ForConstructionPros.com

Last year, Ellis Astin set aside its older GPS products for a new generation of builder's professional measurement equipment. Consisting of an RX900 controller and ATX900 GPS antennas, the all-on-the-pole Leica GPS900 RTK solution is suited for one-person topographic surveys and stakeouts.

Ellis Astin saw almost immediate benefits from its investment. The company had been contracted to complete a four-phase excavation and grading project on a 300-acre site that included a large warehouse and buildings facilities. On the first and second phase, Sorrell and his team initially used conventional total station technology. "I brought the Leica GPS900 to the jobsite soon after it arrived," says Sorrell. Productivity jumped by 40% to 50%.

Part of this productivity gain was attributed to the ability of the GPS to traverse very large sites quickly. "GPS lets us work with greater accuracy very quickly on jobsites of all sizes," he says. "Often, I still need to run boundaries with the total station, but from then on it's GPS."

Using GPS to calculate volumes
On another project, a local Atlanta developer contracted Ellis Astin to grade a 90-acre site for mixed-use residential development. The site included over 800 building pads at varying elevations. Some pads were 50 or 60 ft. higher than others. Each phase of the site was separated with walls ranging from 2 to 30 ft. high.

"Conventional surveying techniques with total stations would have been very slow, requiring us to go through many setups in order to reach all the areas we needed to stake," Sorrell notes.