What Do Surveyors Do During the Winter?
It’s fall and the weather is getting colder every day. If you work inside, this probably doesn’t impact your job that much. But if you work outside, like surveyors, weather always impacts your work.
How does cold weather impact surveying?
Winter surveying isn’t vastly different than surveying in the summer, and surveyors work on as many projects as they can. Summer is generally the construction season, which means surveyors do a lot of construction staking in the summer. When the weather changes, surveying work typically shifts more to topographic design surveys and land title surveys.
Snow on the ground in the winter does not threaten surveying projects, but when it is actively snowing, the snow can also impact visual capabilities and make it difficult for surveyors to make measurements. It doesn’t hinder surveying, but it can slow it down.
The winter is a great time to survey in heavily forested areas. There is a farther line of sight since there are no leaves or underbrush in and around the trees. A surveyor’s line of sight can extend from five feet to 200 feet simply due to the lack of leaves in the trees.
Construction staking can be harder in the winter because the ground and construction materials like asphalt are colder and harder to stake. But they keep working. Surveyors found one solution to place stakes in asphalt in the winter: a cotton gin spindle. It is made of hardened steel that can break through asphalt for staking.
Regardless of the season, surveyors will always have projects to complete. For more about our surveying services, please click here.