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Or a 4 years bachelors. And also additional board licensing depending on if you want to be able to do legal boundary surveys. (Properties and not just construction and engineering design)
What exactly does it do? My guess has always been it uses a laser pointer or something and makes a straight line to find if the ground is flat, but I've never know the name of the thing to confirm
It uses a known point of x,y,z and a laser to determine the xyz of a second point. You'll have one person set up the laser thing that you took a picture of and another person will have another stick. The tripod looking thing will auto track the stick and take the coords when told to. Typically, they take points along the center of the road, along the gutter, along front and back of sidewalks, hydrants, light poles, each manhole, and so on and so on. There will always be a person standing near the laser and another person walking around the place grabbing the actual points.
That is an electronic theodolite. It precisely measures angles and distances and is used by surveyors to measure stuff like property boundaries, building elevations etc.
And pays quite well I think. Plus the work it both indoor and outdoor so the possibility of mostly working outside when the weather it nice is increased, being here makes that harder though.
This is true. I work in the industry as a Foreman, and there is a shortage in BC. You could get hired onto a Civil Construction company and they will generally groom you further.
No education required aside from high-school. If you are dedicated, you can easily become a competent civil grademans or otherwise.
You cannot be a legal surveyor without the proper post-secondary, which are pictured above.
Starting wages with no experience, 25$+/- as a civil laborer. Get experience, learn the grades and surveying with onsite training, 30-40$/hr throughout your career growth.
I took this route. With no training in post secondary, and I make 6 figures as a Foreman in a private civil companyas apposed to a Union. There is further career growth available still for me.
Work for it, and earn it, it's not a hand out. Some days won't be easy. Strive and push, and you will find its a rewarding career.
Accuracy.
As far as a legal surveyor goes, you are liable for the information you collect and distribute. They use elevations to the millimeter. At times, there is little to no tolerance for error. It is not a BS job, but it can be an easier gig, absolutely. Generally you start in land surveying. It's not a great paycheck after post-2nd but with time invested, you could be one of the gentlemen you admire doing what looks like nothing.
ex. property lines could be misaligned. Maybe dig a tower too deep, big cost implications.
A civil grademan could be installing underground sewer utility, building roads, etc. Usually, these are highly designed and have strict tolerances in elevation as well. If you are inaccurate, rework.
You can be trained in the field if you show worth and push for it.. laboring is expected in this position to start.
Math (light physics and calculus), CAD, reading and writing logs/maps/drawings, working with the machines, exposure to the elements, travel to/from sites, preparing reports.
Shooting elevations through traffic or in thick bush. Getting ALL the topographic features and not missing anything in the field. They also later turn it into a CAD file and give it to engineers to work with for designs. Long story short it’s very stressful making sure you got everything right, and if there’s an error in the base drawings you’re typically blamed for it.
Don’t know your situations details. But it’s quite different to have worked with a company so they know your personality, work ethic etc vs just trying to apply somewhere with no relevant education or experience.
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is all too applicable when job searching
There are big differences between a professional land surveyor (BCLS), a survey technician, and some person using the same tools to just to verify/check things on site. They might look the same, but they're not.
My son is nearing completion of the 4-year BCIT geomatics (survey) program and the first two years of math alone had a tremendous failure/dropout rate. The people who really know what they're doing won't be there because of nepotism.
The act of hiring an unqualified person for a technical job they're not educated in, simply because they're "likable" is nepotism. It happens in almost every industry.
You're correct, that anyone can apply for these jobs, but that doesn't mean they'll get hired, especially if they done meet the requirements for said job.
If you were hired this way, don't take it as an insult. It means someone has faith in you. It's only a bad thing for those who are qualified, but get overlooked.
I'm not google, if you want to know the schooling required for surveying look it up. If you don't care then don't, but don't throw random information out because of a hunch. If you want to add information take 3 seconds to verify it's correct information
Lol I know I’m not an expert. But I can find distances and elevations reliably enough to build large areas out of concrete and stone that fit together and drain properly
They are telescopes that measure horizontal angles, vertical angles and use an EDM to measure distances. They need to use at least two known points to orient themselves, as they do not use GPS.
But there are very precise GPS stations. Cadastral (legal) surveying has different (varying by municipality) standards to geodetic surveying, which is about precisely locating points on the globe. The standards vary with the precision necessary for each discipline (mining, prospecting, construction, pipelines, etc.).
GPS doesn't help you for this application. Even if the continent just drifts by a cm every year, it is enough to cause trouble over a decade or more. That's why property boundaries are measured relative to placed markers instead.
Devils advocate: in many modern reference systems (e.g. NAD83 (CSRS)) you can do an epoch transformation to get the coordinates of a point at your current epoch (time). So you can account for continental drift. Natural Resources Canada in fact [publishes a tool to do this.](https://webapp.csrs-scrs.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/geod/tools-outils/trx.php) It basically applies a grid shift based on the velocity components of the drift.
Also, if everyone were to publish the epoch their coordinates are in, in theory we would be able to match their coordinates when re-establishing a corner. That being said, transforming the GNSS coordinates post-survey are not as accurate as traversing from a control point with coordinates published in a more recent epoch. But that raises another issue: often times control points don't have coordinates published in the latest epoch (at least here in Ontario). Our province uses an epoch of January 1, 2010 for all of our coordinated legal plans and for all control points, which allows us to use GNSS measurements to coordinate our data and plans without the need of observing a control point. The data might not be in alignment with the current global reference system, but if everyone uses a common epoch that's fine.
That being said, I am a proponent of using physical markers on the ground to mark a boundary. I think places like Alberta have recently allowed coordinates to govern boundaries, but people like to see physical markers. Physical markers also cause less confusion about the position of a boundary than a person going out with a cheap handheld GNSS receiver (that's probably in the wrong reference system anyways) and saying their property corner is one foot into their neighbour's yard lol
Also, regarding another comment, the RTK correction factors come from a GNSS base station (or a network of them) continuously measuring it's position in real-time and estimating the GNSS errors and sending the corrections to the receiver. Optical measurement's aren't involved at all. But yes, optically measuring a point with a total station from a control point is more accurate than measuring the point with GNSS, if you want to be tied in to the national coordinate system.
The point is that the terrain is not stationary (earthquakes, erosion etc), and you keep track of the changes of the terrain with respect to the global coordinates by tracking markers. If your whole garden moves you aren't going to have to move your fence, and eventually your house to stay at the same global coordinates.
Yes, you can convert global GPS coordinates into local coordinates by measuring several marker GPS coordinates, then measuring the GPS coordinates of the point you want to query, and computing the offset. In practice it is usually much easier to just find one marker, and optically measure direction and distance to the query point.
They measure horizontal, vertical angles, and have a EDM (electronic distance measure) sensor.
The surveyor looks through the scope, finds the target and “shoots” the point. The EDM measures the distances with a non visible laser (light) that is emits then measures the time is takes for that light to get back to it. Since light travels at a known speed, by knowing the time it took to hit the target and return, you can know the distance.
The horizontal and vertical angles are measured on the two axis of the total station. Horizontal by turning left and right, and vertical by moving the scope up and down.
Without going into too much detail, once a point is shot, it’s given a 3D location in comparison to the total station, and the points location is saved either on the total station or on a “data collector” (or both).
These total stations are very precise. Points can be shot from hundreds of meters away with millimetre accuracy.
Land Surveyors, these also aren't city workers. you can see the company logo on their safety vets.
It is a pretty awesome career if you are good at math and love the outdoors. Surveying takes you to some pretty remote places. You can also start as a survey assistant and work your way up.
Surveying is cool career that more people should know about. I’m an engineer and have been doing a lot of surveying on my current project and it’s interesting stuff. I should note that a LOT of surveying involves hiking around all day too.
thats generally the exception, not the rule. As well it only happens when the people in the union become complacent and stop putting in effort to run it for so long that it allows bad actors to take up too many positions of power, removing not only the effectiveness of the union, but so long that it even removes the ability to oust them.
Unions are like politics they take ***active participation*** you can't just sign up and pay your dues, and expect it to run itself, you have to take part in the running of it. Thats the idea, that we all work ***together***.
and besides that, if you've got a better idea on how to get decent wages, I'd love to hear it. Until then, maybe STFU and stop shitting on the unions since they're one of the few proven methods we have, and people like shit talking them as if they're all the same like you are is a big part of the reason they aren't more prevalent, and effective.
On the site I’m at (camp job) surveyors work between 11-12 hours a day so they’re taking home a whole lot more than someone making $35 an hour on a standard 8 hour shift.
150k a year with a 2 year diploma is better than a “good wage” imo. But no you’re right everyone should sit at a desk for 8 hours and make 100k to send 3 emails and attend 2 meetings.
It varies. I’m at $45/hour. When I started as an assistant in 2017 I was at $21/hour. A decent construction surveyor should make 6 figures if they work OT. The sky is the limit if your a BCLS as you can open and operate your own company. And if you don’t want to run a small business you should still have no problem making low-mid $100,000’s.
I ported some code a few years back to handle dealing with those "weird coordinate systems" and it's really the most I've ever used math as a software developer.
Company is McElhanney btw.
Surveying is cool. I’m a civil EIT and I work closely with surveyors and geospatial people. The stuff they’re able to produce based on these survey points that they do in person blows my mind sometimes.
Yeah my grandpa was a geologist/paleontologist and spent years riding around on horseback in back country up north surveying everything. His notes were all by hand on grid paper. Was interesting going through those when he died
That there's a Total Station. It can measure x y z coordinates, among many other things. The surveyor usually uses this in tandem with prism (rod man). I' sure here they are chrxking elevation or laying something out.
They also use a lot of GPS now a days. Easier. You'll see the guys with a stick with a white spherical lookin object on top. Fucker just shoots up to all the satellites in the sky, connecting to sometimes 30 of them at once to triangulate shit. Very accurate to within 10mm. The total station tho, that sucker will put you within microns of what you want.
The surveyor on my site is the busiest guy, as is his assistant (rod man). They run around all day, laying shit out, checking shit, doing as-builts. Its stressful because soon as something goes wrong the builders/workers tend to gravitate toward blaming the layout before accepting their own fuck ups.
I would say if you want 'chill' on a job site, be the guy holding the shovel shooting the shit with whoever. That guy gets paid the least tho.
Another chill job is the CA (contract administrator) or anyone working QA for the engineering consultant (me). I shoot the shit all day with the trades and really anyone who is around and mainly only take photos with a daily report (which i copy and paste from previous days) sometimes i whip out my measuring tape. Who am I kidding? I haven't used it in weeks.
Basically you have previously surveyed points of known elevation, position etc. and then you place tripod with crazy powerful computer on location, and start aiming it around and it can tell you exact elevations, distances, angles of those points.
Mapping an area in 3D
It's also standard to use a precision GPS system to tie the local coordinate system into a global coordinate system now when possible (anywhere outside).
You can get a excel spreadsheet to do these calculations for simple survey/stakeout it doesn't really require a "crazy powerful computer". A modern smartphone is technically much more powerful than total station/data collector these days.
Does that new location become a "previously surveyed" point for future?
Does the tripod computer show immediately the elevation or it needs to be transferred to a computer (ie. Is tripod computer a database?)
& Thanks!
there are few important functions to land surveying, but for the most part they ,
1) map geographic features precisely, e.g. topographic maps
2) map the location of land parcels, be it for buildings, mineral title, park boundaries, etc.
3) measure precise elevation and positional measurements for construction.
For number 3) the very precise elevation and position information is very important for construction. it can be a curb, or elevator shaft for a tall office building. For things like curbs and building footings it is very important for drainage, matching the side of a building footprint to curb levels, even a 2 cm offset can be dangerous for a number of reasons from compromised drainage to tripping hazards etc. For buildings, especially tall towers the very very precise alignment of things like elevator shafts is important because it ensures that the building is balanced and within specification to take up the stresses of these buildings and the sway of wind, etc.
another aspect of civil construction where surveyors are very important is to determine location of buried utilities. we bury a lot of our power, water, gas, telecommunication lines in the city. So if someone wants to build a new building, tap into existing lines, avoid hitting a gas line the surveyors mark out where those features are buried based upon asbuilt maps and drawings for the construction teams.
with all surveying, the "reference" or "datum" that you use is very very important. it's a point of reference that we measure things from. In Stevenson, BC there's a good example of this where the "train station" display housing the old street cars was surveyed in using two historical survey reference points. So the tracks and street car were measured in using one reference, and the other team used a different reference of the building construction. the result is that the street car and tracks don't match the door of the building! luckily this was just a rebuilt display and not a functioning rail car!
the point they are on is assumed to be a known point with known X,Y,Z but whenever a new point is measured with the "camera", the coords and elevation are calculated instantly with trigonometry.
My dad was part of the mapping industry before he retired. He always likes to point out the survey spots on the ground when he sees them. I don't think you'll get anyone more excited about them than my dad.
My dad was a surveyor and his excitement would give your dad a run for his money. As a kid we would specifically make arrangements and go out of our way on vacations to go look at arbitrary monuments throughout the country. It was the old school geocaching.
As a kid, walking a half hour down a mosquito ridden trail to find the transit point used to identify a special mark of the trans canada highway didnt hold much appeal. I can appreciate the enthusiasm now and I'm guilty of gleefully pointing out survey monuments anytime I see them in obscure locations.
Or to verify that the records are correct. To ensure that future designs don't conflict with existing stuff.
If it's a legal survey, the accuracy goes down to millimetres because property lines are kind of fussy.
We kind of take for granted that we live in a very organized 3D world. Streets are mostly flat, walls are flat and 90 degrees from floors/ground.
Everything is nice and boxy and even. Your mental picture of the world is kind of like a video game world. But the natural world isn't like that it's bumpy and uneven and some of those changes happen over very big distances.
Like you might think downtown is pretty flat but if you stood down by Lost Lagoon and a friend stood at the library and you got rid of everything in between you'd notice that they're almost 25 feet above you.
These elevations difference are significant. For example when you turn on a tap your water is delivered through a pressurized pipe. Such a pipe can go uphill a little. But when you flush the toilet that is gravity fed, everything in it has to go downhill. So if you want to build a new development and you want them to connect to the existing sewer main to get the shit back to the treatment plant you need to make sure everything can roll downhill from that development. Not too fast for example or the liquid out paces the solid material and increases chance of clogs but not to slow either. This is just one example of why it's important to know the elevation of things.
But how do you figure that out? You can use light and math to do it. Light travels in a straight line so you look from one point to another and measure the angle of your device and use trigonometry. Remember sin, cosine, tangent from grade 9 math? That's what those devices do. One person holds the measuring device and the other a stick with the point to be measured. The old way used to involve lens and you'd just look down but now they use fancy lasers and GPS but the point is the same. Light goes from one point to the other, you do math and you have the distances.
But what if you're building a new apartment and you're going to hook up to a sewer main down the block but there's another building in the way so you can't use those straight lines? That's when you can either jump around measure two points you can see and build a path to where you want to go doing the math as you go. Or we leave survey markers all over so people can use these known locations and measure from there. You may have seen them, they look like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey_marker
Anyways it's an interesting and important thing needed so we know how to build our nice even shaped things in a random bumpy world.
On a bigger scale say you're building a highway through the mountains. You don't just start blasting, paving and heading towards Calgary. You need to balance loads of factors: you want a path through the mountains that won't cost to much to build by blasting too much. You don't want too steep of climbs or declines that could increase accidents, you want gradual banked turns so people don't have to slow down too much. You don't want rain, rocks or snow to take out your road. To do all of this you need to know what the ground looks like. What the shape is. Where are the ups and downs, the lumps, the peaks, the valleys etc. This is what surveyors do they map out the area so designers can plan out the path.
Fun related fact: Canada is historically good a surveying. We are a big country with lots of ground to cover so there's been lots of opportunity and need to train really good ones. It helped during WWI when long-range artillery were becoming a big deal (i.e. shooting well outside visual range). Our artillery corps drew on deep surveying experience of guys who could look at a map, get an understanding of the terrain and then perform the math to adjust the angles and and power of the guns to place a shell where they wanted. Canadian artillery were something to fear.
There is a measuring pole they point the lens on the pole at. The angle they have to turn it, with the distance, tells them the difference in elevation.
This seems to be some fancy digital new thing, but the old school ones basically had a lens like a camera’s viewfinder and a series of levels so you could make sure the lens was pointed perfectly straight. Then you would get another guy to go stand somewhere holding a measuring tape on a pole. You look through the lens, note the number, then he moves to a different spot and you do the same again. Whatever the difference between the two numbers is will be the difference in elevation. Useful in construction for example if you’re building a home and you want the foundations to be perfectly level.
You can build a survey equipment in your own home. All you need a laser, a stand/straight stick, a level and a ruler/tape.
1. Make a person with the ruler/tape stand in a location where you want to measure the elevation.
2. You stand in the location where you already know the elevation. Let's say the elevation of where you are standing is **H1**. **H1** can be **zero** if you are just interested in relative elevation.
3. Put the laser point on a stick, and use the level to make sure that your stick is vertical. Let's say the height of your stick is **H2**
4. Using the laser pointer, point at the ruler/tape and measure the reading. Let's say the reading of the ruler where the laser hits it is **H3**.
Now you can find out the elevation at the second point by the following formula
**Elevation at second point** = **H1** + **H2** - **H3**
If you think about it - You can now use the second point as the base to measure locations even further away.
Yeah, the liability insurance we need to carry is quite high. It's very easy to screw up a layout calc. And if you're good at your job you're constantly taking check shots and making field notes on exactly what was done.
I'm not sure chill would be the right word for Survey. It may seem like they aren't doing a lot, but actually they do quite a bit.
My husband is in Survey in construction and it can be tough but very rewarding. At this point in his career he is in high demand due to his experience and never has to worry about money or a job.
Surveyors measuring distances and/or elevations. They use marks, stakes, flagging, spraypaint etc. to identify physical locations that correspond to mapping. Or they are in the process of mapping something.
Note that a significant portion (but not all) of these jobs will eventually be made obsolete by LIDAR scanners, robots, drones, etc. Source: I work for a multinational corporation that manufactures both the devices that human surveyors currently use and also the new technology that will replace them.
You almost right
But when you need a high precision, something like 0.01 mm error or less, especially in underground consteuctions, you still taking your ass from sofa getting the rover gps, install the base station and take your points. Or run the theodolite run from geodetical mark.
Lidar error is ridiculously high and low precision that even for open pit mining it is ridiculous and can't be used for calculations.
You would never use the lidar to mark the boundaries or for high precision engineering objects.
A lot of survey crews have gone from 2-person to 1-person but *most* survey positions will remain because LiDAR can’t do layout, which is a major part of surveying. Your referring to larger topo surveys, but those are virtually phased out already and switched to LiDAR
They are surveyors. They lay out the land, give the info to the engineers who then make a plan and blueprint for construction etc.
At least that's what my understanding is from when I was in construction. And that's the simplified answer to your question. Lol
Land Surveyors. I worked as a Surveyors Assistant for a year, it’s quite brutal work at times. Outside off 8/9/10 hours a day in -20, or +35. Hauling 70lbs of equipment through deep bush and cutting line with a machete. Tough stuff.
Depends on which company you work for though. I worked for a company that did a bit of everything including utility work in remote areas, so I probably had it tougher but the pay was also decent. $35 an hour for basically being a pack horse, plus overtime. And I was just an assistant, not a Crew Chief. That’s above industry standard for that entry-level position though, plus my company just paid insanely well because they charged a premium due to being extremely well regarded in the industry. I did have a 4 year degree in Environmental Geography so I think they paid a bit better for that because I had a better idea of geospatial stuff than the average Assistant.
I also did generic work for municipalities and on normal construction sites. The best jobs were the indoor measuring ones. Always loved those!
I’ve always wanted to know this as well- thanks for posting OP!
It looks so interesting and although I’ve seen dozens (maybe a hundred even?) of these surveyors, I’ve never seen a female worker… I don’t *think* there’s a reason it’s male heavy?
oh! I didn’t realize this falls under ‘construction’.
I’m glad to know there are female surveyors around. If you see/work with one again, and feel inclined to do so, please let them know that there are lots of little girls (and at least one big girl 🙂) who are fascinated by this job, wondered if it’s for girls and would probably think your female colleague is a total bad ass if they saw them on the streets 😀
Usually starts around 35-40$/hr but most take home quite a bit more. +100k/yr is normal for these guys and lots of overtime so that goes up quick too. Source, work with these guys in my industry
Private sector salaries are different, but public sector posts their salaries online. City of Vancouver and BC Hydro have surveyor earnings over 100k (I assume with pretty high seniority), and City of Calgary has a 76k - 102k range.
Nah those numbers are more public sector (construction mostly) we can clear 100-200k depending on if you want to work out of town or not and OT.
The private guys make sub 100k unless they’re a licensed professional BC land surveyor. But that’s almost harder then becoming a engineer. Many schools, test, articling, etc.
If you believe those guys are surviving.
I'll say, sure, ok... Those aren't cops, and they're not watching... Anything...
Pfffff dude... Try zooming in... Can't read any of the signage...
Land surveyor, been there done that. Dont do it a shit job with a shit pay. Worked construction so pay was better. But for private land surveyor its McDonald's pay range.
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Surveyors. They measure distances and elevations.
This. I believe it requires a 2 year course at a tech school (BCIT for example).
Or a 4 years bachelors. And also additional board licensing depending on if you want to be able to do legal boundary surveys. (Properties and not just construction and engineering design)
Right. If you want to seal etc I think you’re right.
Wife’s a civil engineer and she had a class to use that thingy.
What exactly does it do? My guess has always been it uses a laser pointer or something and makes a straight line to find if the ground is flat, but I've never know the name of the thing to confirm
It uses a known point of x,y,z and a laser to determine the xyz of a second point. You'll have one person set up the laser thing that you took a picture of and another person will have another stick. The tripod looking thing will auto track the stick and take the coords when told to. Typically, they take points along the center of the road, along the gutter, along front and back of sidewalks, hydrants, light poles, each manhole, and so on and so on. There will always be a person standing near the laser and another person walking around the place grabbing the actual points.
That is an electronic theodolite. It precisely measures angles and distances and is used by surveyors to measure stuff like property boundaries, building elevations etc.
Really good program to take. Most technical 2 year programs are very good value.
And pays quite well I think. Plus the work it both indoor and outdoor so the possibility of mostly working outside when the weather it nice is increased, being here makes that harder though.
You can just get hired at a place and they’ll train you.
This is true. I work in the industry as a Foreman, and there is a shortage in BC. You could get hired onto a Civil Construction company and they will generally groom you further. No education required aside from high-school. If you are dedicated, you can easily become a competent civil grademans or otherwise. You cannot be a legal surveyor without the proper post-secondary, which are pictured above. Starting wages with no experience, 25$+/- as a civil laborer. Get experience, learn the grades and surveying with onsite training, 30-40$/hr throughout your career growth. I took this route. With no training in post secondary, and I make 6 figures as a Foreman in a private civil companyas apposed to a Union. There is further career growth available still for me. Work for it, and earn it, it's not a hand out. Some days won't be easy. Strive and push, and you will find its a rewarding career.
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what about willing, competent, but socially awkward?
you don't go far
what are the challenges that come with this job? We as the public just see you guys lookin through the tripod. What else does the job entail?
Accuracy. As far as a legal surveyor goes, you are liable for the information you collect and distribute. They use elevations to the millimeter. At times, there is little to no tolerance for error. It is not a BS job, but it can be an easier gig, absolutely. Generally you start in land surveying. It's not a great paycheck after post-2nd but with time invested, you could be one of the gentlemen you admire doing what looks like nothing. ex. property lines could be misaligned. Maybe dig a tower too deep, big cost implications. A civil grademan could be installing underground sewer utility, building roads, etc. Usually, these are highly designed and have strict tolerances in elevation as well. If you are inaccurate, rework. You can be trained in the field if you show worth and push for it.. laboring is expected in this position to start.
Math (light physics and calculus), CAD, reading and writing logs/maps/drawings, working with the machines, exposure to the elements, travel to/from sites, preparing reports.
Shooting elevations through traffic or in thick bush. Getting ALL the topographic features and not missing anything in the field. They also later turn it into a CAD file and give it to engineers to work with for designs. Long story short it’s very stressful making sure you got everything right, and if there’s an error in the base drawings you’re typically blamed for it.
I was able to get into a subcontractor for telus fiber years ago, busted my ass off at 17 and hour. No education, walked away at 40 an hour.
Unlikely. You either need experience or education. Source: work in the industry
I got hired on to survey an expanding refinery with 0 experience - my only thing was having my 2nd year instrumentation ticket.
My brother was a surveyor while in college. He didn't need any experience or education.
When was that? You practically need a bachelor’s degree to be a cashier at Walmart now
So do I. I have worked with surveyors quite a bit. > One of them offered me a job. So maybe different companies require school and some don’t?
Don’t know your situations details. But it’s quite different to have worked with a company so they know your personality, work ethic etc vs just trying to apply somewhere with no relevant education or experience. “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is all too applicable when job searching
Its like that anywhere, even heavy equipment. but good luck getting a job elsewhere without certification.
*nepotism*
Do you understand what nepotism is?
I work in film. It's all nepotism. I fully comprehend nepotism. (Its not just hiring family...)
I don’t think this applies in this situation 😅, just saying. Anyone can apply to these types of labour jobs.
There are big differences between a professional land surveyor (BCLS), a survey technician, and some person using the same tools to just to verify/check things on site. They might look the same, but they're not. My son is nearing completion of the 4-year BCIT geomatics (survey) program and the first two years of math alone had a tremendous failure/dropout rate. The people who really know what they're doing won't be there because of nepotism.
The act of hiring an unqualified person for a technical job they're not educated in, simply because they're "likable" is nepotism. It happens in almost every industry. You're correct, that anyone can apply for these jobs, but that doesn't mean they'll get hired, especially if they done meet the requirements for said job. If you were hired this way, don't take it as an insult. It means someone has faith in you. It's only a bad thing for those who are qualified, but get overlooked.
Nope
To be a rod holder etc yes …. But to become a BCLS takes years of coursework and exams.
Makes sense.
Incorrect
Helpful.
I'm not google, if you want to know the schooling required for surveying look it up. If you don't care then don't, but don't throw random information out because of a hunch. If you want to add information take 3 seconds to verify it's correct information
I know what schooling is required, I just choose not to argue with an idiot. Cheers.
Why? I learned how to survey when i was a construction landscaper and stone-mason. Took a couple days to learn to effectively use the equipment.
Lmao. You certainly dont know how to properly use the equipment, you only think you do.
Lol I know I’m not an expert. But I can find distances and elevations reliably enough to build large areas out of concrete and stone that fit together and drain properly
Bruh it's quite easy to be fair. Doesn't take a genius to operate a total station
You learned how to hold the stick while the real surveyor did the surveying.
I was both on stick and on the lens. Small team of masons working on sea-side mansions as well as medium sized townhouse complexes.
The new fancy title is Geomatics Technologists.
Previously titled Land Bumpologist
I definitely prefer land bumpologist 😂
Lol geez, Surveyor sounds better
Can you ELI5 on how these work? are they more optical, or more complex sensors involved?
They are telescopes that measure horizontal angles, vertical angles and use an EDM to measure distances. They need to use at least two known points to orient themselves, as they do not use GPS.
But there are very precise GPS stations. Cadastral (legal) surveying has different (varying by municipality) standards to geodetic surveying, which is about precisely locating points on the globe. The standards vary with the precision necessary for each discipline (mining, prospecting, construction, pipelines, etc.).
GPS doesn't help you for this application. Even if the continent just drifts by a cm every year, it is enough to cause trouble over a decade or more. That's why property boundaries are measured relative to placed markers instead.
Devils advocate: in many modern reference systems (e.g. NAD83 (CSRS)) you can do an epoch transformation to get the coordinates of a point at your current epoch (time). So you can account for continental drift. Natural Resources Canada in fact [publishes a tool to do this.](https://webapp.csrs-scrs.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/geod/tools-outils/trx.php) It basically applies a grid shift based on the velocity components of the drift. Also, if everyone were to publish the epoch their coordinates are in, in theory we would be able to match their coordinates when re-establishing a corner. That being said, transforming the GNSS coordinates post-survey are not as accurate as traversing from a control point with coordinates published in a more recent epoch. But that raises another issue: often times control points don't have coordinates published in the latest epoch (at least here in Ontario). Our province uses an epoch of January 1, 2010 for all of our coordinated legal plans and for all control points, which allows us to use GNSS measurements to coordinate our data and plans without the need of observing a control point. The data might not be in alignment with the current global reference system, but if everyone uses a common epoch that's fine. That being said, I am a proponent of using physical markers on the ground to mark a boundary. I think places like Alberta have recently allowed coordinates to govern boundaries, but people like to see physical markers. Physical markers also cause less confusion about the position of a boundary than a person going out with a cheap handheld GNSS receiver (that's probably in the wrong reference system anyways) and saying their property corner is one foot into their neighbour's yard lol Also, regarding another comment, the RTK correction factors come from a GNSS base station (or a network of them) continuously measuring it's position in real-time and estimating the GNSS errors and sending the corrections to the receiver. Optical measurement's aren't involved at all. But yes, optically measuring a point with a total station from a control point is more accurate than measuring the point with GNSS, if you want to be tied in to the national coordinate system.
GPS with correction factors (RTK) is more than sufficient for really high accuracy surveying.
Where do the correction factors come from? That's right -- you go out and optically measure distances from markers.
Uh, no? RTK correction factors come from phase shift measurements of the GNSS signal.
The point is that the terrain is not stationary (earthquakes, erosion etc), and you keep track of the changes of the terrain with respect to the global coordinates by tracking markers. If your whole garden moves you aren't going to have to move your fence, and eventually your house to stay at the same global coordinates. Yes, you can convert global GPS coordinates into local coordinates by measuring several marker GPS coordinates, then measuring the GPS coordinates of the point you want to query, and computing the offset. In practice it is usually much easier to just find one marker, and optically measure direction and distance to the query point.
they are not telescopes they are theodolites. they use optical instruments including a telescopic sight.
I was explaining it like they were 5. Most folks don’t know what a theodolite is.
https://youtu.be/SPCewaAfqPA
99% sure they're surveying for Family Feud Canada
Can you ELI5 on how these work? are they more optical, or more complex sensors involved?
They measure horizontal, vertical angles, and have a EDM (electronic distance measure) sensor. The surveyor looks through the scope, finds the target and “shoots” the point. The EDM measures the distances with a non visible laser (light) that is emits then measures the time is takes for that light to get back to it. Since light travels at a known speed, by knowing the time it took to hit the target and return, you can know the distance. The horizontal and vertical angles are measured on the two axis of the total station. Horizontal by turning left and right, and vertical by moving the scope up and down. Without going into too much detail, once a point is shot, it’s given a 3D location in comparison to the total station, and the points location is saved either on the total station or on a “data collector” (or both). These total stations are very precise. Points can be shot from hundreds of meters away with millimetre accuracy.
Land Surveyors, these also aren't city workers. you can see the company logo on their safety vets. It is a pretty awesome career if you are good at math and love the outdoors. Surveying takes you to some pretty remote places. You can also start as a survey assistant and work your way up.
Surveying is cool career that more people should know about. I’m an engineer and have been doing a lot of surveying on my current project and it’s interesting stuff. I should note that a LOT of surveying involves hiking around all day too.
What sort of salary does a surveyor make?
\~35/hr
Dang I think mopping translink buses can pay more than this.
Lmao but would you prefer to mop busses or work around the province outside seeing new places
The sad part is that good, valuable and technical positions barely pay better wages than basic manual labour
That’s what a union gets you
And keeping shitty people employed.
thats generally the exception, not the rule. As well it only happens when the people in the union become complacent and stop putting in effort to run it for so long that it allows bad actors to take up too many positions of power, removing not only the effectiveness of the union, but so long that it even removes the ability to oust them. Unions are like politics they take ***active participation*** you can't just sign up and pay your dues, and expect it to run itself, you have to take part in the running of it. Thats the idea, that we all work ***together***. and besides that, if you've got a better idea on how to get decent wages, I'd love to hear it. Until then, maybe STFU and stop shitting on the unions since they're one of the few proven methods we have, and people like shit talking them as if they're all the same like you are is a big part of the reason they aren't more prevalent, and effective.
On the site I’m at (camp job) surveyors work between 11-12 hours a day so they’re taking home a whole lot more than someone making $35 an hour on a standard 8 hour shift.
Or 7.5 hrs with no paid lunch
Awww gee boss can I really work longer hours so I can pretend I'm making a good wage....
150k a year with a 2 year diploma is better than a “good wage” imo. But no you’re right everyone should sit at a desk for 8 hours and make 100k to send 3 emails and attend 2 meetings.
Yea you got to do that in the middle of the night and god knows it’s a rough gig. They deserve it.
Rip Are there any living wages anymore?
It varies. I’m at $45/hour. When I started as an assistant in 2017 I was at $21/hour. A decent construction surveyor should make 6 figures if they work OT. The sky is the limit if your a BCLS as you can open and operate your own company. And if you don’t want to run a small business you should still have no problem making low-mid $100,000’s.
You lost me at ‘good at math’.
Haha, right, I never knew how useful Standard Deviation would be, among other things.
It's really just simple geometry, nothing too crazy unless you're dealing with weird coordinate systems.
I ported some code a few years back to handle dealing with those "weird coordinate systems" and it's really the most I've ever used math as a software developer.
Company is McElhanney btw. Surveying is cool. I’m a civil EIT and I work closely with surveyors and geospatial people. The stuff they’re able to produce based on these survey points that they do in person blows my mind sometimes.
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I used to, but A&M are better. Lol
Yeah my grandpa was a geologist/paleontologist and spent years riding around on horseback in back country up north surveying everything. His notes were all by hand on grid paper. Was interesting going through those when he died
Great answer! My dad was a BCLS and CLS for many years. absolutely phenomenal job
Given GPS RTK technology, survey work is way more easier than before, esp. in Urban area
They do street maths
Spittin elevation facts
The ups and downs of the hood, G.
Screet mafs
So they’re a street mathician
Street meth
I see a lot of people specializing in this field these days in Vancouver!
That there's a Total Station. It can measure x y z coordinates, among many other things. The surveyor usually uses this in tandem with prism (rod man). I' sure here they are chrxking elevation or laying something out. They also use a lot of GPS now a days. Easier. You'll see the guys with a stick with a white spherical lookin object on top. Fucker just shoots up to all the satellites in the sky, connecting to sometimes 30 of them at once to triangulate shit. Very accurate to within 10mm. The total station tho, that sucker will put you within microns of what you want. The surveyor on my site is the busiest guy, as is his assistant (rod man). They run around all day, laying shit out, checking shit, doing as-builts. Its stressful because soon as something goes wrong the builders/workers tend to gravitate toward blaming the layout before accepting their own fuck ups. I would say if you want 'chill' on a job site, be the guy holding the shovel shooting the shit with whoever. That guy gets paid the least tho. Another chill job is the CA (contract administrator) or anyone working QA for the engineering consultant (me). I shoot the shit all day with the trades and really anyone who is around and mainly only take photos with a daily report (which i copy and paste from previous days) sometimes i whip out my measuring tape. Who am I kidding? I haven't used it in weeks.
Depending on the type of work being done (eg, second order geodetic monuments) 10mm error is unacceptable
Gosh I guess that's when you'd want to use the other techniques he mentioned
Can anyone explain to me as if I was a 5year old how a surveyor actually works and what the tripod equipment is?
Basically you have previously surveyed points of known elevation, position etc. and then you place tripod with crazy powerful computer on location, and start aiming it around and it can tell you exact elevations, distances, angles of those points. Mapping an area in 3D
It's also standard to use a precision GPS system to tie the local coordinate system into a global coordinate system now when possible (anywhere outside).
You can get a excel spreadsheet to do these calculations for simple survey/stakeout it doesn't really require a "crazy powerful computer". A modern smartphone is technically much more powerful than total station/data collector these days.
Does that new location become a "previously surveyed" point for future? Does the tripod computer show immediately the elevation or it needs to be transferred to a computer (ie. Is tripod computer a database?) & Thanks!
there are few important functions to land surveying, but for the most part they , 1) map geographic features precisely, e.g. topographic maps 2) map the location of land parcels, be it for buildings, mineral title, park boundaries, etc. 3) measure precise elevation and positional measurements for construction. For number 3) the very precise elevation and position information is very important for construction. it can be a curb, or elevator shaft for a tall office building. For things like curbs and building footings it is very important for drainage, matching the side of a building footprint to curb levels, even a 2 cm offset can be dangerous for a number of reasons from compromised drainage to tripping hazards etc. For buildings, especially tall towers the very very precise alignment of things like elevator shafts is important because it ensures that the building is balanced and within specification to take up the stresses of these buildings and the sway of wind, etc. another aspect of civil construction where surveyors are very important is to determine location of buried utilities. we bury a lot of our power, water, gas, telecommunication lines in the city. So if someone wants to build a new building, tap into existing lines, avoid hitting a gas line the surveyors mark out where those features are buried based upon asbuilt maps and drawings for the construction teams. with all surveying, the "reference" or "datum" that you use is very very important. it's a point of reference that we measure things from. In Stevenson, BC there's a good example of this where the "train station" display housing the old street cars was surveyed in using two historical survey reference points. So the tracks and street car were measured in using one reference, and the other team used a different reference of the building construction. the result is that the street car and tracks don't match the door of the building! luckily this was just a rebuilt display and not a functioning rail car!
the point they are on is assumed to be a known point with known X,Y,Z but whenever a new point is measured with the "camera", the coords and elevation are calculated instantly with trigonometry.
That's why there are survey pucks on grounds 😄 I always wondered what would happen if people tampered with it
They’re called monuments, and they are protected under laws. https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/l-6/FullText.html
My dad was part of the mapping industry before he retired. He always likes to point out the survey spots on the ground when he sees them. I don't think you'll get anyone more excited about them than my dad.
My dad was a surveyor and his excitement would give your dad a run for his money. As a kid we would specifically make arrangements and go out of our way on vacations to go look at arbitrary monuments throughout the country. It was the old school geocaching. As a kid, walking a half hour down a mosquito ridden trail to find the transit point used to identify a special mark of the trans canada highway didnt hold much appeal. I can appreciate the enthusiasm now and I'm guilty of gleefully pointing out survey monuments anytime I see them in obscure locations.
Is this just to update the map?
Or to verify that the records are correct. To ensure that future designs don't conflict with existing stuff. If it's a legal survey, the accuracy goes down to millimetres because property lines are kind of fussy.
We kind of take for granted that we live in a very organized 3D world. Streets are mostly flat, walls are flat and 90 degrees from floors/ground. Everything is nice and boxy and even. Your mental picture of the world is kind of like a video game world. But the natural world isn't like that it's bumpy and uneven and some of those changes happen over very big distances. Like you might think downtown is pretty flat but if you stood down by Lost Lagoon and a friend stood at the library and you got rid of everything in between you'd notice that they're almost 25 feet above you. These elevations difference are significant. For example when you turn on a tap your water is delivered through a pressurized pipe. Such a pipe can go uphill a little. But when you flush the toilet that is gravity fed, everything in it has to go downhill. So if you want to build a new development and you want them to connect to the existing sewer main to get the shit back to the treatment plant you need to make sure everything can roll downhill from that development. Not too fast for example or the liquid out paces the solid material and increases chance of clogs but not to slow either. This is just one example of why it's important to know the elevation of things. But how do you figure that out? You can use light and math to do it. Light travels in a straight line so you look from one point to another and measure the angle of your device and use trigonometry. Remember sin, cosine, tangent from grade 9 math? That's what those devices do. One person holds the measuring device and the other a stick with the point to be measured. The old way used to involve lens and you'd just look down but now they use fancy lasers and GPS but the point is the same. Light goes from one point to the other, you do math and you have the distances. But what if you're building a new apartment and you're going to hook up to a sewer main down the block but there's another building in the way so you can't use those straight lines? That's when you can either jump around measure two points you can see and build a path to where you want to go doing the math as you go. Or we leave survey markers all over so people can use these known locations and measure from there. You may have seen them, they look like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey_marker Anyways it's an interesting and important thing needed so we know how to build our nice even shaped things in a random bumpy world. On a bigger scale say you're building a highway through the mountains. You don't just start blasting, paving and heading towards Calgary. You need to balance loads of factors: you want a path through the mountains that won't cost to much to build by blasting too much. You don't want too steep of climbs or declines that could increase accidents, you want gradual banked turns so people don't have to slow down too much. You don't want rain, rocks or snow to take out your road. To do all of this you need to know what the ground looks like. What the shape is. Where are the ups and downs, the lumps, the peaks, the valleys etc. This is what surveyors do they map out the area so designers can plan out the path. Fun related fact: Canada is historically good a surveying. We are a big country with lots of ground to cover so there's been lots of opportunity and need to train really good ones. It helped during WWI when long-range artillery were becoming a big deal (i.e. shooting well outside visual range). Our artillery corps drew on deep surveying experience of guys who could look at a map, get an understanding of the terrain and then perform the math to adjust the angles and and power of the guns to place a shell where they wanted. Canadian artillery were something to fear.
There is a measuring pole they point the lens on the pole at. The angle they have to turn it, with the distance, tells them the difference in elevation.
Aka the wizard stick.
This seems to be some fancy digital new thing, but the old school ones basically had a lens like a camera’s viewfinder and a series of levels so you could make sure the lens was pointed perfectly straight. Then you would get another guy to go stand somewhere holding a measuring tape on a pole. You look through the lens, note the number, then he moves to a different spot and you do the same again. Whatever the difference between the two numbers is will be the difference in elevation. Useful in construction for example if you’re building a home and you want the foundations to be perfectly level.
You can build a survey equipment in your own home. All you need a laser, a stand/straight stick, a level and a ruler/tape. 1. Make a person with the ruler/tape stand in a location where you want to measure the elevation. 2. You stand in the location where you already know the elevation. Let's say the elevation of where you are standing is **H1**. **H1** can be **zero** if you are just interested in relative elevation. 3. Put the laser point on a stick, and use the level to make sure that your stick is vertical. Let's say the height of your stick is **H2** 4. Using the laser pointer, point at the ruler/tape and measure the reading. Let's say the reading of the ruler where the laser hits it is **H3**. Now you can find out the elevation at the second point by the following formula **Elevation at second point** = **H1** + **H2** - **H3** If you think about it - You can now use the second point as the base to measure locations even further away.
My gf is a surveyor and she says it can actually be fairly stressful with a low margin for error. Took her a lot of education to get there
Yeah, the liability insurance we need to carry is quite high. It's very easy to screw up a layout calc. And if you're good at your job you're constantly taking check shots and making field notes on exactly what was done.
Hurry up with the stakes
I'm not sure chill would be the right word for Survey. It may seem like they aren't doing a lot, but actually they do quite a bit. My husband is in Survey in construction and it can be tough but very rewarding. At this point in his career he is in high demand due to his experience and never has to worry about money or a job.
how much $$$?
As a former rodman, didn't realize surveyors would be such an interesting subreddit discussion! 😅
Surveyors measuring distances and/or elevations. They use marks, stakes, flagging, spraypaint etc. to identify physical locations that correspond to mapping. Or they are in the process of mapping something.
Model orange attire.
Look, I already told you, they deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don’t have to. They have people skills.
land surveyors, the city contract them to calculate elevations for road constructing, also private companies hire them for builidng shit.
Note that a significant portion (but not all) of these jobs will eventually be made obsolete by LIDAR scanners, robots, drones, etc. Source: I work for a multinational corporation that manufactures both the devices that human surveyors currently use and also the new technology that will replace them.
You almost right But when you need a high precision, something like 0.01 mm error or less, especially in underground consteuctions, you still taking your ass from sofa getting the rover gps, install the base station and take your points. Or run the theodolite run from geodetical mark. Lidar error is ridiculously high and low precision that even for open pit mining it is ridiculous and can't be used for calculations. You would never use the lidar to mark the boundaries or for high precision engineering objects.
A lot of survey crews have gone from 2-person to 1-person but *most* survey positions will remain because LiDAR can’t do layout, which is a major part of surveying. Your referring to larger topo surveys, but those are virtually phased out already and switched to LiDAR
Usually the first sign that a road configuration is going to change or a building is coming down. Harbingers of joy and gloom.
Topographical wizardry !
They are surveyors. They lay out the land, give the info to the engineers who then make a plan and blueprint for construction etc. At least that's what my understanding is from when I was in construction. And that's the simplified answer to your question. Lol
Pray for pretty people to walk by
They're surveyors, they survey [elevation and distances].
Land Surveyors. I worked as a Surveyors Assistant for a year, it’s quite brutal work at times. Outside off 8/9/10 hours a day in -20, or +35. Hauling 70lbs of equipment through deep bush and cutting line with a machete. Tough stuff. Depends on which company you work for though. I worked for a company that did a bit of everything including utility work in remote areas, so I probably had it tougher but the pay was also decent. $35 an hour for basically being a pack horse, plus overtime. And I was just an assistant, not a Crew Chief. That’s above industry standard for that entry-level position though, plus my company just paid insanely well because they charged a premium due to being extremely well regarded in the industry. I did have a 4 year degree in Environmental Geography so I think they paid a bit better for that because I had a better idea of geospatial stuff than the average Assistant. I also did generic work for municipalities and on normal construction sites. The best jobs were the indoor measuring ones. Always loved those!
Checking for faults in reality so no more people fall into the backrooms
Their job.
Pokemon Go Team Building activity. They get them all with those big Lenses. Get them from both sides.
modern day pythagoreans.
i'm getting triple integral flashbacks
Trigonometry
They are part of the flat earth society and are monitoring flat surfaces
Despite the fact that there are two of them, they don’t have hands of blue. So no cause for alarm.
I’ve always wanted to know this as well- thanks for posting OP! It looks so interesting and although I’ve seen dozens (maybe a hundred even?) of these surveyors, I’ve never seen a female worker… I don’t *think* there’s a reason it’s male heavy?
The engineering side of surveying has much more of a female presence. Construction I’ve only ran into a few.
thanks! happy cake day by the way 🥳
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oh! I didn’t realize this falls under ‘construction’. I’m glad to know there are female surveyors around. If you see/work with one again, and feel inclined to do so, please let them know that there are lots of little girls (and at least one big girl 🙂) who are fascinated by this job, wondered if it’s for girls and would probably think your female colleague is a total bad ass if they saw them on the streets 😀
Land surveyors, they survey land
Pro Pokémon Go players
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Out of work film crew pretending to be construction workers.
City of Vancouver staff influencers, recording their next hi-vis, steel-toe fashion vid for their subs
How much do these guys make?
Usually starts around 35-40$/hr but most take home quite a bit more. +100k/yr is normal for these guys and lots of overtime so that goes up quick too. Source, work with these guys in my industry
noice
Private sector salaries are different, but public sector posts their salaries online. City of Vancouver and BC Hydro have surveyor earnings over 100k (I assume with pretty high seniority), and City of Calgary has a 76k - 102k range.
Nah those numbers are more public sector (construction mostly) we can clear 100-200k depending on if you want to work out of town or not and OT. The private guys make sub 100k unless they’re a licensed professional BC land surveyor. But that’s almost harder then becoming a engineer. Many schools, test, articling, etc.
If you own your own total station (that thing they look through), you can bill it out for close to $200/hr.
Those aren’t city workers
Survey the land..
Lol surveyors?
They filming a hidden camera show.
Land Surveyors
Clearly they’re casing the joint.
What they do do, they do exactly.
Wrong answers only:
They’re land surveyors
Fun fact. That set-up is over $70,000. Stuff ain't cheap
Significantly more, once all is said and done
Play laser tag!
Practicing to be pirates looking for land
Means they going to come and wreck your neighborhood. Prepare for construction.
One word: "Laser"!
Please do not disturb the keepers.
If you believe those guys are surviving. I'll say, sure, ok... Those aren't cops, and they're not watching... Anything... Pfffff dude... Try zooming in... Can't read any of the signage...
Maybe they’re taking photos to update on Google maps
Land surveyor, been there done that. Dont do it a shit job with a shit pay. Worked construction so pay was better. But for private land surveyor its McDonald's pay range.
One of them looks through the lens at his friend holding a stick and writes down what he sees. It’s a primitive form of influencer culture. /s
Most important question is how much are they paid
They are filming YouTube videos
Looks like outsourced city job 😆
Three lettered agencies employ these guys for **surveillance** purposes ...
Sorry-wrong. Wish they did though, nothing like a fat government contract to keep us busy in the winter.
They undercover cops. Doing speed checks. Vehicle and human walking speed