How much time needs to pass before a "set" rod becomes a "found" rod ?

Suppose I set iron rods at all four corners of a rectangular tract on Monday and prepare (and deliver) a plat on Tuesday morning. Then on Wednesday morning, the client informs me that I also need to survey the adjoining tract. When I go back to the site, I find the rods that I set on Monday. Should the corners I set on Monday be called "found" or "set" on the new plat ?  How much time needs to pass before I can "find" rods that I previously set ?

I would say that depends on your area. Not sure where you are from your profile. Since I am in a recording state. I tend to Note. Found ........... per Survey Number 2551 _____County Survey Records. When I record a survey with set monuments I also typically note 5/8"Rebar w/ YPC "McGrath LS 45793" Set on ________.

So if the one survey is recorded and Im doing the adjoiner I would call to it by its origin, but if its not, I may note, set on ________ per record of survey for ______ as submitted to ______ county on _____. Honestly I can't see the need to rush the second survey. But if they were going in concurrently I guess I would just make sure to note all the details.

Short answer yes, call it found. Your survey is a snap shot in time. 

 

A couple of us out here in the boondocks have been having an IN DEPTH discussion of this “set v. found” baloney for several months.

 

Set implies that you did it just NOW!

 

Found implies that it was “lost” (so to speak).

 

We are adopting TERMS more in line with what it is that Surveyors really do:

 

Recovered (fka found)

 

Replace (fka set)

OOPS... almost forgot:

Restore (also fka set)

 

It gets a lot more involved than that, but that's the short version.

 

Loyal

This probably depends on your jurisdiction. Where maps are recorded (checked) finding your own recently set monument will often send up a red flag. Ownership is a factor as well. If the same client owns both tracts the surveys should be cross-referenced to minimize future ambiguities. The footprints we leave are just as important as the footprints we follow.
MLB

I do a simpler version of Jared's reply. (I'm not in a recording state.) The survey itself has a specific date. I would call the recently set one's 'set' with the date they were set. Same with the found one's you based the first survey on. I call them found and state the date they were found. 

I'd note it as Jered or as Mark would.  You don't need to limit yourself to a binary choice.

Another option is the phrase "pin (etc.) previously set." "Previously" could be yesterday or 1987. A note referencing your previous drawing(s) may suffice if a user wants more data. In some situations where things are touchy and I've done a lot of pertinent work over the years I've used multiple symbols and a legend indicating "iron pin set 1990," "iron pin set 1992" and so forth. One or two such drawings of mine have about 6 different symbols for my own pins. But that's rare.

Even if  I do two surveys adjacent surveys in succession and there are common marks on both surveys those shown placed  on the first plan will be shown as found on the second plan , Err that requires some clarification,... that  is provided a D9 has not moved in and managed a fatal attraction.

Tis a sequential record.

When you get to my age, believe me you love to write found by a mark that you originally placed 30 odd years ago.


RADU

What a bunch of %#!!           I would have to say that a point set by you can never be "found" by you.  It should always benoted "recovered Concrete Bound, set 12/25/2010" or whatever it is that will designate that it was also set by you.

I'd consider it very poor choice to attempt to create a history of a monument that you set.....

"Recovered Iron Rods previously set by this firm/PLS on mm/dd/yyyy"

Something to that effect. I would reference the previous survey in the adjoiners info.

Don is mostly right. Because annotations pertain to the reliability of monuments, and "found" in this context basically means "origin and history uncertain," whereas one generally knows (or should know) the pedigree of the monuments one has previously set.

But there are exceptions. Because without further annotation, "set" also implies that the monument is in the position one set it in. Just this spring I came upon a pin we had set in 1988 -- it was a rusty piece of the rebar we've always used and it had my timeworn cap still affixed, so I was confident it was our pin. But it was bent, loose, and several feet out of position -- and at the edge of an aggressive timber harvest. I labeled it "pin found -- see Note 2" and the note read "pin found is not at the location where a pin was previously set and thus does not monument a parcel corner." In other words, I had "found" our pin -- but not our corner. To label it "set" would imply otherwise.

Once a monument is of record it becomes a found monument for the next effort regardless of the amount of time that has passed. Whether I set it or someone else did makes no difference as far as calling it found or set.

My survey will always reference the source of every monument I show, if known. This is a recording state and each Record of Survey survey is required to specify the date that monuments were set. So it's not like anything is being hidden.

That must be a regional thing Cee Gee.  Nowhere that I've worked (East Coast, West Coast, and several locations between) has a notation of "found" in itself been used or taken to be a value statement about the pedigree of the monument.  It simply means that it was in existence prior to the survey which is the subject of the map having been performed.  Additional notations or comments are needed to speak to the pedigree, value or lack thereof for any particular found point.  The notation could be "found 1" IP w/ tag, 'LS 0000' per RS 7/53".  That more complete note states that it was a pre-existing point and states a pedigree.  Showing it either as marking a particular corner or point, or being off from that corner or point as you've determined it will demonstrate your estimation of the monument's value.

In your example, you found a pin that you identified as one of yours, and you identified it as found.  So you and I apparently agree that one can find their own pin.  Where we appear to diverge is that you identify it as "found" only if it has been moved from the position you set it in, otherwise it is "set".  I am of the mind that one does not set it during the current survey, they have "found" it, and it is either found (hopefully) right where they left it, or it is found where someone else moved it to.  But this is a semantic argument.

IMO, the important part of identifying the monument in terms of pedigree is that it is noted to have been associated with some earlier survey.  This can either be noted as "found 1" IP w/ tag, 'LS 0000' per RS 7/53" (assume you are LS 0000 and RS 7/53 is your filed map), or as "1" IP w/tag, 'LS 0000', set by this office in 1987 as shown on RS 7/53".  Personally, I prefer the latter.  Showing a preexisting monument simply as "set" without reference to the previous survey gives the incorrect perception that it was set during the current survey, possibly diminishing it's pedigree.

[Edit:  Cee Gee, I realize that you are not in a recording state, so substitute the appropriate unrecorded map/survey reference for "RS 7/53", which refers to a recording book and page]

The only people looking at the map and caring at all about the license numbers on the tags or caps will be another surveyor who later uses your map and monuments in conducting another survey.  A surveyor should notice that the license #s on those found points are the same as that of the surveyor signing the more recent map,



Don, that seems to me to be a pretty rigid and rather emotional response for what is more of a semantic or style issue than it is a substantive one.

I find it very irritating when a surveyor notes a monument as "found" when in fact they  are the ones that set it.

I beleive that it creates a "history" without a background of "where' did it come from?

I work in an area with maybe 300+ years of monuments, many wihtout a history to them.  Many not mentioned in deeds or ever shown n a plan.
What purpose does it serve to note a monument as "found" without following with "set by PLS#32662 Dec. 1984" if that 's the fact?

We are in the information business, let's not hold back information...

Don is 100% correct.

I agree with Don too. More information is better.

When a monument I set becomes of record (recorded in the public records) I call it found (for example  " a 3/4 inch iron pipe found at Mr  X NEC and Mr Y SWC as recorded Vol_Pg_".)

Before that time occurs, it is still called "set".

This is mostly in response to Rusty: I agree that our differences are somewhat semantic -- perhaps this whole discussion is. I don't know that there are any hard and fast rules defining "set" and "found," regional or otherwise. But the nuances are moot, and confusion is negligible, if one includes sufficient annotation. Too often that's lacking, and like Don, if the plan says "found" without any additional comment, I assume that the surveyor is saying "I did not set this." Or at least -- as in the example I gave -- "I did not set this here."

This must be a local custom thing.  Virtually all surveys I see have either "found" or "set".  Many times there is a clarification about the history of the found monument.  Many times there is no history provided.  What the surveyor is conveying is that he did not "set" it as a part of this particular job.  Anyone, including him, set it at some date prior to the date of this survey.  It was there to be "found" by any surveyor coming along.  This indicates, in our recording state, that you should be able to track down the source, including it being you or your same company at some time in the past.  Even if past means last week.

An example:  We are called to do a boundary survey for a tract being sold.  A week later the realtor or buyer calls to request an Improvement Location Certificate.  This creature is NOT a survey.  It can reference other surveys, but, it is NOT a survey.  Monuments get set on surveys.  Hence, the monument is "found" on the ILC.  Sure, you should indicate that you found it because of a specific survey, but, that is not mandatory.

I live and work in a county where virutally all of the surveying done in the early 1900's was done by one man.  Plats he produced on grounds adjoining his previous jobs will note "Found I.P. placed on ... date ..."  I don't think it gets much simpler than that.

:
I find it very irritating when a surveyor notes a monument as "found" when in fact they  are the ones that set it.

I beleive that it creates a "history" without a background of "where' did it come from?

I work in an area with maybe 300+ years of monuments, many wihtout a history to them.  Many not mentioned in deeds or ever shown n a plan.
What purpose does it serve to note a monument as "found" without following with "set by PLS#32662 Dec. 1984" if that 's the fact?

We are in the information business, let's not hold back information...
 

Again, when compared to the notations I previously said I would make, this is completely semantic and not worthy of condemning a surveyor who states that he found the monument with his own LS #, per some record appropriately referenced on his current map.  That gives the exact same history, and says exactly the same thing as you said.  It says, I set it in [whatever year], and I found it right where I left it.

I don't think that anyone here advocated either not providing the info to show where it came from, or inventing a history of it that is not true.

The land surveys are certified to the facts of the field survey for the date of  that field survey.... yesterday they  were set, today they are found. FACT