Engineer of record responsibility

[nickky]

Hi Everyone!

I have a house addition project under construction. The owner gave me a letter telling " The attic area is covered by plywood without engineer's approval". He plans to use the attic as an extra storage while I haven't design it for that load.
Now what should be my response, if he tries to take the resposibility by giving me the letter?

 

[DRC1]

Nobody wants his attic to collapse. Storing your chistmas decorations wont hurt it, putting boxes and boxes of old documents may. I agree putting plywood in an attic does not violate anythig. However your owner has raised this issue. Find out what he wants to do. See if the attic can be modified to support what he wants to do. Explain that it will never be cheaper than doing during construction.

 

[msquared48]

csd72:

You stated that "The design is your responsibility, what gets done with the building afterwards is not." - and I have to take issue with that in part.

If you have no direct knowledge of the overloading or the intention to do so, that is one thing. However, that is not the case here as the engineer has prior knowledge that this, not maybe, but WILL occur. He has to CYA here as I guarantee that the engineer will be on the hook in court if he does not if there is a failure.



Mike McCann
McCann Engineering