Welcome to Huntsville Land Surveying

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256-585-6002

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  1. Your name?
  2. Your number?
  3. Full Address of the property, including city?
  4. What you need the survey for?

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Use the form in the Sidebar or on our Contact Page.

For more information, continue to read.

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Welcome to the Huntsville Land Surveying website. This site is intended to provide info to find a Land Surveyor in the Huntsville, AL, and Madison County area of Alabama. If you’re looking for a Land Surveyor, you’ve come to the right site.

Land Surveyors are professionals who measure and make precise measurements to determine the size and boundaries of a piece of real estate.  While this is a simplistic definition, boundary surveying is one of the most common types of surveying related to home and land owners.

If you fall into the following categories, please click on the appropriate link for more information on that subject:

  1. I need to know where my property corners or property lines are. (Boundary Survey)
  2. I have a loan closing or re-finance coming up on my home in a subdivision. (Lot Survey)
  3. I need a map of my property with contour lines to show elevation differences for my architect or engineer. (Topo Survey)
  4. I’ve just been told I’m in a flood zone or I ‘ve been told I need an elevation certificate in order to obtain flood insurance or prove I don’t need it. (Flood Survey)
  5. I’m purchasing a lot/house in a recorded subdivision. (Lot Survey – See Boundary Survey)
  6. I’m purchasing a larger tract of land, acreage, that hasn’t been subdivided in the past. (Boundary Survey)
  7. I need to get some location and grades set on a construction project. (Construction Survey)
  8. I need a survey of a commercial or multi-family site that meets the ALTA Land Title Survey requirements. (ALTA Survey)

If your needs don’t fall into one of the above, don’t worry, we’ll get to the bottom of it.  CALL Huntsville Land Surveying TODAY at (256) 585-6002 to discuss your survey needs.

Huntsville Land Surveying - Land surveyor using a total station tripod during a field survey in Huntsville, Alabama

Huntsville Land Surveying

How GPS is Used in Land Surveying

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Land surveying is a profession that greatly utilize the GPS satellite system.

How GPS is Used in Land Surveying

How GPS is Used in Land Surveying

Today, man-made constellations are in orbit. Their purpose is to provide instant, exact and global positioning information. This global positioning system (GPS) is revolutionizing the modern construction sites, automating and guiding land surveying equipment, providing instantaneous points and positions, and simplifying control surveys. Nearly everyone involved in the land surveying and construction industry has heard something about satellite positioning technology or maybe you or someone you know is already using it. Whether an operator or a casual observer, there are still many questions about how this exciting system really works.

These positioning satellites don’t stay in one place like the stars; they orbit the earth about twice a day. Constantly transmitting uniquely identified radio signals that can be perceived by specialized receiving units on the earth. These signals are used to precisely measure the distance to the receiving instrument from each satellite overhead.

Just as stars have exact locations in the sky, the locations of the GPS satellites are also defined, becoming orbiting reference points. Using a process based on triangulation, a GPS receiver processes the signals from multiple satellites to compute an very precise position on Earth, which is why it is widely use in land surveying.

For mobile applications that require high accuracy, such as three dimensional machine control, there are two requirements that must be met. First, the signals from a minimum of five satellites must be received at all times. And second, those five satellites must be distributed across the sky. This is called Dilution of Precision or DOP. The simple rule of thumb is this, the more satellites received the better your system will perform.

Land Surveying Huntsville Land Surveying

Land Surveying Huntsville Land Surveying

All land surveying receivers incorporate standard GPS tracking technology; unfortunately the GPS satellite constellation alone cannot continuously make the minimum requirement of accurate mobile positioning. For any given location, there are times in a day when there may be less than five available satellites or very poor DOP.

Now, consider a land surveying job site with trees, buildings, or other obstructions when satellite reception is further reduced. All land surveying GPS receivers suffer this same problem because they all use the same satellites to operate.

Even the planned signal modernization to the GPS satellites won’t solve this problem completely. An obstruction that blocks one signal blocks all signals from that satellite. The solution isn’t so much adding more signals from the same satellites; it’s adding more satellites.

Today, there is a second positioning satellite constellation in operation, the Glonass System. This positioning system is operated and maintained by the Russian government; much like GPS is operated and maintained by the United States government; combining these two satellite constellations give land surveyors access to 55 different satellites; 24 more than a GPS-only system. (UPDATE: As of 2017 there are also 18 of the planned 30 Galileo satellites by the European community and 5 BeiDou Constellation launched so far by the Chinese.)

The additional satellites mean stronger and more accurate positions and better performance in obstructed land surveying areas. These additional satellites mean maximum up time in all land surveying locations, in all conditions.

For an up to date and accurate land surveying service, contact Huntsville Land Surveying at (256) 585- 6002 or better yet, you may fill out our contact form request and a licensed land surveyor will contact you. 

Glossary

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Glossary of Civil Engineering & Land Surveying Terms:

Easement – the privilege of using something that is not your own (as using another’s land as a right of way to your own.) Usually an easement has a special purpose and gives the owner of the easement right to “trespass” on the landowners property in order to maintain the easement or utility covered in the easement.

Encroachment – to intrude unrightfully on someone else’s rights or territory. This is when a building or some portion of it, or a wall or fence, extends beyond the boundary of the owner and illegally intrudes on the land of an adjoining owner.

Floodplain – floodplain or flood plain is the land area adjacent to a river, stream, lake, or other body of water that is subject to flooding. (See “flood” for more information.)

Metes and Bounds Legal – a land description method that details all of the boundary lines (bounds) of the land, together with the line dimensions & directions (metes). The most common method today is to use bearings and distances.

Drawing – an illustration that is drawn to scale that represents planned or actual features of an area. The survey drawing shows each property line with its distance and bearing, what marks the property corners, the improvements on the property, encroachments, easements, etc. The amount of information shown is dependent of the type of survey or the purpose.

Bearings – defines direction based on the four cardinal directions (north, south, east & west.) A bearing is comprised of three elements 1) the north or south element, 2) the bearing angle, and 3) the east or west element. For example N 24°15’ E is a line that runs in a direction of 24°15’ toward the east from the due north direction, or in a direction that is 24°15’ clockwise from the due north direction. (See figure.)

Monument – a fixed natural or artificial object that is found or set at a property corner to establish the boundaries of the property.

Parcel – a parcel of land is some defined amount of land defined by certain boundaries.  Another word for parcel of land could be “piece” of land.

Setback Lines – the distance from the property line or other established line within which no buildings may be constructed.  Also known as a building line.

Onsite Septic System – An onsite septic system is used in rural areas to dispose of household sewage.  The system normally contains a septic tank which allows the sewage to be “broken down” and field lines to dispose of the effluent.  It may occasionally contain an additional treatment system which “treats” the effluent to a higher level than the septic tank. To find your septic tank and field lines, look for the greenest grass.