That is very true, ive been running equipment in the coal mines back in Kentucky a few years ago before the collapse of American energy and everyone went on a big electric go Green kick but currently where I live in NE Florida I've been doing subdivisions and FDOT work aswell as city work ive been a foreman for a few years and seem to always have so called operators that couldn't read stakes to save there life or free hand equipment most certainly from GPS and never used stakes etc im going to forward your video to all of them hahaha keep those videos coming my guy you have my support
@@tylerlake2498oh boy don't do that to us.. while I personally can easily figure it out.. that job site would look like a busy highway left unmaintained for 75years if not more.. 😂 on 2nd thought it'd probably be more accurate because they'd bring in the cushy GPS machines instead of letting operators handle it..😂😂😂
I have been in concrete construction for 36 years, I have been a superintendent for the last 16 , this is a very good video and I will direct my employees to this.
I'm new to this work. I'm going to heavy equipment school in the spring. I appreciate the way you teach for us beginners. Thank you, you're very thorough.
As a surveyor, you should've realized that at 3:42, he says to fill 3.26' up to the line with the crowsfoot. Hahaha, if that was true,you would need to have atleast 3.26' of stake from that line to the bottom of the stake. That line on the stake is the reference point from where you would start to cut or fill from.
Shoot forget the operator buy the grade setter a steak dinner. I'm in school rn as a grade setter/engineer and we do our layouts on land where equipment is being learned. Can't tell you how much of a bitch it is when I layout a pad, get elevations, mark and ribbon it up only to come back the next day and see that someone ran through them. I couldn't imagine back in the day before lasers having to redo everything.
Surveyor here… God how I wish I had that rule on our sites. Wouldn’t even have to have been for me, just somebody so there’d be SOME accountability. I got SO tired of re-staking (it was a “game” on many sites).
Having spent close to 45 years in the heavy Civil engineering construction industry, individuals after visiting and listening to your explanations on grade staking,should have a better understanding of the grade stakes and their importance on all projects. Keep up the great work, looking forward to future videos
I've been in the underground/directional drilling game for 4 years now... if I would have been taught this info at the beginning of my career I could have saved countless hours of trying locate/pothole utilities and figure out what depths we needed to shoot at to be 3' under finish grade. This video is awesome and I can already tell the next time I'm in a construction site I'm going to be looking at every grade stake.
Here in Utah I'm like the only excavator still using stakes. Everyone is GPS. I've seen graders using GPS for curb gutter and curb machines with no strings full GPS. A friend of mine was grading storage units, he parked his 140H hired a 140M with gps. Guy graded pads in about 5 passes then lined up on edge made one pass cut thickened edge, turned came up other side. Took him about 45 minutes per 200 ft x 35ft pad. Concrete crew set 2x10 around perimeter it was right on. I'm barely able to compete now and will have to convert or go back to digging basements and small jobs. Good video it may be a lost art in few years.
Your the man watching your videos trained me enough to make 10 grand a month as a grade checker thanks brother you changed my life and the quality of life for my son again thanks brother
Awesome video man !!!!!! 25 years of doing dirt work from laborer to grade man ( before GPS) to operating now your insight is dead on 👍🏼 I am gonna pass this video to guys I work with in hopes that it breaks it down to the basics for them. Keep up the good work and thank you for spreading your knowledge to the next generation in a way they will understand 👍🏼
See this is what people need to see I don’t want to now you can dig so fast and load 10 10 in 20 min this is what needs to be done there is a big difference then a guy running a machine or an operator that can read a dam grade stick good video 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Thanks for the information, this will help me do what I have to do on my block once I learn how to use the excavator I just bought.................Heard Stake so many times, now I'm thinking Steak and feeling hungry.
Throw a steak wrapped in tin foil up on the muffler on your machine. Let it sit for 15 minutes or so while you operate and you'll have a nice, warm, diesel tasting steak!
I will probably never use this info but it answered a lot of questions I had about these stakes I always saw on job site that no one ever explained to the workers. Good communicate help make job workers more valuable.
As a civil engineer with not a whole lot of construction experience, I appreciate this video. Thank you for making this so easy to understand. Amazes me how designs on paper actually get staked out in the field.
@@santos3464 Awesome! I specialize in Water Resources/drainage. Best advice I can give you is get an internship as soon as you can in college and start learning CAD and GIS. Knowing CAD and GIS will put you ahead of many people. Civil engineering is very broad, so as you are taking your core class, start to think about what field you really want to get into (e.g., water resources, environmental, transportation, structural, geotechnical, etc.) Good luck!
Love it! I'm a landscape design student - today's chapter in landscape construction was staking - so glad I found this video to bolster what I'm learning. Your specific examples bring the material to life! And you're funny ; so that's a bouns. Thanks.
That is a great job. I knew nothing about grade stakes before watching this video. Now I am confident that I could go to job site and understand this complex system that you have simplified in 17 minutes. We should had you aa a high school teacher, I could have taken years off.. Thank you thank you, thank you GREAT GREAT JOB..
Been operating for 8 years (excavator) strictly steel structure demo, and derailment cleanup. Just started a new job doing this type of dirt work. Fuck, man! This shit might as well be in mandarin. I’m so lost. I’ve never felt so inadequate for something in my life. I know there’s a learning curve… but DAMN! Thank hod I found your Channel. 🙏🏽
That's the beauty of this industry! Just when you think you've got it all figured out you find a whole new side of the industry that makes you feel dumb all over again! It keeps things interesting!
Great video, ive been in earthworks as a dump truck operator for a number of years and have moved across to loaders and now GPS dozers. I will be having a crack at deciphering the stakes now thank you
Just started a job yesterday becoming a pipe layer and this helped out a lot 🙏🏾 thank you brotha !! Very helpful information on reading stakes ! I can come in to work with a bit more confidence and show boss man what I’m capable of 🙏🏾
Great video. Very often people don't know how to read the layout steaks surveyors put in the ground but it's very simple! Alot of our cut/fills on lay out insist of an offset and we usually measure our fills/cuts off the top of the wooden steaks (Like you said though everywhere has some differences). Thank you for telling people to leave the pickets in the ground until the end of the grading proccess... If you want to piss off a surveyor pull or run over their layout pickets lol. Keep up the great vids!
I’ve always wanted to know why the excavator boom is parked like that with the bucket too. I’m a newbie and love this video, really helps at work thank you!
Most of the time you see the boom and stick sitting up at 90 degrees because that takes up the least amount of room on the job. If you see the boom and stick extended out all the way or tucked in all the way it is typically because the operator has positioned the machine so they can grease the machine easier in the morning. Thanks for watching!
@@DieselandIron also could be the checking position for hydraulic oil, or some old skool guys park it so that most of the cylinders are retracted like you would for long term storage. (think over wintering in Alaska far north)
I’ve been a operator for 2 years now. But this week I started a company but they only have huge jobsites so it’s all new to me. I’m used to working at schools. And you’re channel has really helped me out a ton! Thank you very much!
Almost 63,000 views on this one! You're doing a great job growing your channel and this is an informative video! Thank you for helping the next generation learn this stuff!
Great video. Never seen a ditch stake like that before in the 12 years ive operated. Just started a grader class and that was the first thing that got thrown at me. Helps alot getting more comfortable reading and answering questions.
Great video! I would love to see you do another video referencing different parts of this video then showing the working part to accomplish the info on the stake….👍
I wish that there was stuff like this when I was starting out in construction. I only had a few foreman that could communicate with any degree of clarity, most of them really didn’t fully understand the whole process and so they were often extremely difficult to work with. I was an operator and grade setter for 34 years and I had to learn the hard way. Most people have no idea just how many factors are at play in a construction site. So many things coming together to create a building or road. I’m disabled now due to many health problems, there weren’t as many safety regulations and it was very easy to get hurt. Thanks for the trip down memory lane, and I’ll sign off with the way i was taught by my foreman screaming at me “ god damn boy! Grab a gear in that machine, or I’ll find someone that can!” 🤣🤣🤣 it’s funny now, not so much back then!! 😳🤬🤬😫😫 be safe and look out for blind truckers!! 😂😂😂🙌🤟🤙
Thanks Phillip! The guys getting into the industry don't really grasp how far it's come from a safety and yelling standpoint. Thanks for watching brother!
An enligjtening and humbling look into the discipline and artisinal expertise that is required to make sure that our roads and buildings get build on solid ground. :-) Many thanks.
Yer awsome sir... as a newbie.... I think I could actually figure out the job with a little communication with the foreman... great confidence building video...
I don't know how this ended up in my recommendations but I'm glad it did. I've always wondered how equipment operators know what to do and I've seen those piles of dirt with stakes in them. I'm so glad I watched this video! Now I know a little bit.
Great video, thanks for passing on your knowledge. I'm a civil engineer and while I learned to design roadways in school and have performed material inspections on construction sites, reading stakes on site isn't something I've received training for. This video just taught me pretty much all I need to know about the stakes I encounter while on the job. Really appreciate it!
Great video. I'm new to construction and fell into it with GPS a without ever knowing how to read a grade stake. I have since learned some of the important ones as a dozer operator which usually has gps. but I want and need to know all of them. I wish I would have started on the ground as a grade setter but it is what it is. Gonna try and watch your whole series. Very informative.
Knowing how to read grade stakes as well as how to cut grade for a grade checker are two really important skills that I would focus honing. If you ever have GPS issues or get on a machine without GPS you'll be lost without those skills. I'd also recommend doing some final passes in manual mode on occasions where you have time. It's super easy to become too reliant on the GPS and you lose your finish grade finesse. Thanks for watching Darrell! I really appreciate you brother.
@@DieselandIron yes tour right about relying on gps too much. I know this old blade operator and we did a landfill job up here in Redding CA. And he finished the job by Hand, even though the blade had automatics on it. It was probably the slick finish dozer that made it easy for him (that was me lol).
I still remember benching in on a negative BM , messed me up working below sea level Stockton ca ! But I learned to read all stakes ,was very versatile,from sidewalk cutting ,to flow lines of sewer ,storm ,manholes ! 👍
@@DieselandIron the worst is when zero is mid depth of your trench, lots of chances for errors in your grade book dropping the "-" in your math. only done one job below sea level.
The best part is....I don't have my phone, simple math I should be able to do the numbers in my head, but I'm a product of the American education system! I fell out cause that's me. Great video man! Pipeliner over here.😂
I am a product of the american eductaion system.. and I dont do that stuff.. lmfao. 😑 Your video was extremely knowledgable and helpful. A million thank yous. God bless.
good explanation, around here they are called a hub and a guard, it not a grade stake till the carrot is drawn on it. the only thing I was told different is when measuring an offset you measure from the pin in the hub for the exact distance as the guard is arbitrary located behind the hub
Thanks for the input! Here it depends on the survey firm as to whether you get a pin or not. Most of the time you center on the hub and that's your measure point.
Hey man, been watching your vids for a while, i am a norwegian who is about to get started on my "real"(higher) education, i have been looking at heavy equipment opperating for a while, and thank you for helping me decide
Thank you. The clearing crew I used to work on, our stakes were CL for clearing limit but being that was. Usually all that would be wrote on them they would write it out instead of putting cl. I was usually on the dozer so I would just barely rake or backdrag past them so when I got it clean I could put 3 to 4 trackwidths walked in in line and coming back into the job so the silt fence crew had a good straight clean level line and work area, it made it look really good when finished
exhibit 1 god invented beer so you guys didn't rule the world. seriously---maaaad props to you. i grew up in an area that was putting in a freeway and i always wondered how the freak that was done. and now i know.
A lot of your big job sites now don't even have stakes. With GPS you can go to the middle of an open field and hold your rod right at the top of the finished curb grade before the ground has even been broken. Technology has come a long way!
Yeesh, I was unfortunate enough to work for an outfit that offered free re-staking… I was told “We have to be competitive to get the work, so we do free re-stakes”… 🤬🤬🤬
Nice job. When I was learning to mark stakes and shoot grades I was nervous and the guy teaching me was hostile. The fills was simple but another odd guy explained it and clicked. Now listen I was brand new and 18 but he said it's just like making change out of dollar and it was simple. I wish the hostile guy was like that because after the old said it I had it.. lol Funny the things you experience when learning. The first time on a slope or the first you was left without someone to help and it was up to you to do everything. I was a basement guy who turned into the backhoe guy who turned into the boat guy and alot times the labor guy.. lol It was a small co. but guess what, when work slows like it always does I was never the coach guy. Great video and channel.
Thank you sir for all the info, I worked as a labourer I know all of it, but when I started I remember bobcat operators did not know what the writing on the stakes meant. So I learnt the hard way. Thank you!
Yes I have installed water , sewer , storm sewer , dug basements , one rule on the job , don’t knock out a stake , especially if the layoff season is. coming up
@@DieselandIron personally looking for: Dozer- types of cuts, ie scrape cuts. Slope work, ripping/grubbing basins or fields. Dressing up slopes, spreading and compacting material, ie building a buttress with specific compaction. Working off steep slopes, fire service type work. D8/6/5 with slope board even. Grader: looking for road maintenance and repair. Truck trail type roads, or just dirt access roads. Backhoe: Municipal type work, rolling around town. Digging out trenches and creating slopes. Benching.. maybe some veteran operator tips and tricks for a wide array or work.
@@LADEntertainment God damn, you have quite the list! Let me see what I can come up with. Fair warning, it's going to be a bit before I can take some of these on. I've got a whole series coming up on running GPS in a dozer. That's going to take a bit to work through along with some other requests.
@@DieselandIron not a problem, not really requests just what’s in my field. If you happen to cover any great, if not no biggie your material is still valuable to me. Thank you!
Great job and thank you, that was very helpful. I just saved all your other videos to my watch later folder and I will be watching this one again also.
Would love to see a video on why you chose this profession and how you got into it. Thank you for the information and tips, and I look forward to more of you’re videos
Thanks for your videos man, I just started as a pipe layer and your videos helped me out a lot. Side note super sick shades what are they? Thanks man for your videos
Man, really great video with very interesting information, I’m a small concrete company and getting in to excavation also, thanks very much for that valuable information. About this videos you never know who you going to bless.
You bless me by watching the content brother. I really appreciate the kind words. Let me know if there's any other questions you'd like answered and I'll try to get a video out with an answer.
Wish you were around when I started in 1998 ,I had to start from the bottom and learn the hard way . If you travel from state to state for work ,you will learn there are many different ways they abbreviate ,or jargon. That the local use to describe something. . I've seen "LOD" as"LOC" (limits of construction) and"BMK" as "TBM" (Temporary bench mark) which is surrounded by a "pig pen" the mark on your cut and fill stakes you refer to as a carrot top has typically been called a ( CROW'S foot) or (R.P) radious point ) "POR" (POINT OF RADIOUS) or reference point. Ant hills can also be referred to as castles as well . The locals seem to make up alot of their own jargon . That goes for what they call their machines as well . Excavator ,hoe, or track hoe,...pans or scrapers..... blade or motor grader ,maintainer, etc I've even heard a real old dude call a dozer a cat skinner. ...great video ,way more to dirt work than people realize .when you go from the flat plains to the rocky mountains ,to the desert in death valley , or to the Noth slope of Alaska , or a FERC job on the beaches of the gulf. You will see there are many different ways companies do things that only apply to that particular area.
It is incredible how much variation there is in the industry based on something as simple as geography. I have people reach out all the time with grade stake questions and I always tell them to send me pictures of the surrounding stakes so I can get some context. Who knows what some of those abbreviations mean!😂
This was a really good outline on how to read job stakes. I would like to make a couple of corrections on the reading of the ditch stakes though if you don't mind. [14:37] The Front Slope is the slope closest to the roadway and was at a 3:1. The Back Slope is the slope from the bottom of the 4' ditch to tie into either natural ground or possibly a filled section at the furthest outside point and was at 2:1. A 2:1 slope is steeper than a 3:1 where the slope is measured as 3' for the run and the 1' as the rise versus 2' as the run and 1' as the rise. (Generally, the Front Slope is a non-recoverable, but traversable slope at 3:1 whereas a steeper slope, i.e. (2:1) might induce a roll-over or a harsh landing on a flat bottom ditch.) All in all, your explanations of jobsite grade stakes and hubs was spot on and will be a major help to anyone who just wants to know what all those stakes mean or even a greenhorn starting work with a grading contractor. Great job!
Thanks Ed! Bring on the corrections, I'm all for it and I appreciate people checking me. A lot of times it's easy to get mixed up while in front of the camera (especially when I was new to doing it). Thanks for watching and thanks for the input!
@@DieselandIron I think it's great that people like you take the time to share their knowledge of a subject. I have been a registered land surveyor for almost 30 years and I clicked on your video to see if there's anything new I could "lift" from someone else's knowledge. It's never too late to learn.
@@finallyitsed2191 absolutely and I talked about that all the time on my channel. This is an industry where you should never stop learning and if you have you've gotten complacent. I was wondering if you had a surveyor or engineering background with the way you describe those slopes. What part of the country are you from? I would really love to do a video where I follow a surveyor for a day and help him set stakes and elevation hubs to show the process.
@@DieselandIron I am in Alabama and work for a large engineering firm with offices throughout the southeast. I have been the Department Head for Constructing Engineering and Inspection for about 20 years where I have inspectors that oversee Department of Transportation highway, bridge, and airport construction projects and have for the most part hung up my surveyor's hat. We do, however, have several survey parties throughout Alabama, Atlanta, Nashville, Huntsville, Birmingham and Florida that might be close enough for something to be worked out.
@@finallyitsed2191 I got a question for you, I've had a request for breaking down different types of base materials for roads and why they are used. For example why is sand used with stone over top and not the other way around. Any chance you have the knowledge that I could do an interview with you over the phone? That was my project for this next week with tracking someone down to interview. I'd rather interview someone that's an active fan of the channel if possible. Let me know if you'd be interested and we can set something up.
Hi excellent video i subscribed. Im really new to reading grade stakes this has been very helpful. I was wondering if you are building a road with a motor grader and you have a stake that starts with a cut but then next stake is a fill, is it a gradual transition between stakes whether or not its cut or fill? I hope my question made sense lol
Yes, it will be a gradual transition between the grade stakes. At the end of the day we are creating surfaces and it wouldn't make sense to create a stair or vertical edge in the middle of a smooth surface. Cut stakes for underground work are a different story.
Coming from a retired 30 year public works inspector very well said young man. It took me years to learn what you explained in 15 minutes.
Thank you sir! I really appreciate that. Thanks for watching!
That is very true, ive been running equipment in the coal mines back in Kentucky a few years ago before the collapse of American energy and everyone went on a big electric go Green kick but currently where I live in NE Florida I've been doing subdivisions and FDOT work aswell as city work ive been a foreman for a few years and seem to always have so called operators that couldn't read stakes to save there life or free hand equipment most certainly from GPS and never used stakes etc im going to forward your video to all of them hahaha keep those videos coming my guy you have my support
Yeah it wasn't too bad except up here in Canada we use metres not feet lol
@@tylerlake2498oh boy don't do that to us.. while I personally can easily figure it out.. that job site would look like a busy highway left unmaintained for 75years if not more.. 😂 on 2nd thought it'd probably be more accurate because they'd bring in the cushy GPS machines instead of letting operators handle it..😂😂😂
I have been in concrete construction for 36 years, I have been a superintendent for the last 16 , this is a very good video and I will direct my employees to this.
Thanks Tony! I appreciate that
I'm new to this work.
I'm going to heavy equipment school in the spring.
I appreciate the way you teach for us beginners.
Thank you, you're very thorough.
Studying for the PE, you gave me the big picture lesson I needed. Thank you!
As a Surveyor, I approve this message. Great video
Thank you sir!
@@DieselandIron Yessir Salute Bother. Stay dirty my friend
As a surveyor, you should've realized that at 3:42, he says to fill 3.26' up to the line with the crowsfoot. Hahaha, if that was true,you would need to have atleast 3.26' of stake from that line to the bottom of the stake. That line on the stake is the reference point from where you would start to cut or fill from.
True
I've been in the pipe business since 1987 and you do good videos. In a world where no one wants to work or get dirty anymore, you warm my heart.
Thanks for watching Reve! I appreciate the support!
I'm a civil engineer learning English... That's 24k gold info man... Thanks
Thanks for watching!
We had a rule for truck drivers on the jobsite, if you run over a grade stake, you buy the operator a steak dinner! "Break a stake, buy a steak!"
I can tell you for certain, I'm glad we didn't have that rule. I'd weigh about 400lbs by now😂
Shoot forget the operator buy the grade setter a steak dinner. I'm in school rn as a grade setter/engineer and we do our layouts on land where equipment is being learned. Can't tell you how much of a bitch it is when I layout a pad, get elevations, mark and ribbon it up only to come back the next day and see that someone ran through them. I couldn't imagine back in the day before lasers having to redo everything.
No NO NO...you buy the surveyor a steak dinner. Otherwise you don't get anymore grades
Surveyor here… God how I wish I had that rule on our sites.
Wouldn’t even have to have been for me, just somebody so there’d be SOME accountability. I got SO tired of re-staking (it was a “game” on many sites).
Gotta use this one dude 😂
Having spent close to 45 years in the heavy Civil engineering construction industry, individuals after visiting and listening to your explanations on grade staking,should have a better understanding of the grade stakes and their importance on all projects.
Keep up the great work, looking forward to future videos
Thanks Jack! I appreciate the feedback brother.
Thank you. Preparing for my PE Construction and had no idea how to read the stakes. Now I do.
Happy to help!
I've been in the underground/directional drilling game for 4 years now... if I would have been taught this info at the beginning of my career I could have saved countless hours of trying locate/pothole utilities and figure out what depths we needed to shoot at to be 3' under finish grade. This video is awesome and I can already tell the next time I'm in a construction site I'm going to be looking at every grade stake.
Thanks Wyatt! Grade stakes are a whole science in their own. I still learn some new abbreviation or marking on a weekly basis.
Here in Utah I'm like the only excavator still using stakes. Everyone is GPS. I've seen graders using GPS for curb gutter and curb machines with no strings full GPS. A friend of mine was grading storage units, he parked his 140H hired a 140M with gps. Guy graded pads in about 5 passes then lined up on edge made one pass cut thickened edge, turned came up other side. Took him about 45 minutes per 200 ft x 35ft pad. Concrete crew set 2x10 around perimeter it was right on. I'm barely able to compete now and will have to convert or go back to digging basements and small jobs. Good video it may be a lost art in few years.
Grade stakes still have their place but they are getting less and less common. Gps has really changed the landscape. Thanks for watching!
Thank you for taking the time to explain. We need more people like you. Well done
Thanks for watching, glad it was helpful!
Your the man watching your videos trained me enough to make 10 grand a month as a grade checker thanks brother you changed my life and the quality of life for my son again thanks brother
That's awesome my man! Really happy for you and your family!
Awesome video man !!!!!! 25 years of doing dirt work from laborer to grade man ( before GPS) to operating now your insight is dead on 👍🏼 I am gonna pass this video to guys I work with in hopes that it breaks it down to the basics for them. Keep up the good work and thank you for spreading your knowledge to the next generation in a way they will understand 👍🏼
Thanks for watching Len! It's been awhile since I've heard from you. Good to see your name pop up again brother!
Same here been on a no media diet for a while 😂👋
@@lenblatz3410 good for you man. That's good to do from time to time
As a Civil Engineer this video is insanely informative! Great job man
Thanks for watching, glad it was helpful!
Your details are awesome and streamline the complex things on a jobsite
Thank you for the compliment! I appreciate the support!
Probably the most important video I’ve seen you make.
I am a new operator and I find this explanation helpful bro, You're really much better bro👌
Thanks for the compliment!
See this is what people need to see I don’t want to now you can dig so fast and load 10 10 in 20 min this is what needs to be done there is a big difference then a guy running a machine or an operator that can read a dam grade stick good video 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Exactly! Thanks for watching, brother!
I found this fascinating and I know nothing about the "dirt world" You're a good teacher. I always wondered what those stakes mean.
Thank you so much for the kind words!
Like how humble you are , good work man
Thank you so much, I really appreciate that!
Thanks for the information, this will help me do what I have to do on my block once I learn how to use the excavator I just bought.................Heard Stake so many times, now I'm thinking Steak and feeling hungry.
Throw a steak wrapped in tin foil up on the muffler on your machine. Let it sit for 15 minutes or so while you operate and you'll have a nice, warm, diesel tasting steak!
I will probably never use this info but it answered a lot of questions I had about these stakes I always saw on job site that no one ever explained to the workers. Good communicate help make job workers more valuable.
I need to spend a week with you on a job site really really badly. Great video brother. I appreciate it
If you get yourself out here we will work with you and train you up. If you can prove you're worth it we might even pay you for it!
Great job man! I really like the way you explained everything & don’t over complicate it. Keep up the great work.
Thanks man! I really appreciate the feedback. Let me know if there's anything you'd like to see on the channel.
👊
As a civil engineer with not a whole lot of construction experience, I appreciate this video. Thank you for making this so easy to understand. Amazes me how designs on paper actually get staked out in the field.
Thanks for watching! It is amazing the amount of disconnect between the two sides of the business. You guys are a great mystery to us dirt guys 😂
I am a sophomore in high school looking to go into the field of civil engineering. What would be your best point of advice for someone like me?
@@santos3464 Awesome! I specialize in Water Resources/drainage. Best advice I can give you is get an internship as soon as you can in college and start learning CAD and GIS. Knowing CAD and GIS will put you ahead of many people. Civil engineering is very broad, so as you are taking your core class, start to think about what field you really want to get into (e.g., water resources, environmental, transportation, structural, geotechnical, etc.) Good luck!
Thank you! This is very helpful.
Love it! I'm a landscape design student - today's chapter in landscape construction was staking - so glad I found this video to bolster what I'm learning. Your specific examples bring the material to life! And you're funny ; so that's a bouns. Thanks.
Glad to help! Thanks for watching and good luck in the rest of your classes!
That is a great job. I knew nothing about grade stakes before watching this video. Now I am confident that I could go to job site and understand this complex system that you have simplified in 17 minutes. We should had you aa a high school teacher, I could have taken years off.. Thank you thank you, thank you GREAT GREAT JOB..
Thanks Joseph! I really appreciate that!
For someone like me wanting learn and gain knowledge you've explained it very well to understand keep up the great work
I appreciate the support!
Been operating for 8 years (excavator) strictly steel structure demo, and derailment cleanup. Just started a new job doing this type of dirt work. Fuck, man! This shit might as well be in mandarin. I’m so lost. I’ve never felt so inadequate for something in my life. I know there’s a learning curve… but DAMN! Thank hod I found your Channel. 🙏🏽
That's the beauty of this industry! Just when you think you've got it all figured out you find a whole new side of the industry that makes you feel dumb all over again! It keeps things interesting!
Great video, ive been in earthworks as a dump truck operator for a number of years and have moved across to loaders and now GPS dozers. I will be having a crack at deciphering the stakes now thank you
Good luck and godspeed! There are a ton of different abbreviations out there depending on where you are from!
Just started a job yesterday becoming a pipe layer and this helped out a lot 🙏🏾 thank you brotha !! Very helpful information on reading stakes ! I can come in to work with a bit more confidence and show boss man what I’m capable of 🙏🏾
Happy to help! You got this my man
I’m a 2nd year going to 3rd year as an electrician and I’m about to watch this to add more knowledge to me for the future when I run jobs!!! 💯
Good for you on being proactive and teaching yourself! Give me a shout if you have any questions!
Great video. Very often people don't know how to read the layout steaks surveyors put in the ground but it's very simple! Alot of our cut/fills on lay out insist of an offset and we usually measure our fills/cuts off the top of the wooden steaks (Like you said though everywhere has some differences). Thank you for telling people to leave the pickets in the ground until the end of the grading proccess... If you want to piss off a surveyor pull or run over their layout pickets lol. Keep up the great vids!
Thank you for watching!
I’ve always wanted to know why the excavator boom is parked like that with the bucket too. I’m a newbie and love this video, really helps at work thank you!
Most of the time you see the boom and stick sitting up at 90 degrees because that takes up the least amount of room on the job. If you see the boom and stick extended out all the way or tucked in all the way it is typically because the operator has positioned the machine so they can grease the machine easier in the morning. Thanks for watching!
@@DieselandIron also could be the checking position for hydraulic oil, or some old skool guys park it so that most of the cylinders are retracted like you would for long term storage. (think over wintering in Alaska far north)
I’ve been a operator for 2 years now. But this week I started a company but they only have huge jobsites so it’s all new to me. I’m used to working at schools. And you’re channel has really helped me out a ton! Thank you very much!
Thanks for watching! Let me know if you have any questions I can help you out with and congratulations on the new job!
Almost 63,000 views on this one! You're doing a great job growing your channel and this is an informative video! Thank you for helping the next generation learn this stuff!
Thank you for all the support!
Great video. Never seen a ditch stake like that before in the 12 years ive operated. Just started a grader class and that was the first thing that got thrown at me. Helps alot getting more comfortable reading and answering questions.
Happy to help! Thanks for the comment!
Great video! I would love to see you do another video referencing different parts of this video then showing the working part to accomplish the info on the stake….👍
That might be something we can do in the future. Thanks for the idea!
Great video!! I am a year into dirt work and you just summed up in 15 min what some have not been able to adequately help me understand in a year.
Happy to help Chris! I really appreciate you supporting the channel brother!
I wish that there was stuff like this when I was starting out in construction. I only had a few foreman that could communicate with any degree of clarity, most of them really didn’t fully understand the whole process and so they were often extremely difficult to work with. I was an operator and grade setter for 34 years and I had to learn the hard way. Most people have no idea just how many factors are at play in a construction site. So many things coming together to create a building or road. I’m disabled now due to many health problems, there weren’t as many safety regulations and it was very easy to get hurt. Thanks for the trip down memory lane, and I’ll sign off with the way i was taught by my foreman screaming at me “ god damn boy! Grab a gear in that machine, or I’ll find someone that can!” 🤣🤣🤣 it’s funny now, not so much back then!! 😳🤬🤬😫😫 be safe and look out for blind truckers!! 😂😂😂🙌🤟🤙
Thanks Phillip! The guys getting into the industry don't really grasp how far it's come from a safety and yelling standpoint. Thanks for watching brother!
you must have been non-union
Oh man that's awesome you learned the right way then.....these kids now a days don't get screamed at like we did. That's how you learn the best
NON-UNION? had you joined a union as an apprentice you would have been taught correctly
@@russellthomas9249 ohhh here we go a good old pro union trumpeter😂. Yea just sit in your machine
An enligjtening and humbling look into the discipline and artisinal expertise that is required to make sure that our roads and buildings get build on solid ground. :-) Many thanks.
Thanks for watching Charles! I appreciate the support!
Yer awsome sir... as a newbie.... I think I could actually figure out the job with a little communication with the foreman... great confidence building video...
Happy to help! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions going forward!
I don't know how this ended up in my recommendations but I'm glad it did. I've always wondered how equipment operators know what to do and I've seen those piles of dirt with stakes in them. I'm so glad I watched this video! Now I know a little bit.
Thanks for watching!
Great video, thanks for passing on your knowledge. I'm a civil engineer and while I learned to design roadways in school and have performed material inspections on construction sites, reading stakes on site isn't something I've received training for. This video just taught me pretty much all I need to know about the stakes I encounter while on the job. Really appreciate it!
Absolutely! Thanks for watching and let me know if you have questions going forward!
Very interesting to see how survey layout is drastically different regionally.
I am on the coast of western Canada, grade stakes look just like they do in the video other then metric.
Couldn't have been better explained (most likely a lot worse) by a construction management professor. Keep it up! Subscribed.
Thank you sir! I appreciate the support!
This is very important information in construction. Keep on posting these informative and educational videos 👌
Thanks for watching!
Excellent explanations sir. From a former surveyors, you explained very well
Thank you so much! That's high praise coming from a surveyor! I really appreciate it.
Amazing video, definitely subscribing and tuning in for more
Thanks for watching, let me know if you have any specific questions I can help with!
Great video. I'm new to construction and fell into it with GPS a without ever knowing how to read a grade stake. I have since learned some of the important ones as a dozer operator which usually has gps. but I want and need to know all of them. I wish I would have started on the ground as a grade setter but it is what it is. Gonna try and watch your whole series. Very informative.
Knowing how to read grade stakes as well as how to cut grade for a grade checker are two really important skills that I would focus honing. If you ever have GPS issues or get on a machine without GPS you'll be lost without those skills. I'd also recommend doing some final passes in manual mode on occasions where you have time. It's super easy to become too reliant on the GPS and you lose your finish grade finesse. Thanks for watching Darrell! I really appreciate you brother.
@@DieselandIron yes tour right about relying on gps too much. I know this old blade operator and we did a landfill job up here in Redding CA. And he finished the job by Hand, even though the blade had automatics on it. It was probably the slick finish dozer that made it easy for him (that was me lol).
“Google” hahaha great video bro. Means a lot for the time you put in this!
I appreciate you watching!
I HAVE no need for this but you were so good I just had to keep watching 🤣
Thank you for the support! I appreciate it!
I still remember benching in on a negative BM , messed me up working below sea level Stockton ca ! But I learned to read all stakes ,was very versatile,from sidewalk cutting ,to flow lines of sewer ,storm ,manholes ! 👍
That would mess with me. I've never been close enough to sea level to run into that issue!
@@DieselandIron the worst is when zero is mid depth of your trench, lots of chances for errors in your grade book dropping the "-" in your math. only done one job below sea level.
Landscape Horticulturist Apprentice here. Wish we saw more survey stakes in our industry. I guess we just need to get into bigger projects!
Come out to a new sub development. Stakes galore!
Your videos are awesome, thanks so much for sharing your experience and educating your viewers
Thanks for watching and commenting! You make the channel possible!
Very good video and well explained for pros and laymen alike. Thank you.
Thanks for the comment!
Thank you bro! This is the best grade stake reading video I have ever seen. Your explanation made it super easy to follow. Keep this up man!
I really appreciate the compliment, let me know if there are any other topics you have questions on!
Amazing tutorial bud 🎉very clear lesson
Glad it helped
Keep up the work, it helps the industry big time 🤙🏾
Thanks Daniel! I appreciate you watching!
The best part is....I don't have my phone, simple math I should be able to do the numbers in my head, but I'm a product of the American education system! I fell out cause that's me. Great video man! Pipeliner over here.😂
We all struggle with the plus's and minus's brother. None of us were top of our class 😂
Absolutely Outstanding video man. Thank you!
Thanks for watching, glad it was helpful!
I am a product of the american eductaion system.. and I dont do that stuff.. lmfao. 😑 Your video was extremely knowledgable and helpful. A million thank yous. God bless.
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment! Unfortunately our education system likes to pretend the skilled trades don't exist!
Thank GOD for this video! Preciate you for the knowledge bro GOD BLESS!
Thanks for watching brother!
good explanation, around here they are called a hub and a guard, it not a grade stake till the carrot is drawn on it. the only thing I was told different is when measuring an offset you measure from the pin in the hub for the exact distance as the guard is arbitrary located behind the hub
Thanks for the input! Here it depends on the survey firm as to whether you get a pin or not. Most of the time you center on the hub and that's your measure point.
Great video. Made it make sense….. one thing at a time
Thanks for the feedback!
Great refresher for contractors test
Thanks for watching!
Great video, keep them coming.
I just came a cross ur video and u explain everything so well make me want to continue watching ur videos to learn more thank you Sr.
Thanks for watching! Let me know if you've got more questions.
Hey man, been watching your vids for a while, i am a norwegian who is about to get started on my "real"(higher) education, i have been looking at heavy equipment opperating for a while, and thank you for helping me decide
I'm happy to help! Let me know if I can answer any other questions for you. Good luck on the education brother!
First time on your channel Bud. Great explanation of grade stakes. Very informative. I will be back!
Thank you for the support Larry! I really appreciate it.
Thank you. The clearing crew I used to work on, our stakes were CL for clearing limit but being that was. Usually all that would be wrote on them they would write it out instead of putting cl. I was usually on the dozer so I would just barely rake or backdrag past them so when I got it clean I could put 3 to 4 trackwidths walked in in line and coming back into the job so the silt fence crew had a good straight clean level line and work area, it made it look really good when finished
I bet the silt fence guys appreciated that. I don't envy those guys at all, especially on jobs back in the woods...
Great informative video not in field love the knowledge.
Thank you!
exhibit 1 god invented beer so you guys didn't rule the world. seriously---maaaad props to you. i grew up in an area that was putting in a freeway and i always wondered how the freak that was done. and now i know.
A lot of your big job sites now don't even have stakes. With GPS you can go to the middle of an open field and hold your rod right at the top of the finished curb grade before the ground has even been broken. Technology has come a long way!
As a surveyor I love when you run over a stake. My restaking fee is $200 per stake
My man!
Yeesh, I was unfortunate enough to work for an outfit that offered free re-staking…
I was told “We have to be competitive to get the work, so we do free re-stakes”… 🤬🤬🤬
Nice job. When I was learning to mark stakes and shoot grades I was nervous and the guy teaching me was hostile. The fills was simple but another odd guy explained it and clicked. Now listen I was brand new and 18 but he said it's just like making change out of dollar and it was simple. I wish the hostile guy was like that because after the old said it I had it.. lol Funny the things you experience when learning. The first time on a slope or the first you was left without someone to help and it was up to you to do everything. I was a basement guy who turned into the backhoe guy who turned into the boat guy and alot times the labor guy.. lol It was a small co. but guess what, when work slows like it always does I was never the coach guy. Great video and channel.
Thanks man I appreciate the support and comment!
Thank you sir for all the info, I worked as a labourer I know all of it, but when I started I remember bobcat operators did not know what the writing on the stakes meant. So I learnt the hard way. Thank you!
Grade stakes can be pretty confusing if you don't have a foundation of knowledge to go off of. Thank you for watching and thanks for the compliment!
Yes I have installed water , sewer , storm sewer , dug basements , one rule on the job , don’t knock out a stake , especially if the layoff season is. coming up
Haha quick trip to the front of the layoff line!
Yes it is especially in the Fall when the big OFF is about to happen for the Winter
I like your channel, it’s currently based on info I’m looking for in my career. Thanks for putting this together, looking forward to future material!
Thanks for watching and thanks for the compliment! Let me know if there's anything specific you're looking for.
@@DieselandIron personally looking for:
Dozer- types of cuts, ie scrape cuts. Slope work, ripping/grubbing basins or fields. Dressing up slopes, spreading and compacting material, ie building a buttress with specific compaction. Working off steep slopes, fire service type work. D8/6/5 with slope board even.
Grader: looking for road maintenance and repair. Truck trail type roads, or just dirt access roads.
Backhoe: Municipal type work, rolling around town. Digging out trenches and creating slopes. Benching.. maybe some veteran operator tips and tricks for a wide array or work.
@@LADEntertainment God damn, you have quite the list! Let me see what I can come up with. Fair warning, it's going to be a bit before I can take some of these on. I've got a whole series coming up on running GPS in a dozer. That's going to take a bit to work through along with some other requests.
@@DieselandIron not a problem, not really requests just what’s in my field. If you happen to cover any great, if not no biggie your material is still valuable to me. Thank you!
@@LADEntertainment thanks LeRoy!
Great explanation and thank you
Thanks for watching, brother!
Great job and thank you, that was very helpful. I just saved all your other videos to my watch later folder and I will be watching this one again also.
Thanks Shane! Let me know if you have any questions I can help you with.
Would love to see a video on why you chose this profession and how you got into it. Thank you for the information and tips, and I look forward to more of you’re videos
I'll try to put a video together here in the next few weeks. Thanks for watching!
Outstanding presentation. Sure could have used this many years ago.
Thanks Roberto! Let me know if there's something you want to know about now and I'll try to do a video on it.
Just started learning ..thanks for the info
A job at Steelwrist?
Thanks for your videos man, I just started as a pipe layer and your videos helped me out a lot. Side note super sick shades what are they? Thanks man for your videos
I appreciate you watching! Here's the link: amzn.to/3xqpmNk
great vid.i'm from the uk i know we do a similar process just wondering how different it acually is.
I would imagine a lot of the markings are pretty similar but you guys don't have to mess with tenths. You have an easy system with meters and cents!
@@DieselandIron thanks for the reply dude i'm going in for my dozer ticket soon this type of info is very usful thanks
Outstanding video.
Brother, your videos are excellent!
Thank you so much! I appreciate you watching
Man, really great video with very interesting information, I’m a small concrete company and getting in to excavation also, thanks very much for that valuable information.
About this videos you never know who you going to bless.
You bless me by watching the content brother. I really appreciate the kind words. Let me know if there's any other questions you'd like answered and I'll try to get a video out with an answer.
Fantastic videos. You explain things is a very clear and understandable way. Great job!
Thanks Todd! I appreciate you watching!
Thx. Excellent video and content. Watch this video and just subscribed.
Thank you so much! I appreciate the support!
Wish you were around when I started in 1998 ,I had to start from the bottom and learn the hard way . If you travel from state to state for work ,you will learn there are many different ways they abbreviate ,or jargon. That the local use to describe something. . I've seen "LOD" as"LOC" (limits of construction) and"BMK" as "TBM" (Temporary bench mark) which is surrounded by a "pig pen" the mark on your cut and fill stakes you refer to as a carrot top has typically been called a ( CROW'S foot) or (R.P) radious point ) "POR" (POINT OF RADIOUS) or reference point. Ant hills can also be referred to as castles as well . The locals seem to make up alot of their own jargon . That goes for what they call their machines as well . Excavator ,hoe, or track hoe,...pans or scrapers..... blade or motor grader ,maintainer, etc I've even heard a real old dude call a dozer a cat skinner. ...great video ,way more to dirt work than people realize .when you go from the flat plains to the rocky mountains ,to the desert in death valley , or to the Noth slope of Alaska , or a FERC job on the beaches of the gulf. You will see there are many different ways companies do things that only apply to that particular area.
It is incredible how much variation there is in the industry based on something as simple as geography. I have people reach out all the time with grade stake questions and I always tell them to send me pictures of the surrounding stakes so I can get some context. Who knows what some of those abbreviations mean!😂
This was a really good outline on how to read job stakes. I would like to make a couple of corrections on the reading of the ditch stakes though if you don't mind. [14:37] The Front Slope is the slope closest to the roadway and was at a 3:1. The Back Slope is the slope from the bottom of the 4' ditch to tie into either natural ground or possibly a filled section at the furthest outside point and was at 2:1. A 2:1 slope is steeper than a 3:1 where the slope is measured as 3' for the run and the 1' as the rise versus 2' as the run and 1' as the rise. (Generally, the Front Slope is a non-recoverable, but traversable slope at 3:1 whereas a steeper slope, i.e. (2:1) might induce a roll-over or a harsh landing on a flat bottom ditch.) All in all, your explanations of jobsite grade stakes and hubs was spot on and will be a major help to anyone who just wants to know what all those stakes mean or even a greenhorn starting work with a grading contractor. Great job!
Thanks Ed! Bring on the corrections, I'm all for it and I appreciate people checking me. A lot of times it's easy to get mixed up while in front of the camera (especially when I was new to doing it). Thanks for watching and thanks for the input!
@@DieselandIron I think it's great that people like you take the time to share their knowledge of a subject. I have been a registered land surveyor for almost 30 years and I clicked on your video to see if there's anything new I could "lift" from someone else's knowledge. It's never too late to learn.
@@finallyitsed2191 absolutely and I talked about that all the time on my channel. This is an industry where you should never stop learning and if you have you've gotten complacent. I was wondering if you had a surveyor or engineering background with the way you describe those slopes. What part of the country are you from? I would really love to do a video where I follow a surveyor for a day and help him set stakes and elevation hubs to show the process.
@@DieselandIron I am in Alabama and work for a large engineering firm with offices throughout the southeast. I have been the Department Head for Constructing Engineering and Inspection for about 20 years where I have inspectors that oversee Department of Transportation highway, bridge, and airport construction projects and have for the most part hung up my surveyor's hat. We do, however, have several survey parties throughout Alabama, Atlanta, Nashville, Huntsville, Birmingham and Florida that might be close enough for something to be worked out.
@@finallyitsed2191 I got a question for you, I've had a request for breaking down different types of base materials for roads and why they are used. For example why is sand used with stone over top and not the other way around. Any chance you have the knowledge that I could do an interview with you over the phone? That was my project for this next week with tracking someone down to interview. I'd rather interview someone that's an active fan of the channel if possible. Let me know if you'd be interested and we can set something up.
Loved this video, excellent explanation!!
Thanks for watching and thanks for the compliment!
Agreed
Great Video! Very helpful!!
Thanks for watching!
Great information on this video you did veryyyyy good
Glad it was helpful, thanks for watching!
LMFAO @ 1:30, when he said “tearing up curb” outside the limit of disturbance I about pissed myself! You know you have seen that on the job before
There's always that one guy 🤣
Please do a video the level rod and how to find elevations.
ruclips.net/video/vxvTLzrkTgc/видео.html
See if this is what you're looking for.
Hi excellent video i subscribed. Im really new to reading grade stakes this has been very helpful. I was wondering if you are building a road with a motor grader and you have a stake that starts with a cut but then next stake is a fill, is it a gradual transition between stakes whether or not its cut or fill? I hope my question made sense lol
Yes, it will be a gradual transition between the grade stakes. At the end of the day we are creating surfaces and it wouldn't make sense to create a stair or vertical edge in the middle of a smooth surface. Cut stakes for underground work are a different story.