I have been approached (ok, begged) by one of my bigger clients to start designing pervious pavers for their customers. My business is mainly setup to do segmental retaining walls, but a lot of my clients are in the hardscape space so there would be a lot of crossover.
What I envision is the...
I have a client that is requesting to see my full professional liability policy, not just a COI. Has anyone had this request before? I have clients request COI all the time, but never to see the full policy documents.
My policy documents have some personal company information that I don't care...
I am designing a small retaining wall 5-ft off the property line with weep holes. The town permitting department rejected the design because there are "downspouts" (to use the town's language) that will pour water onto the neighbor's property.
The wall is flattening out the site, but the...
My business has grown to 4 people, and I am looking for a solution to track my team's time to specific projects so I can track profitability by project. We do not have billable hours, no do we tie hours worked to payroll, so this will just be an internal tracking tool.
I am looking for a tool...
I am doing a little market research (please let me know if this is not allowed).
I am planning on offering courses on various design software for MSE and SRW designs. The list of software I have include MSEW+, Vespa2, VespaDOT, SRWall, and ReSSA+. I am curious which software people would be...
I am curious what people use for the cutoff to increase the global factor of safety from 1.3 to 1.5 for "critical structures", and do you ever use anything between 1.3 and 1.5? It is pretty clear cut to me for highway applications, where if the wall supports a bridge you would automatically...
I was contacted by another engineer that is defending their client that got written a citation by a city inspector for failure to obtain a permit for a small retaining wall. The city inspector used an excerpt from a blog article on my website as justification for the citation. After reviewing...
I am considering offering online classes/webinars, both live and recorded, and structuring them to where PE's can count them for their continuing education requirements. It is something that I plan to charge for, with the intention of making some profit off of it.
Has anyone done this before...
I am working on my first multiyear contract for a project that will last many years. I am thinking through the price escalation clause. This would be for engineering services only, and I charge based on the square footage of material I provide designs for.
Do you tie your escalations to a...
In Excel, I want to subtract cell J20- cell A14, and lets call this variable W. W correlates with the column N data from SET1. I want to interpolate column M for SET1. W correlates with the column N data from SET2. I want to interpolate column M for SET2. Let's call the results X1 and X2 for...
My church is ripping out some overgrown junipers on the slope in the parking lot leading up to the building (shaded area in attached) and replacing it with more decorative (and shorter) landscaping. The existing slope gets as steep as 45% right off the sidewalk, and the total elevation change is...
I have a drawing template with standard notes, details, title blocks, etc. All of the notes are updated for the project by modifying properties in the sheet set manager to ensure they are consistent throughout (things like the project owner, location, minimum rebar cover, etc.). I currently...
With the rise of AI, what are some ways you are using AI, or other automation, in your business?
I have been using chatGBT to draft response letters, ask it preliminary legal questions (to save time with my lawyer, not as a replacement), and learn how to improve things on my website. I have...
I designed an SRW using a 6" tall, 12" deep SRW block, and I had 24" geogrid spacing specified for most of the wall (4 units between geogrid layers). What got installed was an 8" tall, 12" deep block, and they kept 4 units between geogrid layers, leading to 32" spacing between geogrid. The only...
I am designing a segmental block retaining wall that forms the walls of a dry detention pond. My scope is just the retaining wall design. One side of the pond will act more like a "dam" with the backside of the wall sloping down. See attached cross section sketch (assume this is not to...
I am looking at laboratory testing of select backfill for a retaining wall. The Standard Dry Density is listed as 98 pcf, with no optimum moisture content since it is an open graded stone. This is an oven dried unit weight. So, what would you use for your design unit weight? Would you increase...
I am working with a granite company to start selling their granite as a direct competitor to precast concrete products. Since it is a natural product and the only carbon emissions are the crane to extract and the truck to transport it, it has a significantly lower carbon footprint than concrete...
Anyone know how to find the maximum shear and moment values for the loading below when L1 and L2 are not equal? It's been a while since I solved an indeterminant problem...
My company (I'm the owner) has been contracted to provide shop drawings for a material supplier. The material supplier has a contract with the contractor to provide the materials and stamped drawings for owner approval.
The material supplier has a set of standard drawings and title block that...
I have perused several posts on different filter mediums for french drains. I am curious what people think for the best retaining wall drainage and filter system for varying soil types. For this discussion, I am thinking more for a mechanically stabilized earth wall, but let me know if you have...
