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.

 

[CANPRO]

KootK, its been a while since I did this kind of work, but when I did I tried to steer it towards hourly work as much as possible. I did this for one main reason - the level of effort on your part is entirely dependent on the quality of the architectural drawings. You might not even fully understand your scope of work until you're neck deep in architectural drawings. They like to hide details. You might see a piece of steel stud that looks important in the details page and spend the next half hour trying to back track through the drawings just to find out where it is in the building(because architects down back reference their damn sections!!! huge pet peeve of mine). The EOR can make a big difference as well - I've spent a lot of time in the past trying to get large openings to work that should have been done with some structural steel...some EOR's will get ahead of that issue and show some structural steel around openings that would be difficult to frame with steel stud.

Sorry I don't have much to offer in the way of $/SF estimate...for me it really comes down to the general complexity of the job and the quality of the contract drawings. If its just straight walls and typical openings and the drawings are decent, you're more or less copying some typical details. On the other hand, the same size job can drag on forever if the drawings suck and you're expected to design a 20' opening in a 4" wall.

 

[KootK]

Thanks CANPRO. When you steered these things towards hourly, were you able to avoid specifying a "NOT TO EXCEED" number? The majority of the hourly work I try to do ends up being that contract model and, frankly, it's my least favorite option. I'd rather take some risk on a lump sum and have some potential for upside.

 

[Akeee]

Why do you prefer hourly paid job instead of project paid ?

 

[Akeee]

It's almost imposible to get the corect amount from the begining. It's hard to estimate for myself how much time it should take me to do a well know thing,like for example a formwork for one story slab.. But to estimate for someone else the hole project, this seems imposible to get a probable final number. And I think it s bad too, you invite lazyness in the project, why should i work harder to get it faster when actually i am loosing money?

 

[Akeee]

I think you should go for fixed amount and you should make same scenarios. worst case and best case. And you should check the architectural drawing in detail before do the offer. it can be a quick thing or a long paintfull project.

 

[Celt83]

Koot:

I can say the number will vary based on your scope if you just doing delegated design of the exterior walls and the random associated details with the exterior framing then a $/sheet and estimate of hours will serve you better. If your doing delegated design of load bearing walls and shear walls I'd say the $/SF number would be on par with what a wood building would run you as the engineer of record, again though it all scope dependent. If I'm having to do all the load tracking and general lateral analysis along with the wall design and layout coordination then I'm sticking to that $/SF number if the ARCH/EOR drawings are pretty good and the load analysis is given material then go in a bit lower.

Open Source Structural Applications:

https://github.com/buddyd16/Structural-Engineering

 

[CANPRO]

KootK, I never had to put a “not to exceed amount” on the hourly cost. One big caveat though, at the time I was doing this type of work, my employer had a good relationship with the stud contractors...they just sent us a new set of drawings and we’d get started on the work, wasn’t much in the way of fee proposals/negotiations. We always treated them fairly, and as a result, we always made money and they never complained about the fees.

Aketr, I understand your argument against hourly rates in this case. But I think if the scope/complexity of the job isn’t entirely understood before starting, I think hourly can work well and be fair to everyone....provided everyone treats the process fairly and you have a trusting relationship with your client.

 

[XR250]

Everything CANPRO said! I always did them by the hour without a NTE.

 

[DaveAtkins]

KootK,

I do this kind of work all the time. I have found it is more efficient for me to hand draw wall sections and details, rather than include a CAD drafter's expense in my fee.

I go through the architectural and structural drawings with a fine tooth comb, and identify the number of details for which I will need to draw the detail and perform the calculations. I estimate the effort at 1.5 hours per detail.

DaveAtkins

 

[KootK]

I'm not interested in methods reflecting anticipated effort at this time (HRS, $/sheet etc)

Focus gentlemen. For this project, it will be a SF unit rate or a percentage of supply contract fee. Thanks for the help thus far.

I have found it is more efficient for me to hand draw wall sections and details, rather than include a CAD drafter's expense in my fee.

When you have used a drafter, what kind of ENG/DRFT split have you seen on the hours/fee expended?

 

[WARose]

When I did light gauge stud office buildings, the budget on the whole thing (wood floor framing, plywood shear walls, etc) we'd get forced into 200-300 hr budgets for your average (maybe 2 story, 100' x 100' plan view) office bldg. (That's drafting, engineering, admin, etc.)

It's hard to break the light gauge part out of that.....but hopefully that gives you a ballpark idea. It really comes back to (like most jobs): how many drawings are we talking (and the engineering per sheet)?

The light gauge "design" part I seem to recall taking maybe 40 hrs. (If that.) Most of that stuff you just pick out of manufacturer's tables.

 

[bhiggins]

On the majority of my projects with CFS I just design it myself and don't delegate it out. I include this table on the plans and fill out the sizes that work and include a typical details sheet. If there are any elements that don't work within this table, I'll design it separately and label it on the framing plan.

If you can get the project to work with a table like this and sheet of typical details I would charge maybe $5000 for one story plus $2500-$3500 per additional story. If you have to design lots of individual elements then the cost would go up substantially. If you need to do lateral design then I would double the fee.

 

[Akeee]

But I think if the scope/complexity of the job isn’t entirely understood before starting, I think hourly can work well and be fair to everyone..

You should never ever get in a project without doing a good check on what you should do. It s the biggest mistake you can do, i did it once and was ugly. Ask for architectural drawings and go trough them, the devil lies in details.
And then estimate, if you want, your hourly needit to get the job done and add same safety coefficients.

 

[gte447f]

KootK, your project is not just exterior curtain wall, right? So is it load bearing walls, floor and roof framing, and lateral system (i.e. the whole structure is CFS)? Is it multifamily residential or single family? If it is basically the whole structure, minus the foundations, then I would just estimate it like any other structure material (wood for example) on a $/SF or % of construction cost basis. In fact, I would be inclined not to give any discount for excluding the foundation design. Maybe I am missing something and not understanding the scope of your project correctly.

 

[DaveAtkins]

When you have used a drafter, what kind of ENG/DRFT split have you seen on the hours/fee expended?

It has been a long time, but I think about 2/3 engineering, 1/3 drafting.

If a project is simple (single story, exterior non-load bearing walls only, no complicated fascias or knee walls, etc.) then my fee will be around $4K. If I get into multi-story buildings, load bearing floors and walls, etc., then the fee could be $10K or more.

DaveAtkins

 

[TLHS]

Now that this is basically answered, I can jump in and ask if anyone has a good cold formed steel book to recommend for someone who has little to no experience in it? I'd like to have it in my toolbox.

I've been thinking about this book for a while, because I wouldn't mind a low-rise building reference in general, but don't know if there's something better:

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0071767924...&ascsubtag=645fb0d51e8b7b70040b50a037b513f2_S

 

[WARose]

Now that this is basically answered, I can jump in and ask if anyone has a good cold formed steel book to recommend for someone who has little to no experience in it? I'd like to have it in my toolbox.

I have 'Cold-Formed Steel Design' (by Yu, et al). I think it's pretty good.

 

[KootK]

ask if anyone has a good cold formed steel book to recommend for someone who has little to no experience in it?

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.

I've been thinking about this book for a while

I've got at it and am sad to report that I do not love it. Since you're a friend and the authors are not, I'll not mince words. The book feels like under illustrated, disjointed rambling to me. Which makes some sense as it's written by a collection of authors, none of whom strike me as particularly well suited for authoring a book of this sort. I can't claim to have read the whole thing because, every time that I pick it up, I wind up putting it back down fairly quickly. 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.

 

[KootK]

Thank you all for your assistance. It has been a great help.

KootK, your project is not just exterior curtain wall, right?

Correct, it's bearing and shear walls too. And in a high seismic zone no less. As a result, I was targeting a $/SF or %Construction fee as you recommended. Unfortunately, I'm not well versed in tackling the delegated engineering of substantial cold formed projects of this sort. That's why I couldn't make good use of effort based pricing. I simply do not have a good sense for the scale of the effort. But one has to grow in order to survive, particularly as an entrepreneur.

If you can get the project to work with a table like

I'm grateful to you for sharing your table bhiggins. It's a whole other level of camaraderie when one is willing to both post a graphic and share intellectual property. I know effort when I see it.

For those that may be interested, the outcome here has panned out as follows:

- five story hotel with gravity and lateral as CFM
- totals square footage about 120,000 SF.
- $45K = my proposed fee for design and drafting of the whole shebang.
- $25K = client expectation for whole shebang.
- $15K = my fee going forward for just the engineering of the lateral. The rest of the work will handled by a friend who's better at this stuff than I.

Given a mid-January deadline, I couldn't be happier with the result. It likely won't screw my Christmas break and I'm still getting a healthy fee to work the neatest parts of the project. This would be spouse approved were I inclined to seek that kind of approval.