 dimensional plane, like a map, not a 3D plane like in real life. That’s where geometry comes in. A*2 + B*2 = C*2. My property climbs over 100ft so the measurements written down on the survey are on a flat plane yet actual measurements seem longer. Theres an old saying "an acre of quilt covers more ground in Colorado then it does in Kansas." 2 ways to figure things out from here.
1: If A is the survey map distance say 300ft, B is the height which most don’t know and C is the measured distance by you say 325 then calculate C-A=B or 325*2 - 300*2 and then take the square root of that number and you get you exact elevation gain which in this example would be the square root of 15,625 = 125ft elevation gain. Our county has a useful parcel map database with satellite photo and elevation contours so even then you can get a close enough idea of elevation gains to help figure out either sides A or C. Once I figured all this out I located all my pins buried in ground and even found the rotting wood stakes with survey tape in the ground along my property line. Line of sight markers. Usually located at hill crests if any. All this with a cheap $10 compass and a $20 laser measuring tape which usually put me within a foot+/- or so.
2: Trigonometry -remember Soh Cah Toa. Adjacent is survey map distances, opposite is height, and hypotenuse is hand measured distances. Using Sin, Cos and Tan of degrees along with a theodolite app on my iPhone, which vertically are pretty accurate, can get you real distances between 2 points. Ex: X°(tan) multiplied by survey map distance gets you vertical heights between 2 points.
Very fascinating once you crack the code. Now I’d survey anyone’s property big or small just for fun. I wouldn’t profess it’d be exact all by myself to where I’d set markers on virgin ground but if there are any old markers at all in any terrain that they may not even know about I’ll find them. Every property is located on a township map that gives you the distances and bearings you’d need.
Please do a video on this.
My head hurts after reading that lol. I was daydreaming back to my old geometry class listening to Mrs Clark. A terrible teacher by the way. She would stand in front of class with her teachers book and read it to us word for word. She would start reading and get confused and start all over. That was my experience of geometry 😂😂
I use a Brunton induction dampened compass. You can find them on Ebay from $125 to $200 used, accurate to within 1 degree.. Don't even bother using a compass that you can't set declination on. Since declination changes from year to year a good way to calibrate your compass is to use two known points. It can be a simple as using Google Earth to find your county roads bearing and using that to set your compass. In my area it was within .5 degrees of my survey. If you've already located your property corners ( mine were 1/4 mile apart ) install sturdy wood fence post at each end and pull a wire tight between them, trimming the brush as you go. Have fun.
Surveyors used a compass to determine the direction of survey lines. Compasses point to magnetic north, rather than true north. This declination error is measured in degrees, and can range from a few degrees to ten degrees or more.
And to complicate things further, that difference changes over the years.
My first thought was to ask if there was metal in that tripod which would throw you off by a mile. Buy a good compass and listen to the previous professional
Great video Marcus and, as usual, you are a problem solver.
Thanks! Per usual I thought this was going to be a simple project and then it ended up taking me weeks to figure out :)
Thank you for reassuring me that I was not the only one out there trying somewhat unsuccessfully to do this. I know where four surveyor pipes are on my 1.25 acre property (I live in a rural subdivision and am just curious about the boundaries for our property). It is wooded, as well. I cannot line up one pipe to another using the phone app I have but thought it would be more accurate than a needle compass. Thank you for the hint on using a tripod. Plus need to figure how much silt, etc may be covering the other pipes and try my metal detector to find them. If I can find one new pipe, I will feel I have been successful!
Go ahead and search for your corner monuments. But beware of setting anything along lines yourself. You'll be liable for any damage that you may do to your neighbor's land, if you're wrong
Heard about you from Jim's In Town Gardening so i decided to check you guys out :) Sorry that your compass was so off, at least you caught it early, i would have ended up 700 feet off haha
Nice, glad you found me! :-) I can tell you that I spent a good bit of time scratching my head on that one, I very much wanted to assume I just didn't know what I was doing, I never imagined that the compass could be a large source of the issues I was having.
Thank you for sharing I am having the same problem as you are. I will check my compass for a accuracy.
I’m guessing your declination should have been 17 degrees in your location. I’ve used a Silva compass for almost 70 years for handheld work. For line running, use a professional post compass. Retired timber cruiser, and ex Boy Scout
From your survey I'm assuming that you know the bearings are referenced from North or South with the degrees therefrom to the East or West. I had to buy a surveying book to learn that. It's lots of fun beating around properties looking for corners. I eventually bought an antique Gurley transit to survey with. I think I missed my calling - love surveying.
I have been using a metal detector for two weeks finally for the last two pipes/corners. I also used 100' tape, pain in the ass but it worked .Also determined the neighbor put his fence five ft. on my side ,over 500' of fence. I tried telling him before hand ,he said the property line goes straight. It still would have went straight as the old fence did before.
Well as a retired surveyor ,most people look at the plat or map with the bearings on it .But one thing is maps use true north when a compass uses magnetic which is about 20° difference .My friend tried the same thing you are doing ,and told him with my equipment I can't be accurate . so maybe that will explaine why you where off 30°.His property was 1800' long so if you took the tangent of 20° x 1800' he wpuld be off little over 600',his lot was only 371',so he would have crossed into the property.
i have a compass, a few actually, the one i used in the army for 20 years i bought at the BX for i think 45, it is a stoker and yale, and i do trust my life to its readings and have actually done so. the other is a brunton, i paid about 400 for it some years ago. it is one where all the readings are backwards since it is a direct read. you have to know how to use these.
1. prove your compass, (that 88 degrees on a survey map could be their compass, not one that is accurate, although that is remote.)
2. know your declination. this is critical and your 30 degrees could be largely due to declination (movement of magnetic north which the surveyor should have compensated for.)
3. use a map, a sketch, something, when available so that if you have objects at a distance you can triangulate your location.
4. good film
i have one of those cheap compasses and i know how to make it work for me and yes, it does perform well. you just need to know how to get it to work.
a compass (decent ones) are precision devices.
compass was probably ok, just gotta learn to use them, and it dont have to be perfectly level, as long as its not angled so much the needle is in a bind, and ur not going to get true reading out of 4 compasses next to each other, space them apart a few ft, and out doors, and not on tripods full of metal, :) now back to my lack of knowledge about land surveys ..
I have the same compass. It's a crap. My shows over 8 degres East than my another compases....
I have a collection of 9 compasses, including a Cammenga and Suunto MC2, and it also includes that $10 sighting compass -- which is a good enough compass for hiking _if_ _used_ _correctly_ and that includes knowing how to adjust for magnetic declination when using it with a map. That compass marries up exactly with azimuths on my Suunto, so I guess yours must have been faulty from new.
I haven't yet tried mine on a tripod to see if the metal in the tripod affects the performance of the compass.
The main problem with that $10 compass is that it's very heavy.
I tried my compass on a tripod between 2 known points where I knew the bearings and it did slightly affect the needle. Didn’t think there was any magnetic metal on it it seemed pretty cheap
@@RB60802magnetic north and true north aee two different locations. A compass goes to magnetic north. You have to figure or find out where true north is from magnetic north and then adjust your compass for that.
I have in time past checked my compasses by the North Star, and some did vary more than others. So it is best to check a compass by a known Meridian.
On your survey map does it tell you the variance of true north to magnetic north?
A few comments - 1) the declination error changes with time, so you need to know the year it was surveyed. 2) I've seen significant errors in the deed and in some cases, the deed seems to have referenced magnetic, not true north, back in the day 3), you had the compass between metal phones - you *must* have the compass away from any metal. 4) there is no way that those compasses are off 30 degrees - as others mentioned declination errors are perhaps about 10 degrees. I would recommend you have some outside reference to validate your assumptions about the accuracy using your deed angles to reality, such as two different pins, or those fence posts.
I realize this is several years old now, but for me, I'd start with using the tools on Google Earth and a GPS.
Very Interesting
Declination my man. You must set declination into your compass. If you compass has no such declination scale adjustment, it is indeed junk for most practical purposes.
And unless you have about a 6" diameter compass, it does not meet the definition of a precise instrument. A compass is a fourth order tool, IE, meets no standards acceptable for boundary location.
Buy yourself a cammenga model 27. We use those compasses to get around all over Vietnam and I still use mine to get around Indiana. Admittedly the better you are at land nav the better the Cammengas going to work for you but that's the same with pretty much any compass. I just purchase and received a prismatic compass and I don't know yet whether it's accurate or not. I too got it off of Amazon and pay less than a tenner for it. I paid 70 for the commenga. I also use Silva and Biriea compasses and they're all accurate enough that I've never managed to get myself lost. Don't ever trust a piece of equipment to do the job it was purchased for until after you've tested it. That holds true with a compass and make sure that you know what you're doing with that piece of equipment. And no I'm not trying to be a smart-ass but believe it or not I've seen it happen
Not a graduate of Army Land Navigation. No compass can be off that much. One word: Declination.
So was the road and bridge on your property!?
Are you saying the survey was given in compass bearings? Did you dial in the magnetic variation on the compass?
Many surveys, even ones done today, use compass readings as a basis of bearings.
Need to know the difference between true and magnetic north.
What about GPS units like the Garmin hand held units.
I have one of those, and I could compare it to a survey marker that I know the location of.
And from that, locate the front (road right of way) on a chunk that I own.
All I have to go by it the plat map and corner markings on the larger plot that my land is an exact part of. Don't have big trees, only sparse scrub, mostly mesquite...
theres an app called onxhunt that finds boundary lines. I havnt personally used it yet but heard it was good and I am going to try to find my boundaries with it.
I have used that app and find it to be wholly inaccurate in the woods. I can be standing on the property marker and it is way off...about 20-30 feet most of the times. Even GPS locators are way off from my experimenting. This is why the surveyors get the big bucks because they have to be 100% sure.
Metal on tripod and or declination is off, might be doing opposite of what you need as in adding or subtracting from N.
Your surveyor could have marked that line spot on in 3-4 hours tops. One shot one begging corner and one the the last one. Mark the line. But good experience for you. Smart going with the bearing on 3 points instead of your compass. Decalation was not being accounted for. No one trys to plumb their own house but everyone thinks they are a surveyor! Good luck
Going through this right now. We’re buying 4.5 acres seller paid for survey did not pay to have lines blazed just set the corners. Was told by 2 different realtors this is how it’s done now days.
You would have got a better result with a M2 military compass. You can buy them on military ebay or military store. The precision is 0.5 degree or 10 mils. A MC-2 is also a pretty good choice as the Cammenga 3H. But they are clearly not in the $10 budget.
You were most likely off because you were following magnetic north, not true north. NOAA had an online calculator that provides you the difference so you can adjust for it, dependent on your current location. Higher end pocket compasses have an adjustment that lets you correct for this on your instrument.
A metal tripod???
how would I do a line that is south 29 degrees and 15 degrees west ,
compass deviation is an issue , I have seen the original surveys to be way off also
You say exact heading but in reality it is probably just an assumed bearing system that your local surveyors came up with, unless they used GPS. then you need to know what projection they worked in. You need to know if they worked in state plain coordinates or a localized grid. Are the bearings base on geodesic north, astronomical North, assumed North ? You should have paid then to clear line for you.
I have done that a few times for clients.
A magnet is a magnet is a magnet... and any cheap or expensive compass will align with magnetic north; the better compasses will do it more steadily and consistently. A large portion of the difficulty with an old survey here is not so much the quality of the compass, but how much magnetic north deviates over time. I have a 30 year old survey, which points to magnetic north, which may be very different today: the angles on the survey are a reference to what magnetic north was 30 years ago. If I know what is the difference of magnetic north today, compared to 30 years ago ON THAT LAND, then I can adjust all the angles by that difference, and in doing so, I can eliminate a lot of the error you would have when using a cheap compass AND an old survey. How can you know that difference? Probably best to start by locating two pins on the same straight line of the survey, find the line between them, measure with your compass the angle of that line against magnetic north today, and find the difference between that new angle and the angle of that line on the old survey, then use that difference on ALL the angles on the survey. -- Also, I am not an experienced land surveyor, but I am about to locate pins on a land I am about to purchase, and both this video and the comment by Dennis Manning is what will help me greatly.
Suunto MC-2 is a great compass
One issue that I see is that you're cutting down brush, but you have no clue if the stuff you're cutting down is on your property.
Yeah, that's the first thing I noticed. Tree damages can be triple value in some states.
chainsaw and a stringline:)
Use a Bronton Compass, not that online junk from Amazon..
suunto mc2
Sorry I didn't see this 6 years ago when you posted it. Bad news- the compass yu have is a cheap chicom gimmick toy. If you want something tht works, you have to spend the money. Get a Brunton compass. Mine, when I bought it 30 years back, as $360. It is of the quality required to do actual land surveys with. It is a tool, not a toy. With all the effort you're putting into this, you're better off hiring a surveyor to do all the work. But alas, that is...6 years ago. Sorry man, way too late to help.
Why the stupid music, takes away from the video.
Have the surveyor stake out your property line. The legal liability will be on the surveyor if anything is wrong. You DON'T want to do it yourself and get it wrong. That's a quick trip to being sued into obilivion. Land surveying is a profession for a reason. The equipment is extremely expensive. Accuracy and precision matter in a big way. A ten dollar compass on Amazon and doing it yourself could cost you tens of thousands in legal fees. Don't be that guy. I work in land surveying and have seen the nasty side when things go wrong.
I like how he goes into detail on compasses but didnt know the difference between a $10 compass and a $200 compass. Just because you know a little and have a basic understanding of something doesn't qualify you as someone to teach others
Liar!!! that compass is more accurate than your Suunto.
I think i have the same kind of compass as you do,,,you are right, it is a piece of junk, totally useless.
You don't know how a compass works.
Was your declination set on your compass?