If you’ve seen someone in an orange safety vest with a tripod near a roadway or open field, you’ve seen a surveyor at work. For many, this is the only knowledge they have of what a surveyor does. Unless you’re building, buying, selling or subdividing, you probably haven’t benefited from the services of a surveyor.

“Surveyors are on site before any construction happens — before the ground is broken or a twig is moved,” explains Tim Rockwood, vice president and director of Surveying Services at Pathways Consulting in Etna, N.H. “Surveyors provide boundary and topography in detail. They’re the first ones and last ones on site, coming and going throughout the whole process.”

Why Survey?

Surveying is the art and science of accurately determining the form, extent and position of something (such as a tract of land) by taking linear and angular measurements and applying the principles of geometry and trigonometry. That’s the definition from Merriam-Webster, but better descriptions of this technique can be found throughout history.

Did you know that the Egyptians were early surveyors, re-establishing boundaries by using simple geometry after the Nile River overflowed its banks each year. There was Daniel Boone, a famous pioneer and frontiersman who blazed the Wilderness Road in 1775. In 1791 Benjamin Banneker, with his knowledge of astronomy and mathematics, was instrumental in surveying the District of Columbia. The Lewis and Clark expedition (1804-1806) was the first United States overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back. Later, surveyor and road builder Len Beadell opened up the last remaining isolated desert areas of central Australia in the 1940s and 1950s. He built the Gunbarrel Highway by pushing through raw scrub with a Land Rover and using Celestial navigation for latitude and longitude measurements.

“Surveyors provide boundary and topography in detail. They’re the first ones and last ones on site, coming and going throughout the whole process.”

Surveying, in fact, has been an essential element in the development of the human environment since the beginning of recorded history, and it is a requirement in the planning and execution of nearly every form of construction. According to Wikipedia, whenever there are roads, dams, retaining walls, bridges or residential areas to be built, surveyors are involved.

Pathways on the Job

Rockwood is a licensed surveyor at Pathways Consulting, a 30-person firm that provides services in several areas, including planning, civil and environmental engineering, geological consulting, surveying and construction assistance. Clients include King Arthur Flour in Norwich; businesses within Centerra Resource Park in Lebanon; Home Depot in West Lebanon; Twin State Sand & Gravel in Vt. and N.H.; City of Lebanon; Town of Hanover; Dartmouth College; Kimball Union Academy in Meriden; and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC), to name a few.

Engineers, after they have developed a concept plan for a construction project, call a surveyor to get a base sheet. “A base sheet includes all the site features above and below ground,” explains Rockwood. “This includes everything outside the building: Drainage, utilities, ground contours (elevations), slope changes, wetlands, tree lines, roads, signs, guard rails — all the features you see when you drive by a site. Sometimes these features go right down to parking, striping and minute details.”

At DHMC’s new Doctor’s Office building, surveyors were on site as concrete was poured for each new floor. Surveyors used coordinates to re-establish gridlines on the next floor. Surveyors also helped add two more floors to the Cancer Center building. Although there was a site plan for the original building, engineers needed some updated information before they started the addition.

“Perpendicular steel moves, so it can be tricky to find the beams,” says Rockwood. “Once the roof was cut off and the beams were exposed, a surveyor maps the beams, which may have expanded structurally.”

Surveyors frequently help bridge the difference between the design world and the real world, working behind the scenes to document that a building location is on — or off — track.

“We’re experts in measurement,” says Rockwood. “But we also know a bit about boundary law, research (historical research on a boundary can lead you back to the 1800s), investigation for evidence on the ground (finding the location), drafting (creating a document on paper so someone can write a deed) as well as state and local regulations (which constantly change from town to town and state to state).”

Decisions are made based on multiple sources of information: What is on site, what people are using (possession line) and what the record says. Rockwood notes that “surveyors can only offer their professional opinion on where the lines are, and two surveyors can disagree where a line is. The surveyor is impartial as to how he determines a survey; we just put what has been determined back on the ground. Only the owners or the court can actually move or fix a boundary line.”

The Tools of the Trade

The basic principles of surveying have changed little over the ages, but the tools have evolved tremendously.

“We used to measure with plumb bobs and tapes,” says Rockwood, who has been a licensed surveyor for 26 years. “But the technology has changed because of NASA. Now we have electronics, hand-held data collectors, hand-held PCs and GPS [global positioning system]. Batteries have become our most important tool.” (See sidebar on “Surveying Tools.”)

Whether conducting a boundary and topographic survey, construction layout or specialty survey such as flood insurance certifications, Pathways provides a “level of comfort that the professional they are hiring is capable of doing the task,” says Rockwood. “All projects don’t go smoothly for various reasons — we may find a boundary issue that no one knew about and it may affect the timeline of the project. But our seal is on the plan — and there is no statute of limitations on boundary surveying — so we do the best job we can for each and every survey.”