Contractor calls about construction loading 6

[AggieYank]

"We just want to verify we can use a scissor lift on your slab"

How do you usually handle it when contractors call to make sure they can use a lift / forklift / other machine on your slab, either on grade or suspended?

We have basically said yes in an extremely roundabout, no liability way, assuming it seems reasonable, but I'm curious as to how others handle the calls.

 

[lkjh345]

FWIW: If I can determine in answer in a relatively short time, say an hour, I usually go ahead and check it, and give the contractor an answer, and don't even bring up anything about charging the contractor.

After you do a few of these calcs, it does not take all that long to do another one once the contracotr provides the maximum wheel load. I can do most of these in 15 to 20 minutes.

The hour (or less) you spend on this will be more than paid back in a better working relation with your contractor. I find, for the most part, if you treat the contractor with repect and help him/her out when you can, they tend to help you out when they can, say, when your mistakes come to light. (And we all make mistakes on every job we do. ) A good working relation with your contractor can significantly reduce the amount of time you spend on a project in the construction phase. It also has the additional bonus of reducing your stress level significantlyy.

In addition, on a fair percentage of projects we do these days, the contractors are on board before we are. Either through deign build or through existing relationships with the owners. We get a fair portion of our workload through contractor recommendations. They appreciate the help on the little things, like this, that we do for them, and so return the favor by recommending us for projects. Don't develop a reputation as a difficult engineer to work with. This will come back to haunt you in a lot of ways over the years.

 

[Loui1]

Very well put lkjh345.

There is a time and place to be hardnosed to the contractor. This is not typically one of those instances.

 

[csd72]

I agree 100% with lkjh345,s philosophy. A bit of give and takes helps out a lot on some projects.

I have checked the calculations of good respected engineers with 30 or more years of experience and I always find mistakes (even though they are sometimes small ones). If you build up a good relationship with a contractor, they will tell you if something does not look right, if you build up a confrontational relationship then they wont tell you.

I agree that we should not give away free advice, but surely there has been an allowance in the design fee for construction queries.

 

[JAE]

lkjh345's statement is fine to a point.

Don't forget the saying: [red]"No good deed goes unpunished". [/red]

You might build a good buddy relationship with the contractor by offering him "free" services in helping him out with construction loading issues, but if something goes wrong, that good-buddy relationship will not exist.

I agree with building a good working relationship with contractors. I treat them with the utmost respect and they know that I respect them for what they do.

But that doesn't mean charging them for legitimate engineering services is being hardnosed.

It takes time to verify any sort of construction loading and I would suggest the contractor is being hardnosed, or disingenuous, to suggest that you shouldn't get paid for it.

 

[SperlingPE]

I agree with JAE. Respect between an engineer and contractor goes both ways. Legitimate services should not be given away.
With the above being said, if a mistake by me comes to light and the contractor is able to fix it in an efficient, low cost manner I appreciate it. In the same way that if a construction mistake happens, I will work with the contractor to design an efficient, low cost solution. Construction mistakes and design mistakes are separate from means and methods of the contractor and should not be confused as the same.

 

[whyun]

The days of engineers and contractors helping each other to resolve problems have long gone. These days in the field, people seem to be obsessed with finding errors or omissions and who is lucky enough to pay for these extras.

JAE is right about potentially paying the price after being a good Samaritan. Not just in the construction industry either.

 

[lkjh345]

I respectfully disagree with the last few posts. Checking decks/floor structure for man lift or scissor lift wheel loads takes a trival amount of time.

'Designing with Metal Deck' By Vulcrat has good examples and explanation of how to check this. Once you have done it, and understand the methodolgy, it does not take very long to do it again for different deck and wheel loads.

If I can do this to help a contractor out, it goes a long way to establishing a good working relationship with the contractor.

This good working relationship saves ME considerable time and stress during the construction phase. Thus paying for itself mutliple, mutliple times over. If you want to make a profit on your construction phase services ( assuming you contracted for a lump sum fee), working with your contractor (within reason of course) goes a very long ways towards acheiving ths goal. If you are desirious of losing money on your construction phase services, fight your contractor every step of the way. See what happens.

It has not been my expereince at all that trust between engineers and contractors is an old fashion idea. Quite the contrary. Maybe I have just been fortunate to work with good contractors and subs, but it is a very rare occasion when things aren't worked out in a team-like fashion on our projects. Maybe others have different expereinces. I am just relating my expperience over the last 15 years.

 

[SperlingPE]

I am not saying that it is not desirable to work with the contractor to resolve issues that come up. This has to be done to maintain a relationship and in a lot of cases make things easier for yourself. However, these are circumstances that go beyond the contract or scope of services. The amount or time a check may take is irrelevant.
Ask a contractor to add to his scope and see if he is willing to do it for free.

 

[DRC1]

Could someone explain why thhis would not be the structural engineer's responsibility to begin with?

 

[UcfSE]

Why should the owner have to pay more in design fee and reinforcing just to give the contractor a break he or she can pocket?

While I'm all for being generally helpful and furthering relationships, we're not here to make friends, we're here to make money. I'm sure that no contractor would show up at my house to do a few hours worth of work, such as pouring a patio or driveway, for free, especially just to help our relationship. I see no reason to open myself up to more liability plus the losing the time that gets donated to the "contractor needs a new boat" fund.

I believe also that not everyone can be lumped into the same boat. If you have a client who has been good to you for 10 years, yes, help him or her out. If it's a new client, someone you don't know well or trust much, you really need to cya first, help second.

 

[JStephen]

"Ask a contractor to add to his scope and see if he is willing to do it for free." In point of fact, that will depend on the amount of time it takes.

 

[GregLocock]

Yes, I was a bit astonished that the loads during assembly are not considered to be part of the design spec. In my field there are plenty of examples of parts for which manufacture is the highest load they'll see, and I'm sure the same is true of bridges and so on as well.



Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[DRC1]

I'm not saying it should be done as a favor I am asking why the structural engineer does not have this responsibility as patt of his design function - I mean he was paid to do the design, why was this not part of that scope of work?

 

[JAE]

I'm not suggesting that you DON'T develop a good working relationship with the contractor. I'm not suggesting that checking a scissor lift wheel load is a huge effort requiring many hours of work. I'm not suggesting that engineers should charge ridiculous fees to do this to make a buck.

I am saying that the means and methods of constructing a building are typically the contractor's responsibility and if you, as the EOR, dive in to "help" the contractor with free means and methods services, this doesn't magically make you a "team player" or represent the only means to build a good working relationship on a project.

And you are definitely....absolutely....exposing yourself to a higher level of liability - anything that goes wrong with the structure that is in any way remotely associated with the scissor lift will be, to some degree...your fault. I've been practicing engineering in multiple states for over 27 years and I've seen so many times when this has happened to engineers. One crack in the floor and its "Hey - the SE told us we could put this unit on the floor and look what happened."

This doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. I'm only agreeing with what SperlingPE said above: "Legitimate services should not be given away"

I am all for "establishing a good working relationship with the contractor". I do this ALL the time and I agree with you lkjh345, that it's a great idea.

But we engineers are professionals who provide services that have value and it is NOT unreasonable to simply charge an appropriate fee for that effort as it validates that we are SERIOUS about what we do and SERIOUS about the question they pose to us about some dumb scissor lift.

And despite what I said above, sometimes it does take a significant amount of time to properly check a floor for a scissor lift which will be driven all over the place...there could me multiple spans and conditions which should be checked....for a complex floor system, it could take up to one or two days to do it right.

 

[mrengineer]

Taking this one step further, is everyone who is charging the contractor for checking out the floor deck also charging for costs associated with sending CAD drawings to contractor for use in preparing shop drawings?

 

[nutte]

DRC1 and GregLocock:

The structural engineer's job is to design a building that in its final state will meet the owner's and the building code's requirements. In its finished state, an office building will not have a scissor lift in the break room by the coffee maker, so the floor shouldn't be designed for it.

It is the contractor's job to build the building. How he gets there is his responsibility, the "means and methods" of construction. If he needs to shore floors before they're complete, brace columns before the framing is all tied in, it's his job to figure that out.

As weird as this sounds to some, this has been standard practice for a long time. After all, there is more than one way to get a building built. If the engineer did want to check these things during the design phase, how would he know which methods the contractor is going to use? By leaving this up to the contractor, he has the flexibility to proceed with construction as he sees fit.

 

[whyun]

I agree with nutte that the contract drawings indicate the finished structure that is constructable. Sequencing and means to achieve the finished structure is the contractor's responsibility. There are some firms whose main bread and butter work involves temporary shoring, scaffolding and other means and methods.

One exception I see is a design-build situation where contractor hires the EOR to do both.

 

[Qshake]

nutte and whyun, I agree wholeheartedly, see my earlier post.

Regards,
Qshake

Eng-Tips Forums:Real Solutions for Real Problems Really Quick.

 

[csd72]

DRC1 and GregLocock:

As an addendum to nutte's comments. There are many ways in which to build a given type of building, and the choice of which depend on factors like timescale, cost, health and safety, and availability of labor/equipment.

Most of these are beyond the scope of structural engineering and those that are not are not usually known at the time of design.

There are also a lot of personal preferences of individual builders.

You can be guaranteed that if you did design all the temporary works for a building project, then the contractor would call up asking to do it a different way.

Bridges are a different case altogether, and it is usually the construction method that dictates the design (part of the reason why design and build is more common for bridges).

 

[Qshake]

csd72 - It's really quite the contrary - Design build for private devlopments has been around since the early 1980's the history of the constructed world notwithstanding (for those who'll jump me about the pyramids, greek temples etc.).

Design build in the transportation/infrastructure is relatively new due largely to the fact that nearly all states were locked into the idea that the owner should have complete oversight of the engineering and construction but that construction should not be involved with engineers or vice versa due to conflict of interest and that is possible the engineer would not be acting in the best interest of his contractual client. Since DOT's are funded by State and Federal funds it actually takes an act of congress to allow D/B to exist in any one state. At this time, the majority of states do not have D/B provisions. Of those that do, Florida is probably the most active in this area.

In the bridge industry we stay out of contractors means and methods. In some cases this comes close to lunacy. For example, segmental bridges. Bridge Designers can design them and produce plans for them. But construction methods for segmental bridges is highly proprietary and in most cases, the winning contractor will redesign the bridge for his equipment thereby forcing the EOR to review the contractor's work. In this scenario, the DOT pays for the design twice.....crazy!



Regards,
Qshake

Eng-Tips Forums:Real Solutions for Real Problems Really Quick.