EOR's Responsibility to Respond to Clients 1

[phamENG]

This is a business question, but I'm more interested in the opinions of my fellow structural engineers than other industries structured in completely different ways.

Scenario:

I design a building. We'll go with a house with no special inspections. Client takes the design, pays me for my service, and then goes silent. It sits on the shelf for a year or more. Then, suddenly, I get a call about the project. They're halfway through framing and there's a change - maybe the owner wants to make a change, maybe it was a renovation and conditions aren't as expected, whatever. But there's a change and construction is at a standstill until I come up with a solution. Remember, I haven't even thought of this project in over a year and had no idea they'd even started work. They need an answer and need it fast.

Short of a specific contractual agreement, what is my duty here? I have other clients and projects, maybe deadlines looming. I don't have a day to devote to a site visit and solving their problem right away. If I say 'sorry, can't be there for two weeks'...am I opening myself to liability for damaged due to schedule delays? That seems unreasonable to me, but anybody can sue for anything.

I ask this because it seems like every time I think I'm getting my schedule under control - this happens (twice this week!). And I'm suddenly juggling new designs with unexpected CA and my QC often suffers because of it. Of course that just feeds the cycle and increases the chances that there will be an issue that I need to solve on the next one. My thought is to add a provision to my proposals that requires one month prior notice before commencing construction or it's tough luck.

 

[XR250]

I don't usually have contracts for my residential work so I am not worried about any legal obligations.
For me, it depends on the customer, how annoying they have been ion the past, my current workload, how quickly they paid. etc.
For small fires, I usually just knock them out and charge an hour for them. Bigger ones, I will let them know a timeframe based on my current workload.
Recently, I had a contractor building a set of plans I did for an arch. egregiously disregard my plans and got busted by the inspector. I told them to get their own engineer to fix it. Never heard about it again.

 

[Aesur]

I have found even with employees this is a tough spot. I have started trying to push for 10 days for shop drawing reviews and a few days for RFI responses, unless it's something that requires more time. Unfortunately that means adding hours to every week, or pushing other projects if possible. I am getting more and more concerned with the level of shop drawings declining and my having to spend more and more time reviewing and commenting on the shop drawings with the same CA fee's that were locked in years ago. We have started adding verbiage that we reserve the right to adjust CA fee if it doesn't start within a year of project completion. We are also seeing a trend where jurisdictions are no longer allowing "reviewed & noted" and will only accept if marked "reviewed" therefore we are seeing the same shop drawing up to 5+ times for some items. I push hard for CA to he hourly, but few in this area manage to get hourly on commercial projects as Architects have to then guess an amount and may either lose money or lose the project with the wrong guesses.

I recommend updating to more days for shop drawing review and RFI responses as well as keeping communication open with the client and responding to their emails in a timely manner even if just to say, "received, I expect to get to this on xx date". That way at least you are setting a time frame and if they don't respond, you have some standing that you didn't hold it up as they didn't respond saying they needed sooner so you assumed the date you said was acceptable.

 

[mfrad]

phamENG,
Definitely new agreement with new rates. Lump sum or time, your call.
I typically have in agreement with owner to have GC to name my firm as additional insured.
Did GC get permit for project? Did you file drawings with the building department?
You wrote no special inspections, how are these being handled now by you. Are there shop drawings and material approvals required.

 

[phamENG]

MotorCity - thanks. The balance of not pushing them off too far and not missing other deadlines for clients that have been waiting patiently is the hard part.

XR250 - I hadn't really addressed in contracts, which was part of my concern. Not sure if this falls under any sort of 'standard of care' type rule that we'd be expected to follow regardless of the absence a written or verbal contract.

Aesur - Yes, I think I will be revising my terms and conditions to include this. I need to make sure response times are set and contingent on an obligation to the client to inform some time before construction starts.

mfrad-
All of my contracts are hourly for CA, so that's not an issue. (I do get push back from larger developers and the commercial jobs, but I'm entirely word of mouth/return clients so those clients are coming to me and I can usually convince them. Worst case I give them a "budget number" with the caveat that I'm going to bill hourly.)

The GC names you as additional insured? How does that work...and why?

I don't file drawings with the building department. I don't pull permits. The GC takes my drawings and submits them with the permit application. Sometimes the architect will. I don't offer that as a service, though - too much hassle for me and no real upside for anyone involved.

If no special inspections are required, then I'm not usually engaged for construction. I have CA as hourly in my contract so that if something does come up I have recourse to bill for it...but they rarely send me shop drawings for review even though I specifically state not to fabricate until I have approved them. That's just how residential construction goes around here. Most of those notes are pure CYA. If they install trusses and there's an issue - I told them to send them to me but they didn't.

 

[Enable]

I have nothing to add on the legal front. But in practice I am very guilty of playing favourites. Perhaps more appropriately stated as not being super prompt with people I dislike working with. Last weekend I had a great client ask on Friday if they could have shoring drawings for a fairly large sized underground parking garage repair ready to use by Monday construction time. Said no problem and he had them Sunday.

Currently I have a few emails in my inbox from people I dislike working with because it's always a "hurry up and wait" operation. Those will sit (meaning I wont open the email) until at least Wednesday because I have some furnace issues going on at my house and I am playing HVAC tech. I am playing HVAC tech because the installer said they're too busy to schedule a service call (...we're in northern Ontario wtf) and no one else will touch it because they didn't install it. On the bright side, we have not frozen and I have learned a lot about furnaces in 24 hours.

I am now having fun and have it running semi-regularly or regularly if you count bypassing certain safety features. My usual mechanical contractor from Toronto (3-4 hour drive) will be making the trek to A) take a look and B) add in a secondary gas fireplace. Great to have friends but now my time is being spent looking at models and framing out for the fireplace instead of getting to bullshit projects with people that always stall.

Anyhow that probably wasn't entirely all necessary but gist of it is if I have a great client who is stuck or fires up a project after some time I will accommodate. If I have a no-name client or worse one that I dislike working with (to be fair this is most) then I tinker with my HVAC instead. My wife approves of this order of priorities as well so that is double bonus.

 

[Smoulder]

Bite the bullet and put float in your design schedule. One month notice before construction won't do anything because it'll still hit unexpectedly and be emergency stations. Or carry on as is if that's no doable.

 

[HuckleberryFinn]

Hey Pham,

Another sole prop here with a data point for you:

I feel you - these unplanned hours can be painful and have resulted in several long nights for me (especially when they coincide with other client's deadlines and it's difficult to postpone them for whatever reason). In the past, I've used a combination of Celt's method (acknowledge the issue and set reasonable timelines/expectations based on the issue/pre-existing commitments) and also specifically addressed this in my engagement letter under "Standard Exclusions to Scope of Services" with the bullet below. Additionally, since ~95% of my work is lump sum, my hourly rate schedule is punitive and intended to bring the project to a close, rather than capture additional revenue. Most of my clients are Architects or Developers though, not Contractors, and that's why I'm able to get away with this; If I was working for GC's, I'd expect to be more flexible.

One additional thing - Internally, I also block a portion of my weekly schedule for "pop-up" tasks. Generally, that includes proposals, CA items (like these), returning phone calls and any other random things that unexpectedly tend to occur during the course of operating the business. I average around ~7 hours a week for these, but YMMV. We never really get the whole week to do engineering unfortunately, as I'm sure you know.

[ul]
[li]Redesign of structural elements or changes to the structural drawings resulting from Architectural, Contractor or Owner directed changes following Construction Document completion and issuance. [/li]
[/ul]

Hope this helps brother...

 

[dik]

From decades back... my experience is that it often does...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[JLNJ]

I don't know for sure, but I doubt you can be hit for delay damages unless it was in your contract originally.

Heck, if you were in Aruba for two weeks or in a remote village somewhere without cell service, they would be SOL. How is that your problem?

I say to be courteous. Tell them if you think it is out-of-scope work and give them a reasonable time when you can respond. You get to set that timeframe based on your feelings about this client or contractor.

 

[milkshakelake]

From decades back... my experience is that it often does...

Agreed with this. Others' bad planning is your emergency.

I think every project is a chance to prove yourself and increase your firm's reputation. If it's a one-off client that you don't like very much, the response time could be longer. But if it's a good repeating client, you really want to prove yourself to them and pick up the slack for their shitty planning.

I know there are industry standards for response times, and I generally agree with them. But I think it's worth thinking outside the box, outside established norms, for maximum competitive advantage. After talking to many clients and architects, I've identified quick response time as a key business advantage.

 

[phamENG]

MSL - I agree. And I endeavor to make that my advantage. I met one prospective client and his only qualifying question: do you answer your phone? Just doing that - or calling back promptly - sets you apart from the field by a large margin. This question is more for those times where something has to give, and no amount of thinking outside the box will put more hours in the day.

I do try to keep "schedule compression" time on my schedule. My goal is usually a day every two weeks. Sometimes it's enough, but usually it isn't. Though lately it feels like I don't have a schedule anymore, just an ever growing to do list that I can't quite conquer. (This despite not accepting a new job in 2 or 3 months...)

I appreciate everyone's responses. Good to hear that others have found solutions to this, even if not quite perfect. Always nice to know there's hope.

 

[milkshakelake]

Though lately it feels like I don't have a schedule anymore, just an ever growing to do list that I can't quite conquer.

That might need a separate thread. I ran into the same existential crisis of sorts and made a thread, but my situation is very different from yours. Got some great responses from different industries.

 

[kipfoot]

I just want to say that my hat's off to you and others who can make and keep a schedule. I feel like every week I'm transferring much of my to do list to the next page in my planner.

To you original question, my approach is like Enable's in that it depends on who it is. I have some good clients for whom I'll drop everything unless I have an actual deadline imminent. People who call with an ASAP request after going dark for months are not good clients.

 

[bookowski]

Though lately it feels like I don't have a schedule anymore, just an ever growing to do list that I can't quite conquer.

My $0.02. You will always feel like this. If you get more standards and systems in place you will not relax 20% more, you will take on 20% more work. Then you'll hire someone and need 50% more work to feed them and hopefully make some profit. That person will never be as good or work as hard as you so you'll cover 20% of what they should be doing. On and on. That's the nature of it. There are some sole proprietors out there that manage to take it easy and do quite well, but that's a personality thing and you'd already know if you were that person.

 

[phamENG]

bookowski - I hear what you're saying and understand it, but I refuse to believe it is 100% inevitable. While there will always be issues and fires to put out, I know that it can be managed with the right balance of managing expectations, managing time, and putting the right people in the right seats to help things go smoothly. It's about both seeking out the right people for your team and understanding that you'll never get a perfectly round peg for your perfectly round hole - the workload needs to be tailored to the team as much as the team to the workload. (My background before getting into structural engineering was maintenance and operations management for a power plant, so I know something about managing a team...unfortunately for me I'm the only one on my team right now...)

I'm not looking to take it easy...yet. No matter what this will always be a higher-than-average stress job, and owning the business doesn't reduce that. I just want to strike the balance between being alone and always subject to intense and nearly uncontrollable schedule disruptions from, say, a family member going into the hospital or just taking a vacation so my kid can meet Mickey Mouse and having an unwieldy team that is just as difficult to manage. I'm willing to take less profit to ensure we don't get pummeled by the occasional schedule snafu - but it's a process to get there.

I appreciate everyone's input on this question. Understanding how others approach this helps me to shape what acceptable expectations are so I can set them with my clients. Baby steps...