Pile setout on an on call basis keeps our teams busy.
Our surveyors are working with Fulton Hogan to ensure the piles for this multi level building are placed in the correct position. Keeping the rig working hard is top priority for our team and being on call ensures no down time due to lack of survey marks!
With many years experience in both private practise and Local Authority surveying to call on, Mike has an ability to see a unique path through the red tape to the outcome required.
Mike was born and bred in Tokoroa; a proud kiwi from Chinese gold mining stock. Mike loves to spend time with family and has two young kids that keep him busy. In any spare time he gets he heads south for a spot of pig hunting in the forests around Tokoroa.
Mike specialises in subdivisions and is currently enjoying a real strengthening in this sector.
Never heard of GNSS, well you will need to get used to this new acronym as it is the new name for GPS. The American GPS is a part of the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), the Russians have a system called Glonass. The Europeans are developing Galileo and the Japanese, Chinese and Indians are all developing GNSS.
Our Leica Viva system will be compatible with all of these systems meaning more accuracy and more productivity. So our ‘GPS’ surveys are now actually ‘GNSS’, utilising GPS and Glonass systems in a combined GNSS.
BCL was chosen for all setout work on this multi storey top down construction project in the heart of Parnell.
We are working with Mainzeal on this exciting new project in Parnell, we will carry out surveying tasks such as setout of grids, piles, bolts and boundaries as well as asbuilts, compliance etc. Our team is working hard to ensure that this is a successful project.
Safety is a key concern on construction sites, our team is first aid and site safe trained we have a fully operational health and safety policy.
When working with maximum height covenants, flood levels or other vertical datums be very careful to check that your topographical survey is in terms of the datum.
It is common for covenants to be in terms of a local datum or even site datum with no reference to Lands and Survey Datum 1946 (LINZ Datum).
If height datums are critical to your design then consult with your surveyor.
We recently purchased two new Leica Viva GPS (or more correctly GNSS) systems, it has been an exciting time setting up and testing this new equipment to ensure it will perform for us. It is now booked solidly with our teams often sharing it throughout the day.
The system has exceeded our expectations and is proving to be an incredible new tool, the key areas that it has helped us in are;
Starting surveys: All surveys require an initial survey to find the old survey marks, with GNSS we are able to quickly obtain better control, basically more for less.
Manholes: We don't need line of site to survey the manholes meaning we can survey more manholes in less time.
Topographical Surveys: We can mount the gear on a quad bike and survey as fast as we can ride, incredible for rural sites.
The equipment links with our theodolites to provide a fully integrated survey system meaning greater speed and flexibility. All of this means more information, better information and better surveys.
It really is running hot!
Our GNSS guru Brian Curtis puts the system through its paces.
As a Licensed Cadastral Surveyor Brian’s role involves dealing with a full range of survey projects, he has particularly strong knowledge of spatial compliance and removal of limitations surveys.
Brian cut his teeth surveying in the South Island and his experience in the high country utilising survey grade GPS has been well utilised during surveys on Great Barrier Island and other remote locations.
Brian is mad on the outdoors and coming from a mountaineering family enjoys nothing more than a day of back country skiing in the Southern Alps. He recently guided the Himalayan climbing legend Stephen Venables for a day “out the back” at Cardrona, an unforgettable experience.
We are often asked what points (on a building etc) we actually survey; and whilst this may seem to be a trivial matter experience has told us that ‘the devil is in the detail’ and so I will, over the next few updates, outline the critical features that we survey.
Gutters; we endeavour to always survey the top lip of the gutter using our laser theodolites as shown in the photo below left. We have found that this can be consistently and accurately surveyed without the need for offset measurements etc that can introduce errors.
BCL have been pushing for the ALGGi GIS data to be made available to the public for over 12 months, after all we have all paid for it! Finally it has arrived.
A word of warning, this is a fantastic scoping tool but should not be used for design purposes! The contour height data is unreliable and it is normal to have heights out by a half a metre or more!! Use it to scope out the job then call in the surveyors for a detailed topographical survey before design.
Great Barrier, Rakino and Waiheke Islands have all been visited by our teams over the last few months. We love working on the Islands! Whether it’s a fishing lodge on a rocky islet, a bach on Medlands or a bush hideaway we are your team.
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