Fees For Delegated Design of Cold Formed Steel Systems

[KootK]

I've been asked to be involved in a substantial project as the delegated engineer for some cold formed work. I've not had much experience with delivering that kind of product so I'm struggling to estimate a fee. Can anyone offer any advice on a $/SF or %Supply Contract basis? I'm not interested in methods reflecting anticipated effort at this time (HRS, $/sheet etc). Residential work in the Pacific NW US.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

If you just want to know how it's done and acquire that information efficiently, you'll want the CSSBI manual and CFSE tech notes. My favourite for a concise, deep dive of the relevant theory is the Murray book below. It's concise at around 300p and gets to the heart of most of what you'd need to know as a designer.

Thanks for this; like TLHS, cold-formed steel is an area I've not touched other than during the SE exam. Definitely on my "to-learn" list of items I want to read up more about as I'm sure I'll run across them in practice sooner or later.

I own 10X more engineering books than I'll ever get around to reading. I've no time to waste on stuff that doesn't get around to sharing some serious wisdom within a few pages.

I was wondering how you keep up with reading all the books I estimate you have in your library. Based on my own growing reading pile I believe I am on my way to joining you.

$15K = my fee going forward for just the engineering of the lateral

Nice, assuming this is something like a $1.5 million job you're 1% for the fun engi-nerding.

Edit: did some rough googling on hotel costs and looks like my guess might be low on total cost. Either way, still seems like an okay fee for limited scope structural engineering.

Ian Riley, PE, SE
Professional Engineer (ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, FL) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries

https://www.facebook.com/AmericanConcrete/

 

[gte447f]

KootK, glad the scope/fee negotiation worked out for you. Congrats!

Since it sounds like all of the vertical elements of the structural system, including bearing walls and shear walls, were delegated design, I'm curious what scope would be left for the EOR. Foundation design and floor/roof/diaphragm design. What material are the floor and roof framing? I assume something other than CFS. I am curious how the EOR's fee might compare to your originally proposed fee of $45K for design and drafting of what you were calling "the whole shebang". You were at $0.375/SF, which would probably be no more than 0.25% of construction cost, based on $150/SF construction cost, which is barely reasonable for me in the southeast, but probably too cheap for you in the northwest. You would expect for the EOR to be at around 0.5% of construction cost, at least, but would prefer to be 0.75-1.0%. I guess what I am getting at is, this seems like a sweet deal for the EOR for a drastically lesser than normal scope, unless he is discounting his fee substantially for delegating out such a large portion of the scope. If he is not, then it seems like a non-cost-effective way for an owner/developer to procure design services.

I realize none of the above is your problem; you have a nice job to entertain you through the holidays and provide some spending cash!... I am just curious as a fellow engineer/entrepeneur, always trying to expand my knowledge of not just the engineering but the business.

 

[KootK]

Definitely on my "to-learn" list of items I want to read up more about as I'm sure I'll run across them in practice sooner or later.

In that case, I should tell you that the CSSBI manual as an ANSI twin. Same doc done up for the US market. Or vice versa, I'm not sure. That would likely be a good resource for you.

Since it sounds like all of the vertical elements of the structural system, including bearing walls and shear walls, were delegated design, I'm curious what scope would be left for the EOR

Funny you should ask. I was one step removed from the end client on this one and had a great deal of difficulty understanding the scope. To an extent, that's why my pricing was out to lunch. If you look at the drawings, it appears that there is NO significant delegated design. All of the members and most of the connections are called out. Some strange choices had been made, however, and it was my understanding that the CFM supplier intended to change both the shear wall construction and the floor construction (CFM joists to something like Eco-span). Given that, and the quick turn around needed on the proposal, I assumed that all of the CFM elements would need to be re-engineered as part of my scope.

What material are the floor and roof framing?

Originally detailed as CFM joist floors and CFM roof trusses. Floor is likely to switch to a deck on bar joist morphology.

I am curious how the EOR's fee might compare to your originally proposed fee of $45K for design and drafting of what you were calling "the whole shebang".

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the EOR's fee was less than that. It's one of the reasons that I've enjoyed getting into the delegated precast engineering work that I do. There are many projects where my fee seems to be on par with the EOR despite my having far less work to do and drastically simpler project management. As an industry, we've been warning one another about this for decades and it seems to be coming to pass: we're gradually by-others-ing our way out of having much demonstrable value as EOR's.

I am just curious as a fellow engineer/entrepeneur, always trying to expand my knowledge of not just the engineering but the business.

I welcome this aspect of the discussion. Much of the value that I get on this forum tends to come from this kind of thing. I'm reasonably strong technically but am a first rate Budg-o-Tard I'm afraid. I consider that part of the bargain here. I offer what I can on other fronts and lean on others to help me where I lack. If I had my druthers, there would be a section of the forum titled "Figuring out Fees for Structural Work". And yes, it would be exactly that specific, not rolled into "Business Issues" etc. I'd probably be willing to pay for entry.

 

[KootK]

In the interest of full disclosure, and possibly highlighting my terrible business acumen, I'll be the design engineer for the lateral but the stamping engineer for the whole shebang. Liability?!? Is that when stuff's bendy?

 

[TLHS]

Thanks for the heads up.

I have other CSSBI items, because they make one of the few user manuals for the NBCC and until the recent code reorganization was basically the only formally published unified description of the wind loading provisions of the code, and their resources were pretty inexpensive (were generally nominal fee plus S+H).

They've put most of their stuff up online for free now, too, which is even better. The NBCC 2015 guide is up there for instance, as are all of their typical example details and model specs. The steel framing manual isn't online, but I suspect it's just because the revision is a dozen years old and they don't have the files reasonably available. The hard copy is still free with just shipping and handling.

And yeah, light gauge steel is the one place in common construction materials where Canada and the US are actually fully aligned instead of being in a weird spot where we sort of do similar things but not quite.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

I'd probably be willing to pay for entry.

Seconded. All in favor?

Ian Riley, PE, SE
Professional Engineer (ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, FL) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries

https://www.facebook.com/AmericanConcrete/

 

[Lomarandil]

Seconded. All in favor?

I'm in. I always read these types of posts, even if I rarely have something to contribute.



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The name is a long story -- just call me Lo.