Appropriate to base stamp/letter off of information provided by others? 10

[thejonster]

A new client missed an inspection and needs an engineering stamp so they don't have to tear a deck down / rebuild etc.

This city official/inspector wants a letter from an engineer stating at a minimum that I am OK with how it's constructed because it's not the normal way that decks are built.

I don't want a business where I am personally inspecting construction and the guys pictures look perfectly fine and this is a low risk deck that's only 18 inches off the ground, and it has a stable load path grav & lateral and calcs out fine, so I AM okay with how I'm TOLD it's constructed but pictures aren't the same as being there. But even if I was there, am I going to look at every nail? I really don't want to crawl under the deck. Do you guys write any letters based off of other people's pictures? Would this meet the standard of care for structural engineering?

Is there any other way to do this?
Option 2: I could draw a detail as if it was new construction and have the city inspect, but this guy is running into a deadline and going back and forth between the engineer and the city and if my idea doesn't work he's in a bind.

Personal experience in similar situations preferred in reply, thank you in advance.

 

[thejonster]

And there's another person who bought a tiny house from somebody that needs it to be certified which entails getting an engineering stamp. They have pictures of how it was constructed and also seems low risk if the info is correct (ie tiny), but I can't verify without tearing things open so another similar situation.

It seems like a shame that someone couldn't use a perfectly good structure, I know I would be frustrated and want to help because I can, but no good deed goes unpunished as they say. Would you guys touch this with a 10 foot pole?

 

[dik]

You might be able to visually inspect it noting any distress, If it's a simple construction include any anecdotes about the construcion and that your visual observations confirm this... with qualifications and see if it 'flies'.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[BAretired]

My personal experience in a similar situation is outlined below:

A contractor was about 90% finished building a house for himself and his family on his own property. He had performed the work without applying for a development permit or a building permit. The authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) demanded an engineering certificate attesting to the adequacy of the foundation.

I wrote a short report stating that the foundation was built within the active frost zone. I stated that it was not built in accordance with good practice, that the structure could be expected to heave when the soil was freezing and settle when thawing; but that I saw no safety problem, i.e. the foundation was adequate to safely sustain the load in spite of seasonal movement.

Eventually, the contractor sold his home to Owner #2, who eventually sold it to a third owner. Somehow the third owner found my two page report and sued the AHJ who, in turn, sued my firm for nearly half a million dollars. I won the case, as well as recovering some costs, but it still cost me approximately $10,000 in legal costs.

In conclusion, I would not touch it with a ten foot pole! Nor a twenty foot pole! Nor any pole! The owner should realize when construction commences, that a building permit is required for the item to be built. It is his responsibility to get any certifications required, not some poor sod who doesn't know exactly how it was built and can't inspect it properly.

BA

 

[phamENG]

BA - that's a very good lesson. Thank you. That's one of those chains of events that I convince myself I'm crazy for dreaming up.

thejonster - I just handled one of these last week. Contractor covered the sheathing before the inspector could look at it, and asked me for a letter. So I had them uncover the sheathing in a few spots to show me the nailing pattern. I wrote a letter and specified the places I saw and what I saw, and made it clear that I didn't see the rest and have no idea what the nailing pattern was. Because of the limited nature, I made no conclusion about the adequacy of the construction and offered no opinions whatsoever.

If this is a new client, it's best to let him go. If you help him out of this jam, he's going to think he has a get out of jail free card in his back pocket from now on. These are rarely worth it. I'll help out a long time client occasionally, but I'll let them feel just enough pain from me to remind them that I'm not really doing them any favors.

 

[thejonster]

Thank you, I think I just needed to hear what I already knew from someone else.

I found a great discussion on writing letters based on pictures. Basically, don't. It's always someone who didn't do their job and wants you to jump under the bus to bail them out and making their problem now your problem.

https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=160162

These are two very small projects, a deck project falls under "Work exempt from permit" re: IRC, similar to the IBC section 105, up to 200 square feet, not attached, low to the ground, and if it does not serve the rear exit, so he could make his deck smaller, worst case. And as for the tiny home they can sell it to somebody else and count it as a lesson learned.

If anyone else has some insight with my second option in the orig post, if it would work for the deck project I would welcome that. Otherwise I told this client to ask around with more engineers.

 

[TigerGuy]

Do you risk an ethics violation with regard to your license if you do this? To me, it's not worth my license.

 

[thejonster]

Agreed, inspectors and building officials will accept all the letters you want to write, they love to give you all the rope you want to hang yourself with.

I think my lesson learned from the post linked above is a hard rule, I won't write a letter for anything I haven't seen personally.

 

[NorthCivil]

I've got an easier rule i use for myself. I dont work for homeowners. (meaning single family home-owners).

I'll work on single family homes, but i'm not signing up to be engaged by the homeowner. I'll sign up to a professional who manages my engagement (builder, architect, etc). If the builder asks me to make out the invoice to a homeowner, sorry, not interested. I dont want to chase around mrs. smith from up the street for her unpaid engineering bill.

It might seem harsh, but its a slippery slope dealing with homeowners and eventually you find yourself entertaining these asinine ideas like mr jonster and somehow believing they are sane.

in a previous life at a previous office, i fielded way too many phone calls from homeowners. demanding the unreasonable during the first half of the call, then complaining about the (already too low) price the second half of the call.

This industry is too vast and wide to deal with the worst clients for the lowest prices, so i just avoid all that. the bigger the job, in general, the more professional the team you will be dealing with. At one end of the spectrum, professionals doing things properly, at the other, cowboys wasting every engineer in towns time as he calls 15 different firms, price shopping until some pathetic sod signs their soul away with a 179$ letter to the AHJ. (they then have to chase the client 3 times over the next 6 months to get paid too)

 

[1503-44]

If you did not personally supervise any of the work under consideration, it you will be operating contrary to PE ethics. Technically you are certifying that the work was done with your supervision.

And ..sanity check .. why would you want to? I find it difficult enough to keep my own problems under control.

 

[Brad805]

Great story BA. It really does well to highlight the risk v reward with this type of assignment. We did a review in one area of a residential complex years ago, and wound up in a court case related to a slip and fall outside our scope of works. Such an exhausting process to defend yourself.

 

[BAretired]

Such an exhausting process to defend yourself.

Yes, indeed! Extremely exhausting. And it haunts you for months before it is resolved.

BA

 

[thejonster]

Wanted to follow up with what I actually ended up doing in case someone else came across this thread with the same problem:
[ul]
[li]I told the tiny-home guy to ask the county if there's another engineer that's stamped an already built tiny home. That would be the obvious engineer for them to use again. I can't stamp something that I haven't seen myself.[/li]
[li]I told the guy that wanted his deck signed off that I'd be happy to draw a detail that someone else could inspect the work, and that he could also make his deck smaller and meet the 'exempt from permit' requirements. I never heard back from him[/li]
[/ul]
I was glad to give them this advice so they had a way forward, and the way forward doesn't involve me under a bus.

Lesson learned: Anytime the county wants an engineer's stamp they're just wanting an easy way out & don't want to be the bad guy and say no, a nice guy engineer can come along and throw himself under the bus to solve someone else's problem. It feels good being on the other side of realizing I need to say 'no' to those opportunities.

 

[MIStructE_IRE]

Great lesson there BA. Sorry you had to go through that. We have a tendency to be too nice and helpful sometimes.

 

[BAretired]

Yes indeed, being too helpful can get a person in serious trouble sometimes.

BA

 

[TLHS]

The thing I try to remember in this situation is that the owner/contractor missed a regulatory step. If what they're asking me to do is /less/ involved than what the original regulatory thing was, that's probably not going to meet the standard of care.

The AHJ is asking them to prove that what they did is okay. If just looking at what's already there isn't good enough for the AHJ, me looking at it probably doesn't do the job either. If they are concerned about not being able to see things, then a letter from me saying that I can't see things and can only go by what I can see hasn't really helped the situation other than potentially getting me yelled at.

The client may be asking for a stamped letter (saying what?!?), but what the AHJ really wants (even if they don't know how to ask for it) is a letter of assurance. If I'm not comfortable giving them something approaching that level of review, then I'm not really providing the service the parties need, even if they are asking for something else. Providing a service that isn't what the client needs, when they mistakenly think that it is what they need, is a good way to get yourself into trouble through a mismatch of expectations and understandings.

You're bound to get things like your client emailing your report to the AHJ with an email that says "Here's a stamped letter, the engineer says it's A-OK", the AHJ ticking a box and nobody understanding that you've actually written a letter that is excluded so much that it doesn't mean anything close to that. Then later on if there's trouble people say that's not what they asked for and you didn't follow your duty of care.

It's different for structures that have been existing for a long while. The ability to evaluate is understood to be significantly more limited. But in the eyes of the AHJ this is new construction, even if it's already built.

 

[JLNJ]

We had a situation like this on a small commercial project back when Special Inspections in our area we just starting to be enforced. The AHJ wanted certain reports from the SI, but there were none performed. The contractor asked us to seal something that said it was all installed per the drawings and specs. The contractor was trustworthy; however, we could not ethically seal this type of document since we didn't have an on-site presence and we were not copied on any SI reports.

The architect had a conversation directly with the AHJ and discussed what was known, what wasn't, and what could be done about it. Eventually we worked something out based on construction photographs and other info. The result did fall short of the letter of the law but the AHJ was reasonable, the contractor was honest, and my A/E firm didn't have to compromise its ethics. Of course, if the contractor isn't honest, things weren't done right, the City Inspector wasn't called for their inspections, etc., then the AHJ might not be so reasonable or inclined to be lenient.

 

[AaronMcD]

It's absurd how much liability falls on the engineer.

If you go out and see a few nails, it's often more than the inspector does before they sign that it was built per plan. Every project I've done, I go out for "observation" and end up "inspecting". I find missing clips, poorly installed stuff, freaking fully tensioned through bolts in tube steel, "seismic ties" without hooks, you name it. Always "the inspector already signed off".

And then there's the contractor, who is by far the most important when it comes to ensuring a job well built. A good contractor will do their best to make absolutely sure it's built per plan AND standards of practice, and even contact me to verify when something looks off. A bad contractor seems like they are on their first project and they don't know what a shear wall is.

It's ridiculous that as engineers, we can't say "yeah that looks good", when it does in fact look good, we would consider it good if we owned it, and it's probably better than 99% of stuff an inspector passes. Because there's the freaking liability, we can't be normal, helpful, even ethical people.

http://www.hellodwell.design

 

[Guest090822]

I got a call once for one of these "favors". Guy built something that wasn't to code and was issued a stop work order by the town. Wanted me to certify that it was still OK. I politely declined and informed him that codes exist for a reason. I think he ended up having to tear everything down and start over. Personally, I hate inspectors with a passion. They aren't engineers even though they think they are. And, like many on this post noted, they will accept any letter that passes responsibility off of them.

 

[phamENG]

Sorry to resurrect this, but I'm curious: has anyone here ever confronted a building official over this? I just got another one, and I'm really getting sick of it. I'm contemplating writing a letter to the local building officials (I service about 15 different jurisdictions on a regular basis) pointing out that by asking for letters from engineers for things that obviously can't be seen, they are asking engineers to be unethical and are doing nothing to serve the communities they are supposed to support and, if we're being idealistic, protect.

I can also see this going horribly wrong. So....anyone ever try it?