SIMPLE way to find SURVEY PINS - YouTube

Hello, Welcome to JandJ Acres. We're starting up these videos to try to show you some of

the things that we have learned as we've started to work our homestead. Now we've owned this

property for a few years now, and it's been a slow going process, and just like you, we

go around looking at videos and researching things on the internet to try to find the

best way to get things done. We simply hope that maybe through some of our experiences,

we can give you an idea on how better to go about it at your property. Today, we're going

to try to locate a property line of ours. Recently we've discovered that we have a fox

living in our woods that has taken out a few of our ducks that we hope to use, not only

for our own personal consumption, but also to sell. So obviously, since it's going to

affect our ability to provide for our family, we need to take care of this fox. Part of

the process that we've been going through is putting up fences. And because of the fox

coming in, it's now become a little bit more of a priority for us to take care of this.

So we're gonna look at some of the ways that we can identify a property line. One of our

property lines goes almost 700 feet right through the woods. So it's impossible for

us to see one pin to another, which makes it difficult to gauge where fence lines need

to be and which trees need to be cleared to make the fence line. Obviously you don't want

to infringe on your neighbors property, but you also don't want a crooked fence where

you might either just have an ugly fence or you might lose some of your property, or infringe

on someone else's by making a miscalculation. So let's look at how we're going to find out

where this property line is. Okay, so what we're going to do, is use a survey that was

done when we purchased our property, to find out how to mark off where this particular

property line is. What you notice that I've done here is, the map gives me a north bearing,

and I've used that to draw a straight line down and then used another straight edge and

compass to find a 90 degree angle to get me straight over to this point here. This is

the point where I know I can start from. I've already found that point in the woods, and

I can use that as my starting line. We're actually looking for this long stretch here.

And worse off, later, we'll show you, we're not even looking just to get to this pin down

here, we're looking to find a point around in the middle so we can draw another straight

line due west inward to the back yard. So, to do this, now that I have a straight line

to base off of, and I know where this pin is, I'm gonna use a protractor. Now this is

very crude, but it's effective. This protractor, when I line it up on the line that I've drawn,

and put the center point at the center of my protractor, I can look at where my property

line comes across. And I don't expect you to be able to read that, but with the way

that the protractor is, it's showing me right at 54 degrees. Now that 54 degrees is based

off of the zero down here on the protractor. But, in reality, my compass is going to show

me that zero is straight due north. So what we have to do is a little bit of math, and

work at this backwards and say to ourselves, "Well if my protractor actually started on

zero over here, what would my measurement come out to be." And so we can just go straight

to the 90 and do our hundred, 110,120, 5 and 126. And then we just add in the 90 degrees

that we lose from being straight north, and that comes out to 216 degrees. So, knowing

that we need to go 216 degrees for our bearing, we can set our compass. This is a very simple

compass, just purchased at a local department store. There's nothing special about it, but

there doesn't need to be anything special about it. All I need is to be able to set

the bearing, which I can do. This one I've already set. The best thing that you can do,

is make sure that you have a flat edge to use as a basis. Your compass is going to have

an arrow pointing right down the middle of the compass. And I'm gonna line that up on

my straight edge. I'm gonna use the white of the paper for a little more contrast. And

then around the ring of my compass are all the different degrees, my bearings. And I'm

going to line that arrow so that 216 degrees, the bearing that we came up with looking at

the map, is pointed down that arrow. Now what will happen, is when I move my compass so

that the north stays pointing at north, if I walk the direction of my arrow, I know I'll

be walking 216 degrees. So now lets take this to the woods, find our pin, and see if 216

degrees on our compass gets us to the other pin. Okay so we've walked off into the woods

here to the first pin that we found. Now this is pretty typical if you're looking for a

pin on your property. It's just a piece of rebar that's been hammered into the ground

that they throw a little bit of surveyors tape around. Sometimes they might be kind

enough to put another stake of wood next to it, or to take that surveyors tape and tie

it not only to the rebar pin, but also a little higher up on a tree, something so that you

can see it a little more easily and get to the pin. In this case it happens to be next

to a very large pine tree so it's fairly easy to locate. So what we're going to do is take

a piece of masons twine and string it from this tree and go our 216 degree bearing down

off into these woods and hope to come across on the other side. Okay, so we started off

by tying this piece of mason line to the tree and putting the knot a little closer to the

side where the pin is on. I know it's not 100 percent accurate but, we know that we're

gonna get close enough doing it this way. Remember, the whole point of this isn't that

we know exactly where the fence lines going to be or precisely where the property line

is, but to make sure that when we start cutting down trees, we're only cutting down our trees

and not the neighbors. We can get a whole lot more close doing this, clearing some trees,

going back and double checking later than just blind clearing trees as it is. We're

also using the masons twine because surveyors tape tends to stretch and give out and if

any of these trees or twigs or even wildlife come across it or fall down on top of it,

it's going to ruin the line. The mason twine's gonna hold up a little bit better, so that's

why we've chosen to go with this. So we have that tied, we've got our twine fashioned around

a little spool to make it easier to go through the woods. I have my compass set to the bearing

of 216 degrees, and all I have to do is put my north part of my compass onto the north

bearing, and now I know if I walk in the direction of this arrow, I'll find my pin.

Okay, so now that we're down in the woods a little bit, I want to give you a little bit better

idea of what this looks like. I know there's a lot of glare on the camera before. What

we have is the compass set to a bearing of 216 degrees and you can see the red part of

my compass is pointing toward the north. So my bearing is always going to stay because

that's what I've turned the dial to. All I have to do is to keep that red arrow pointed

toward north and walk forward toward that arrow, and I know I'm going in the direction I've set for myself.

Well, we've done it. We went over 600 feet through the thick of

the woods and came right across our rebar pin for the other corner of the property.

Notice I don't have the string with me anymore. I told you that right now we're just trying

to fence off the back of the property right up near the house where the kids play and

some of our domesticated animals are. So, the string's still way up there, about another

300 or so feet, just to the point where we needed it. Found a tree that was right in

the middle of the fence line or the property line, and tied it off to that for a reference,

and just continued walking out here to show you that in fact a simple protractor, the

math that you got for the survey from when you bought your property and an old couple

dollar compass from the department store can get you several hundred feet through the woods

to the pin that you need to find. If you follow us up to the shed where we're going to have

another corner post for this fence, we'll just show you one little clip on how we're

going to do this, and rinse and repeat the process throughout the rest of the property

to finish off this fence. Okay, so we're back up in the back yard now, and we've laid out

a mason line on the long stretch of property line that's back into the woods. Now we're

trying to actually make a fence line, a line that we're going to use to put up a fence

through the property to the backyard, so we're no longer trying to go from a set pin to another

set pin, but from just one point to the property line. By laying out the line that we already

did through the woods, we now know where we have to stop so we don't infringe on our neighbors

property. So what we have here is the back corner of our shed. Just put up a nail and

tied on some surveyors tape to it, and we're now going to change our compass setting. So

just like we did before, I'm gonna use the edge of this to help me line up 180 degrees,

or excuse me, 90 degrees straight due east. Now, if you notice, when I turn my compass

around, and have it point straight north I'll know exactly which way I need to walk for

where we're gonna put this property line. Okay, well, something about the property surveyor

tape and me just don't get along, so you'll probably notice we've gone back to a cotton

twine. We've run this straight east 90 degrees compass bearing from the corner of the shed,

going straight through the woods, and if you look down at my compass here, I'll show you

how this works. If I turn this now, and put my bearing at 180 degrees, I'm gonna keep

giving you bad bearings here, at 270 degrees straight due west and line up my line right

under it, bring it up to the line that we looked at before, you can see that that white

cotton line goes straight due west to the property line or to the shed corner. So now

all we're gonna do is take this metal pole, now we know right where this corner is, we're

gonna sink it right in this corner, and now we know where the corner of this fence is

going to be. Now something that you should take note of, don't, I wouldn't recommend

putting a fence line right at your property line. What we're actually planning on doing,

is coming five feet off the property line. Now that might seem a bit excessive, but it's

gonna give us room to put up a holly bush. We're gonna plant some American Holly as a

bit of a visual barrier, a bit of aesthetics and also a way just for us to have a higher

hedge without having to buy higher fencing. The holly will grow quick and it'll grow thick

and give us the kind of results that we desire, but the thing that you should remember is,

if you're going to try to put a fence right on a property line, even if your neighbor

agrees, that neighbor might not be your neighbor for all time. If that person sells their property

in five years from now, you could have a dispute with the person who owns it next on whether

or not that fence pole is exactly on the property line or one foot onto their property. So most

good rules of measure are gonna tell you, not only to account for where the pole is

but also the footing that's in the ground. Remember, when we concrete in this corner

post, it's gonna have about six inches to a foot in diameter around the base of it under

ground, and even if that intrudes into your neighbors property it could be a point of

contention. So, even if you're not looking to put a big border like we are by putting

bushes up on the outside line of your fence, probably best to come in about a foot, that

way you can make sure there's not going to be a contention in the future.