I was stuck deciding whether to use a drone for a site survey or just stick with the old total station for a 5-acre plot in Phoenix.

I went with the drone and it mapped the entire grade in under an hour, saving us two days of crew time, so has anyone else had a project where a tech choice just completely blew away the old method?

3 comments

3 Comments

sanchez.lucas2mo ago

Yeah, that's the move right there. We did a similar thing on a big lot clearing job, swapped out hand sketches for a basic mapping app on a tablet. What used to take a morning of walking and guessing became a ten minute job of marking waypoints. The time you get back is just crazy.

riley_coleman81d ago

Ha, well jokes on me because I'm still that old school guy who tries to do it by hand first and then gives up after an hour of tripping over roots. The GPS rover sounds like a lifesaver though, especially on those wooded lots where you're basically playing hide and seek with the property line. I bet the homeowners appreciate seeing actual data instead of watching you wave a compass around too. What kind of rover setup are you running for those jobs?

fiona_clark2mo ago

Man, I used to be the guy who said you couldn't beat boots on the ground for a boundary check. Then we tried a simple GPS rover on a wooded property line dispute. Instead of a full day of cutting line and fighting brush, we had the points logged and the line cleared in two hours. It just makes the old way look silly now, doesn't it?