# Riding the beam ?



## dayexco (Mar 4, 2006)

was your pipe off 25 hundreths every 100'? or were you off .25 in the 300? several factors here. new laser and all, did you have your decimal point in the right place on your digital readout? was it a hot day, cool soil, bedding material, the beam getting deflected?


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## dirtdiggencat (Jun 8, 2006)

a lot of factors played into this mess DayX, but refraction and decimal places were not among them.
anyways, the Re-do is on me and im proceeding out of pocket.
My boys are in good spirits and working safely. I got em all home alive tonite, thats a good day. We will deal with the manufacturer, or the local jerk and his store after we hear what the main Hq has for a reason for the device failure.
oh, btw the old beat up L4 is still dead on!


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## PipeGuy (Oct 8, 2004)

Please dude! What make and model? If I missed it somewhere in the posts I apologize.


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## MC Excavating (Jan 26, 2006)

PipeGuy said:


> Please dude! What make and model? If I missed it somewhere in the posts I apologize.


LOL. Thats what I was thinking. 

I wouldn't expect the manufacturer to pay for the removal and re installation of the pipe but I would expect them to give me a hefty refund on the purchase price of the laser and get me a new one ASAP and maybe throw in some extra tools and attachments or something.

That would make me feel better than if they just shrugged their shoulders with a blank look in their eyes and replaced the unit with a new one when they have time.

When I first got my laser level I checked it to see if it was out of calibration. I also randomly check it when I'm on a site with the concrete guys foundation forms or the surveyors work. 

I once caught a surveyors mistake on his bench mark elevation. It was a nail he put in a grout line on a cmu wall. Something didn't look right so I broke out the laser. I checked is bench mark against the top of curb elevation mark he had made across the street. He was off by almost exactly 1 foot. I had rewrote the elevation that I thought should be correct and then when he came back he re corrected mine because he thought my correction was off by (0.03).  :laughing: This guy burned a half of a day of my work.

Heres a question for yall.

Who pays for surveyors mistakes???


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

MC Excavating said:


> Who pays for surveyors mistakes???


Sure as hell not the surveyor or engineering company.

One of the developments we did called for 6" shale sub-base. So I installed the shale to grade using the grade stakes at every station. I come back to level the modified and check the grade stakes off of the benchmark they gave us. There was 3 tenths difference. So, we transferred bench marks up the road till we reached another benchmark that they gave us and guess what, it was off 3 tenths. 

As I stated before, not all given benchmarks are correct. Alwasy double check them.


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## PipeGuy (Oct 8, 2004)

MC Excavating said:


> ...Heres a question for yall.
> Who pays for surveyors mistakes???


Once the stakes are gone there's little chance of anyone but the installer paying for it.
I try to drill it into my guys that documenting detailed grade notes and checking into multiple bench marks is a cheap way to provide us some insurance if it comes down to a dispute about how a problem in elevations arose.


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## dirtdiggencat (Jun 8, 2006)

the confusion in our mess started with a bunch of elevation mismatches and questions[ refer the original post this thread}, and it turned out the surveyors and p.e. were way off,, but upon correction of the error something was still wrong on our side,,, "it can't be that new laser?"  ,,,,,,, uh,,,,,,, yep. As far as i know they even charged the owner to come out and fix they're own benchmarks and notations on the plans, shrugged they shoulders, gave us all a stupid look, and drove away.

Hey pipeGuy, you familiar with the DG711? well there it is.


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## Double-A (Jul 3, 2006)

Precision Products? In Knoxville?


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## dirtdiggencat (Jun 8, 2006)

they have it now doubleA,,,,, or so im told :whistling .
but the dude in Ga. came up and sold me the thing. he nor anyone from his store have returned a call, offered assistance, or even been remotely concerned as best i can tell.


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## dayexco (Mar 4, 2006)

we video and dig cam all our work. the site how we found it, the engineers, "each and every one" grade stake, work as it progresses, any problems we might encounter, and the project completed. do engineers pay for their fug ups? here they do.....we've had 3-4 gps goofups that the engineering company didn't question after sending their techs back out to the jobsite to verify the problem, they asked what it was going to cost to correct, and had us do it.


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## PipeGuy (Oct 8, 2004)

dirtdiggencat said:


> Hey pipeGuy, you familiar with the DG711?


I'm not. Been using Laser Alignment (now Leica) products pretty much exclusively for as long as I can remember. We have a 6 year old model 6700 'green beam' and a Mikrofyn 120 that's about a year old. Both have been OK.


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