Soil engineer negligence.

[Seasoned d]

Sorry if this looks too weird.

I'm just trying to find helpful tips on how to deal with cocky soil engineer and solve the problem on site.

Here is the background:

Project: New addition and rebuild of 3000 sq.ft. home in Cupertino.

Foundation excavation for home addition starts, called soil engineer of record to verify field conditions and footings depth and density.

Couple of days later a guy shows up with the probe rod, poke some holes. Everything was Ok'd except one footing in front of the house, where he had 12-15' penetration. I asked him to send an email with the note about site conditions.

I got it same evening: "All 24" deep excavation were firm with no penetration except 1 pad footing at the center was soft and need to be deepened another 18"

Guys proceeded with forms and reinforcement almost done in a week.

Called him again to come back and verify that one last pier that he wanted to deepen extra 18". He shows up the same day, satisfied and leaves promising to send a stamped letter for the city the next day.

Next day I'm getting an sms, that he did some research and found that there should be a backfill from a previously demoed pool, one of the new corners of foundation sits right on top of it. Now he asks to remove the entire fill from the back of the property. Without any specifics on a location, LxWxD of the area.

Started research with the owner and apparently the same soil engineer 10 years ago did testing and certification of that backfill. His old report consists of a plan with exact location of the pool, the letter certifying that he monitored the entire backfill process, the fill is free of concrete, pipes, debris, equipment and now the area is completely buildable. Compaction tests are great, minimum 90%.

However, only 4 tests were done. Two at elevation -2 feet and two at - 1 feet below ground.

After a few discussions yesterday morning with him, he realized he gave his ok in writing and now not answering emails, calls and texts. Not to the owner, not to me.

I'm running out of ideas what to do, because it's the rainy season, we can't pour concrete until he signs off. We can't simply excavate and remove whatever he asks for without removal of all formwork, reinforcement, backfilling most of the footings and piers just to get equipment to the rear of the lot.

If 10 years ago density tests were made only at 1 and 2 feet below ground, does that mean that below 3 feet it's all unverified fill and he just let the demo contractor his "ok", tested the last 2 feet and stamped a letter? According to a new report made this year for rebuilding, he omitted the information about exact pool location, just mentioning that one of the bores may have shown fill from the pool without even specifying the bore location.


What is this? A simple negligence?

How to deal with this and is there a simple solution?


I have built and designed residential homes for the last 25 years. I thought I already saw everything in this field. Just couldn't expect something like this from a professional engineer.


Any help and/or guidance would be greatly appreciated!

 

[XR250]

Maybe throw some helicals under that portion of the foundation.

 

[Seasoned d]

Maybe throw some helicals under that portion of the foundation.

Unfortunately majority of the properties of the bay area located in seismic zone E. And there is no way to pass inspection for the foundation without soil engineer approval letter.
Besides him not even structural engineer can make a decision.
He still not responding. Looks like a big screw up.
Now we got all documents about this pool backfill and it is clear that he approved the fill 10 years ago ready for new construction. City inspection approved. Permit description reads: "Remove existing swimming pool and fill to 90% compaction for future building area."
Currently I'm looking for the best exit strategy from this job.
In most recent soil report made a year ago, it shown that drilling reached refusal at 7.5 feet below ground at the depth of the bottom of the pool. Nobody knows what is there. Probably concrete, trash, pipes and so on. And that undocumented fill was allowed and approved.

 

[Seasoned d]

We couldn't solve this issue with the soil engineer of record. However, the owner decided to pull him off the project, made a deal for soil re-compaction and testing with another local geo engineering company. Pool gets re-excavated and re-compacted next week. The owner will bear the cost of forms and reinforcement removal and reinstallation for now, with possible law actions against previous contractor and soil engineer. I'm not going to be a part of this and hopefully will never hear about any legal actions. Problem solved. Next problem.