Dues are Due!
The Chapter needs your dues. We have been very active this year so far, but we have lagged in getting out the word to update your dues.
March Chapter Meeting
On Wednesday March 19, 2025 the Chapter meeting was held at and sponsored by the Wallace Group. The meeting packed their large conference room to overflow capacity. Wallace group provided drinks and an all you could eat taco dinner with all the trimmings! Donations were taken up for the scholarship fund and to support student attendance to the CLSA Conference.
While we feasted on the provided dinner, a lively business meeting was punctuated by the volunteerism and support of the chapters Monument Conservation Committee discussion. It almost became a bidding war when talking about support of the committees proposed luncheon for agency engineers to explain their role in monumentation conservation. Committee Chair Robert Reese explains more in his post that can be read here.
The speaker for the night was Jay Seymour, president of the California Land Surveyors Association in 2015. Mr. Seymour, a licensed surveyor for 47 years, gave a heartfelt talk on the land surveying profession and how the future of the profession is in the hands of the profession itself. He is a very enthusiastic and positive role model for all of those interested in the profession.
A big THANK YOU goes out to the Wallace Group for this meeting. It is a model that other firms should consider in supporting the profession!
CLSA Education Foundation Golf Tournament – June 9th 2025
2025 CLSA Golf Tournament
to benefit the CLSA Education Foundation
Join us for a day of sunshine, golf and camaraderie with your fellow surveyors while supporting the CLSA Education Foundation! This is a great opportunity to not only take a break but to also help future surveyors with scholarships.
Included with your registration is lunch, dinner, a live auction and contests on the green!
Interested in sponsoring this great event? See below for all sponsorship and advertising opportunities at the 2025 CLSA Golf Tournament.
Sponsorships are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Prices are non-negotiable.
California Land Surveyors Association
2520 Venture Oaks Way, Ste 150
Sacramento CA 95833
(916) 239-4083
Surveying Apps?!?
Once in a while when I am doing deep research on my phone (playing a game) I get an ad that says “Locate your property – most Accurate way” or something down those lines. So I was wondering what happens after you give a potential client a proposal to survey their property and they think “I bet there is an app that can do it for less”.
This is a partial list of apps that I found that may imply to the general public that they can do their own survey. I first asked, “What app will help me set my property corners”, then I just asked, “How do I find my property lines”. Both queries brought up apps that imply some sort of ability to know where your property is. The second query also brought up a YouTube done by a realtor testing the apps for “accuracy”. More on that later. These apps love the term “accuracy” without for the most part explaining what they mean by that.
Both searches came up with a number “Best of “apps, but I limited my viewing to those apps that maybe implied that a homeowner could use this to either find or mark their corners. Only one really pushed the boundary (I am told that was an unintended pun) of indicating that it could be used to accurately determine property lines.
I did not test any of these apps, as I don’t think the public, or surveyors for that matter should be using them for any sort of boundary analysis. Many have other features that could benefit land surveyors or realtors or appraisers, but I don’t think those features would necessarily benefit the homeowner.
It seems to be implied that these maps are absolute in their “Accuracy” of boundary locations. As best I can tell, the way you determine your property corner is to walk with your phone until your positional dot lines up with the corner of the parcel line
They all like to say they have a huge parcel database, which of course is a database of assessor parcel maps. It seems to be implied that these maps are absolute in their “Accuracy” of boundary locations. As best I can tell, the way you determine your property corner is to walk with your phone until your positional dot lines up with the corner of the parcel line shown on a map or more commonly google image. The creators seem to be smart enough not to give you a distance and direction to your corner.
All the ones I have listed, as best I can tell have both San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara County “parcels” updated within the last year. I suspect most of them are using the same assessor database provider. To be clear, there are many more apps that come up when you do a search like I did. I just got tired of looking at these at some point.
LandGlide
“LandGlide provides easy access to property data and parcel boundary lines.” Per their website. Their FAQ provides this: “How accurate are the parcel lines in LandGlide®?”,” The parcel lines within our database are fairly accurate. The property lines are not intended to represent actual recently surveyed property lines and are not recommended to use for legal purposes. Counties will rely on deeds and plats of record regarding disputes in the property lines. If you are concerned about the parcel lines displayed in LandGlide®, please reach out to us at support@landglide.com with the county and state in question.”
The cost is basically $10/month or $100/year - Both Android and Apple
Land id.
From their webite: “The Most Accurate Boundaries”, “Get Precise Land Info”, “View the most comprehensive and accurate parcel boundary set in the market and access nationwide property data with Land id”
They really push this as more of a data collection system then a layout your boundary app, but again they will show you where you are relative to these “Boundary” lines.
Cost Basic $6.67/month Pro 33.33 per month
Both Android and Apple
OnX Hunt
From their website: “Locate Property Lines and View Landowner Information”,”Knowing who owns the land you stand on is invaluable. With the onX Hunt App, you can see property boundaries and landowner information throughout the United States and, in Canada, you can view property lines where available. Know where you stand—and where you can and cannot hunt—with the Hunt App.”
Designed for hunters. Indicates to get the most accurate property lines for any US state. It does indicate that “Understand where you can and can’t hunt, and be certain about where you are standing in relation to nearby property lines so you remain legal. ”
Has ownership information and what land is available for hunting, as well as a number of items important to hunters.
One state $35/yr all states $100/year Both Android and Apple
Regrid
From their website: “Parcel data at your fingertips”,”Enjoy instant access to Regrid's property information and geographic insights on your phone and in your browser. We built it to be frictionless, so jump right in.”
Regrid pushes their ability to provide large variety of data on parcels, and seems to go out of their way to not imply you can use it to establish your corners. However, it does allow you to put your phone GPS on the “property” corners on their app.
$10 /month Android and Apple
GIS Surveyor – Land Survey and GIS Data Collector
Only found on the app store. It says that it can be used for all sorts of surveys, including boundary and construction surveys. It says that it can connect to rtk systems (I am assuming through Bluetooth). It has a low rating, many comments about how confusing to use. It is from a large geospatial/utility support company, so it may have been developed as an in-house app that they are trying to expand.
It has a subscription cost to it, but I could not find out anywhere what that was. - Android
Find Property Lines and Corners with your cell phone
This is a little different from the previous. You send in your legal description or a survey of your property as well as the address and APN. They will then send you an email with a link to an image that you can load into your phone of your property along with the corner locations. The image at the top says “Not a Survey”. In their terms they are clear it is not a survey and they hope to be within 30 feet of the actual corner.
The basic cost is $75 but can be more
YouTube – How to Find the Property Lines of Any Home (version 3). By Mark Sheller
Mark is a Realtor that has a number of YouTube videos, including a number about boundaries. The one listed above was comparing the quality of three of the apps listed above. He at the end has a surveyor actually survey the site (It was a property he had on the market, so I suspect he didn’t pay for it). Then he compares his locations to the surveyed location. That is all well and good. In his conclusion he talks about boundary disputes and says for any legal need use a licensed surveyor. Then he goes on to say that the problem with having a licensed surveyor is the cost and the time delay to get the survey completed. He continues to say that there are many DIYer’s out there that just want an approximation of their property lines and he feels that is a right of any land owner to do their own “approximation”. In the background he showing fences along property lines, which to me would imply these apps might be okay to use to build your fence.
Conclusion
I think that property owners can get a lot of useful information from many of these apps. It does allow the general public to easily get information that otherwise would require them to go to various departments of their City or County, or at least search their websites.
The problem is that there are a lot of DIYer’s out there that go to YouTube or search Google on how to perform various tasks. I myself have done a couple of surgeries on my leg using YouTube. If someone searches how to set my property corners, they are going to find all these apps, that will make them think they can do that on their own. If they just use it to clear weeds, that is great. If they use it to build a fence, a driveway or retaining wall, that is going to cause a problem. As a surveyor, it is going to be harder to explain to the client why their phone app didn’t do what they thought it could do because a) they are using “GPS” and b) they have the most accurate parcel maps.
Good luck to you all!
Need for Land Surveyors
There has been a lot of talk over the last 20 (30?) years about the need for more licensed land surveyors. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicates that there is about 4000 openings for surveyors1 with a projected 6 percent growth over the next 10 years. As many of you know, the first licensing for any engineering discipline was a surveying licensure in California in 1891. I believe, without any evidence (or reason) that the first licensed surveyor did come from our chapter.
How Many Surveyors do we need?
The BLS indicates that there are a total of 53,080 active surveyors in the United States and 3,750 in California. That works out to about 7.1% of Surveyors are in California. Based on their project of 4000 new surveyors per year California would need about 280 new Land Surveyors each year (+ 6% growth). The BLS classification is just “Surveyor” but the “What Surveyors Do” is listed as “Surveyors make precise measurements to determine property boundaries.”. There is a separate classification for “Survey technician”.
How Many Professional Land Surveyors are being licensed in California?
If everyone who sat for the State Specific Professional Land Surveyor Exam passed the exam, we would almost make the 280 new land surveyors. As you might guess, not all passed. Also, there is no indication as to how many are retaking the exam.
The good news with this, is that you can see that the decrease in examinees caused by the pandemic has been erased. The larger numbers in the last few years is probably a response to those pandemic numbers.
How about nationally?
The next question is how the rest of the United States is doing, as we can probably convince some surveyors from the colder parts of the country to come work in Sunny California (don’t tell them about housing costs).
The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) has statistics for each year of its tests2. So that would be a good place to look to see who else might be available. Their data does not line up exactly with BLS, NCEES says there are 3819 licensed surveyors in California, 634 who do not live in California and 47,392 in the United States, which comes to California having 8.1% of the active Land Surveyors.
NCEES also provides statistics on the pass rate for their exams including the number that are first time at the test and those that are repeating the test. Below is a chart showing the number of takers and the number that passed. Looking at this chart, we are not getting the number of land surveyors passing to fill the need of the nation.
Again, similar to the State chart, there is a large upswing after the pandemic years. Looking at the pass rate, it looks like some people took advantage of the time home to study for the exam!
What potential is coming through the pipeline?
So, the next item to look at is what the future holds. In California the only test to become a “Land Surveyor-in-Training” (LSIT) is the NCEES Fundamentals of Surveying. NCEES does not break down the exams by state, so the chart below is for nationwide testing.
Although more people are taking the FS exam than the PS exam, the number passing the FS exam is not that much higher than the pass rate for the PS exam and nowhere near those 4000 surveyors the country needs every year.
Conclusion
Based on the testing results we see, the demand is going to far outpace the supply. Antidotally this is what many surveying firms have seen and felt the last ten years. There have been many articles on this problem, and some have ideas on how to address the problem. There has been a push in many states including California to do public outreach, especially to students about land surveying as a profession. There is always talk about modifying the name we call ourselves to sound more interesting to younger people.
As with most problems it may take a number of ideas to solve the problem, and some attempts may fall flat on their face. I have always thought that as a profession, we appeal to people who enjoy detail work and not so much public relations work.
For those of you who are interested and have more energy than I do, there is a site that the National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS) put together, BEaSurveyor.com. It is a site for people interested in land surveying and it has a Resources page That has some outreach material. There is also the “Get Kids into Survey” site which has material for getting young students aware and interested in surveying. This Chapter has tried to promote that before, but it just takes one champion to make it possible to inspire young budding surveyors in our area.
Items of Note
In reviewing the NCEES data they presented the Chart below with the average age of applicants taking the FS and PS exams. Looking at the chart, the age for people taking the PS exam seemed reasonable. Looking at the FS exam age it seems like we are clearly not getting to people at a young age.
Secondly, in looking at the Fundamentals of Engineering exam (FE), I noticed that Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo has the sixth largest group of students taking the FE among universities in the nation. That seems like a pond that locally could be fished for students wanting a better career than Civil Engineering. Cal Poly, Pomona was 8th on the list and they were the only two in the top ten from California.
References
1 https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/surveyors.htm
SEAM ERRORS ON A DIGITAL BAR CODE LEVEL ROD
By Michael McGee, LS & Robert Reese, LS
So you got your new bar code digital level to do that first order work your new client requested. Nice. And you bought the three section rods, understandably, because the one-piece invar rods are so darned expensive and a little difficult to carry around.
How good is the rod reading value at the top? Is it really 4 meters? Or is it 3.999 meters? Or worse, you really don’t know? These rod seam errors – a back sight reading either below or above a seam and a foresight reading on the other side of one or even two seams – might accumulate enough in a level run to affect the accuracy of your benchmark elevations and closures. They can be identified and eliminated, particularly with level runs having extreme elevation differences between setups.
The calibration form (Figure 1) is a method to identify the seam errors on a digital bar code leveling rod with sections. Once you have these numbers on hand, you can apply them to your level runs to improve accuracy. The other advantage is that your clients will understand your conscientious and scientific approach to the technical side of surveying
leveling rod with sections. Once you have these numbers on hand, you can apply them to your level runs to improve accuracy. The other advantage is that your clients will understand your conscientious and scientific approach to the technical side of surveying.
THE SETUP
The procedures below are for one rod. Complete the calibration form for each rod. Set up an area (concrete steps make a pretty good test site) with stable, well-defined benchmarks, approximately 2-3 feet difference in elevation.
Set up the level so it sees the bottom section of the rod on both benchmarks. Note that you should be at least 20cm or 6”below the seam and 6”above the bottom of the rod, and about 3-6m or 10-20 feet away from the rod. You don’t want the level reading the barcode as it crosses the seam.
FIRST READING
- Read the rod’s bottom section on Benchmark “A”.
- Read the rod’s bottom section on Benchmark “B”.
- The difference between the rod readings is the elevation difference between “A” and “B” (H1).
SECOND READING
- Set up the level so it sees the rod’s middle section on “A” and bottom section on “B”.
- Read the rod’s middle section on Benchmark “A”.
- Read the rod’s bottom section on Benchmark “B”.
- The difference between the rod readings is the elevation difference between “A” and “B” (H2).
- The difference between the H2 and H1 is the rod seam error between the bottom section and the mid section.
THIRD READING
- Set up the level so it sees Rod’s top section on “A” and mid section on “B”.
- Read the rod’s top section on Benchmark “A”.
- Read the rod’s middle section on Benchmark “B”.
- The difference between the rod readings is the elevation difference between “A” and “B” (H3).
- The difference between the H3 and H2 is the rod seam error between the middle section and the top
- section.
Too easy!
