Anyone use a handheld GPS to check their property lines?

What models are good?

What features do you look for to check property lines?

GPS units that are used in Land Surveying, which are the ones accurate enough for monument location and verification, are most likely FAR out of your price range.



We use 1/10ths of an inch... so unless you have a GPS with a 0.1" accuracy, you are wasting your time.



If you are concerned about your property markers, you need to call a real Land Surveyor and have a survey done. Mounment location and verification costs a couple of hundred dollars, depending on the size of your property.



This is coming from a previous LSIT and Chainman.

Hand held gps are not accurate enough for property line identification.   Unless you are talking 1000 acre tracts and +/- 30 foot precision

Steve

20-30 foot off isn't a big deal

Garmin 60csx is what I have, used it to mark some of our ranch property, exported the waypoints to Google Earth and connected the dots.   Worked like a charm.

uhh...



you are talking about actually identifying your property lines, and you say 20-30 FEET isnt a big deal?!?!



Property lines are measured down to 1/10" of an inch... that is our standard error.



Are trying to do something cool on google earth, or are you actually trying to locate your PHYSICAL property lines on the ground?



If you are trying to establish if your property markers are in the correct position, you cannot do it with a standard GPS. And again, the items that are used to do that cost more than a new Mercedes Benz.

I used a Garmin Nuvi to get to the Lakeland Rifle and Pistol Club gun show in Lakeland, Florida this weekend.  Several times it though I was on the next street over from where I really was.    Distance errors of as much as yards.   Not good enough for survey work!





Better units with greater accuracy are available but as with everything else, precision costs.  High precision costs highly.





I don't think that people should put all their measurement eggs in one satellite-based basket, either.  To me, GPS based surveys

should only be a guideline,  not an absolute reference.   GPS drifts,  but the US Geodetic Survey markers generally don't.  And

they don't rely on millions of dollar's worth of technology to work.





CJ

Forget about it. Hire a pro. Their GPS gear put together can cost $40,000+.

I am missing a corner on my property. When I first got it, I was missing two-both of the back corners.  I was able to find the first missing corner by making a waypoint from one of the known markers and then creating a new waypoint off of that one a XXX heading, XXX feet away.

Got me within 3 feet using a cheapo Garmin Etrex Legend and a military compass. Haven't had the time to find the other one, there are too many trees to shoot a bearing to walk to

Then how come you can hire three different surveyors and have three different results that are as much as 40 feet off.  This happened to me three years ago.



10 years ago I got a call from a Realtor who asked if I would sell 10 foot of one of my side boarders.  The neighbor was trying to sell their property and a potential new owner had it surveyed again.  The backyard boarders my side yard and apparently the new survey showed that I owned half of the wooden deck off of their kitchen.



1/10 of an inch?



 

Actually standard survey units are 1/100 of a foot/// Which is approximately 1/8 of an inch/  96 -eights of an inch in a foot vs 100.... so it is close...


If you use a hand held gps and are traversing from a known point and clear sight line from multiple satellites you might  get within a few feet.   But that isn't survey accurate, but could get you close enough to find existing pins.

The comment on surveys being off 10 - to 20 feet.  Yes that happens.  Especially when the legal descriptions are written from section corners on opposite sides of the section,  (assumed to be 1320 feet and were actually less than that) and if the surveyor didn't do a proper section breakdown,  or the surveyors were simply lazy and used faulty benchmarks.


Anyway the answer is it depends on what level of accuracy you are looking for.  almost all handheld gps are no more accurate than 3 to 30 feet.  Plus you will need coordinates for your property corners or traverse from a known point.

I am a civil engineer with a 30 years experience with surveys, but not a surveyor

I have used a GPS to get an approximation of my property lines.  Obviously it is not a survey as several people have noted.  But if you need to get an unofficial guessimate within +/- 27 feet or so it should do the trick.  In my case, one side of my lot is 1024 feet and the other is 12xx feet.  About 80% of that is jungle (really swamp).  It would have taken a surveyor a long, long time to chop through that crap.  I almost doubt that anyone would have even taken the job if they had to do it by line of sight.  I just needed something because once you get in the "woods" you cannot walk a straight line or pick out anything in the distance to use as reference.  So by the time you get half the way into it you are so turned around you have not clue where you are.  The GPS at least gave me some idea where the hell I was.  Oh, and where to put my 100 yard rimfire range.  ;-)