I must ask why EOR's do this crzy stuff/ 34

[Ken62465]

I don't mean to rant here but I must ask the structural engineers out there a few simple questions that are getting on my nerves. First I've been a structural steel detailer for 33years and I've never seen the industry so sad as I do today. May I ask how it is you feel comfortable releasing your design contract drawing without a single dimension, all while the architect has a full blown grid layout? Is this pure laziness or am I missing the reason behind doing this? Today I had enough of seeing this so I stated to the fabricator, who was requesting a price, "Can you imagine I release my shop drawings for fabrication without a single dimension"? Here's another one....I have a small job that's been on going for TWO YEARS and it's now on it's 6th redesign. I finally had enough and being nice I asked the EOR why 2years later we are moving steel to attach to existing col's. His response was, "Because existing conditions did not allow us to sit on the wall as originally planned". My response was, "Aren't you the one that provided the original building design drawings but 2years later you're now realizing this is a problem"? All I heard was.."well...well". I'm sorry but I'd like to do nothing more than form a committee where we can report this. It's my opinion that more than half the engineers today should not have a valid professional license to practice. Not that I want harm for anyone ever but the industry has turned into a disgrace, but my bet says all PE's will have some validation why it is this way...no? Lets see the excuses come.

Funniest one ever that I will never, EVER forget in my lifetime. I was requesting a curb cut for an RTU unit for layout dimensions. The cut sheets I received was about 6 pages long but the cover letter stated, "GAS FIRED CHILLER FRAME". What's wrong with that statement for a roof top unit? I call the fabricator, he believes they sent the wrong package set by mistake. Nope...not so. The EOR designed the roof support for the floor mounted gas unit. Next thing I know is the entire roof is all wrong with a complete redesign, ohh I made them pay dearly for this blunder. The real roof unit had pipe work underneath that required a dunnage system as well, talk about a blunder. I doubled the price out of frustration due to incompetence. Who designs a roof for a gas unit? Turned into quite a joke with the fabricator for months and you all don't realize we bring this up often amongst other trades and your name is not spoke highly of, get there early next job site meeting. I'm sorry but if you can't put a single dimension on your drawings, while the architect can, or you design a roof for a floor mounted gas unit you have no business being a PE!! I don't know what I can do to stop this but I plan to advocate highly that it needs to be corrected. My first phone call is to the attorney general to file a complaint that they need to fix this!

 

[DrZoidberWoop]

I hear something roughly like this every few days from the more experienced/senior members of the steel fabrication company where I work. One of the funny/tragic comments that's often repeated is something along the lines of "nowadays, engineers and detailers are becoming glorified 3D modelers, completely devoid of construction or field experience." The other comment I hear is "engineers of record no longer feel ashamed of bad designs. It's just a part of doing business now." There are just too many stories. I think it's all relative to a desire to cut costs a much as possible, but the blunders ultimately end up costing far more than the original bids after multiple redesigns. Communication is also a major problem. Half the time, the EOR's oral and written abilities are quite poor (either from being in a second language setting or communication is not their strong suit). They learned to pass the PE exam, not how to be an effective engineer. That's the game universities and publishing organizations play to make money.

 

[jayrod12]

Now I'm not here to defend sub standard work, however you're blaming engineers solely.

The biggest contributing factor to the quality of drawings going out isn't that we don't care, it's that the prime consultants sell the owners on a ridiculous timetable, and then proceed to allow major layout changes by the client right up until the last minute.

So the entire design process gets messed up and everything is rushed. The drawings that get released for bid are barely enough information, but it's just enough to get a permit and pricing.

Your complaints about us, are the quite similar to our gripes with architects and clients.

And I'm not trying to start a pissing match, but you are obviously an experienced detailer. Have you seen some of the ludicrous RFIs the young detailers are sending through?

There was a time when a large building could be done in just a couple of drawings sheets. Now every sub contractor expects a detail for every tiny little thing.

 

[Tomfh]

Regarding dimensions, we don’t generally provide dimensions. The architect is lead consultant, and we work to their dimensions, and only provide critical dimensions where necessary.

I haven’t been around 33 years, but the old structural drawings I look at seem to follow the same philosophy.

It’s a chain of command thing. We follow the architect.

Occasionally an architect isn’t warranted and we act as lead consultant, in which case we do dimension the job.

 

[Settingsun]

I'm not usually a building engineer but, when I've done the occasional building, only the architect's drawings have been allowed to show grid setout. The structural drawings are for details, not dimensions It's not especially convenient when checking them but it helps cut down discrepancies. Similar vein, steelwork fabrication drawings aren't especially convenient for reviewing IMO but they serve their purpose.

I've heard of developers using their market power to bully engineers into onerous contracts such as any change of <10% floor area doesn't warrant additional fee. So redrawing the whole job for free. Unfortunately engineers know someone else will do it if they don't - we should be smarter.

I too have seen some clangers on shop drawings...

 

[EZBuilding]

Roof Top Units change so often on a job through it's iteration that if you're not careful you end up designing and detailing 20 different configurations. From a structural point of view, these items are big dumb boxes that need to be tied down for wind loads and have sufficient supports to resist it's imposed loads. If I am able to get an architect or MEP consultant to put down an email the width, height, length and weight of the equipment before we are in permitting it's a miracle in itself. Even with that it's likely to change in all of those properties once a GC get's involved and recommends changes.

In liue of calling the attorney general, however, there is a much simpler method for fixing the industry. Due to the overwhelming lack of qualified EOR's in your market I expect that you could venture out on your own and completely corner the market. I expect that in a few years time Ken62465 & Associates will be the premier Structural Engineering Consulting company in the world!

I have the same complaints of sub-par engineering services being provided, and accordingly also have similar complaints for sub-par general contracting, architectural and owner representative services. What I don't have, however, is the expectation that I understand the intricacies involved with each of the other disciplines involved in our industry. I am sure if we started a thread where the Engineer of Records discussed the crazy stuff we have seen fabricators and contractors do we would have a lot of replies.

 

[Ken62465]

@jayrod12 I do see that side to this but even detailers get confronted with this timetable from the fabricator we work for so it goes both ways. I personally refuse to succumb to the mind set that pushing out terrible workmanship is acceptable, and then use the excuse the schedule dictated that to happen. I've pulled many late nights to maintain schedule while also keeping the quality of my workmanship one step ahead of the next guy. If it seems like I'm solely blaming the EOR it's on account of working off their drawings daily. I can honestly see that pattern you describe when I often get contract drawings marked "Bid Set", I'm already saying, "Here we go again". It's a shame really that it's allowed. I also send out my fair share of RFI's but all warranted due to missing info. I don't care about finish work that's not involving me but if a brickshelf system has a section cut and nobody provides an in/out dimension and elevation you're getting an RFI and in my opinion should know better that it's coming for not providing the info in the first place. Why skimp on workmanship, someone is only going to get hounded to provide it eventually and it will only cause delays if it's not provided.

Another very bad practice going on, although frankly architects are the biggest violators of this one. If I do not send out an RFI, because of time constraints, I ask "PLEASE PROVIDE" on my submittal drawings. Why are these question just ignored nearly every single project? That's not an overstatement either as I bet I could get every fabricator I've worked for to chime and chuckle how true that. I now tell each and every fabricator to include in their cover letter a statement that if the requested information is not provided delays will incur until it is provided. Seriously folks how can either member of the design team see a requested dimension for a missing beam location and completely ignore it? Nearly every job I have to call and say, "What are these people doing"?


@Tomfh if you don't put plan dimensions on your drawings you may want to read the AISC, "Code of Standard Practice". Let me ask you this...beams framing out a stairwell...do you just ignore locating plan dimensions on those? Who's suppose to provide those? Again the AISC is pretty clear on their position about this. The jobs I can recall that were GREAT projects all began with the quality of contract drawings. I've often said of the bad projects..shit in = shit out. Those bad jobs I hate attending job site meetings because generally there's not a happy sub on the job and for legit reasons. The buck and blame will be passed but I refuse to allow my workmanship to fall prey to that mentality.

 

[Rabbit12]

I could write a post about three times as long about garbage I've seen from detailers, but then I'll just sound like an angry old man.

 

[MrHershey]

Quite the rant.

May I ask how it is you feel comfortable releasing your design contract drawing without a single dimension, all while the architect has a full blown grid layout? Is this pure laziness or am I missing the reason behind doing this?

While we'll generally show dimensions, the reason is in the question. Contractors and subcontractors should be using the ENTIRE set of plans. Not just structural. If the dimensions are in the architectural drawings, it'd redundant to show them in structural. On jobs we don't show grid dimensions on, we make sure to note that the architectural drawings are considered to be a part of the structural design drawings.

A couple reasons we do this. First, as a structural engineer I typically don't really care if grids vary by a few inches in either direction but architect definitely does. So on some projects we try to let them drive so they can tweak an inch here or there as they need. Second, architects now like to tweak things including locations of major elements right up until the last minute. Not by enough to impact their design from a structural standpoint, but definitely enough to impact fabrication. When they do that we end up with conflicting information on the drawings. So we have to make a call for each job on what causes more confusion: dimensions changing constantly and things not being coordinated, or only showing dimensions on architectural and making the structural subs review those drawings (which they really should be doing anyways).

Here's another one....I have a small job that's been on going for TWO YEARS and it's now on it's 6th redesign.

I'm not aware of any structural engineers who actually enjoy redesigning things six times. I certainly don't enjoy it. It's very rarely our choice to do this and often we're just as frustrated about it as you are (also we often don't get paid for it). Usually it's the architect still tweaking their design or sometimes the owner/developer not looking at anything until the last second and making changes.

I finally had enough and being nice I asked the EOR why 2years later we are moving steel to attach to existing col's. His response was, "Because existing conditions did not allow us to sit on the wall as originally planned". My response was, "Aren't you the one that provided the original building design drawings but 2years later you're now realizing this is a problem"? All I heard was.."well...well".

Existing conditions change all the time. Building owners make changes and use different designers and different contractors with varying degrees of documentation. We can survey the buildings before hand to try to prevent this but we have to get owners to pay for that first (spoiler alert: they won't). With this one only being two years old there shouldn't be too much of that, but it's entirely possible the contractor who built it didn't completely follow the plans. I see that all the time too. I review existing drawings before all my renovations and I always find something that isn't what the drawings say it should be. Always.

It's my opinion that more than half the engineers today should not have a valid professional license to practice.

I can get behind this. Means more work for me.

Funniest one ever that I will never, EVER forget in my lifetime. I was requesting a curb cut for an RTU unit for layout dimensions. The cut sheets I received was about 6 pages long but the cover letter stated, "GAS FIRED CHILLER FRAME". What's wrong with that statement for a roof top unit?

I'm a structural engineer, I have no idea. I'd have to ask the mechanical engineer. If the point being made is that most mechanical engineers doing work on buildings are terrible then I agree.

The EOR designed the roof support for the floor mounted gas unit. Next thing I know is the entire roof is all wrong with a complete redesign, ohh I made them pay dearly for this blunder. The real roof unit had pipe work underneath that required a dunnage system as well, talk about a blunder.

The structural engineer likely designed the roof for whatever the mechanical engineer was showing.

My first phone call is to the attorney general to file a complaint that they need to fix this!

I'm not sure why you'd do this. You said yourself that you doubled your price for the trouble, so sounds like it worked out well for you. Charge more and tell the owner they need to get their designers in line.

 

[Ron247]

When you say you want dimensions, are you talking about accurate dimensions that you can detail off of or approximate dimensions? I put dimensions on most of my drawings but constantly have a CYA note about seeing the Architect drawings or field measuring for fabricating purposes. When the project is all mine, there are dimensions however some of them are required to be field measured when it is an existing building. Let me list a few reasons why I have to CYA my dimensions and why you may make the same comments about me but I would not intend to change how I do it unless some things also change. Unfortunately, the reason you are affected more is because you are on the end of the drawing line before the next step of physically cutting and fabricating a piece of steel. If there was a drawing step after you, you would most likely slide the headache on down the assembly line like we do. Also, I used to field measure, design, draw both engineering drawings and part drawings. I know exactly what you are up against. But for me, I charged for my time, I did not do it for free.

New Construction or Old Construction.
1. Architect drawings are dimensioned WRONG. An 8" block will is drawn as 8", not 7.625" but there are 4 of these walls that they are not dimensioning to the center of, or all to the left face but are dimensioning to the wall, the incorrect width of the wall etc. So now my 4" tube column in not aligned correctly in the wall. All wood framed walls are 6" wide, another common incorrect dimension. I realize there are ways to work around this such as dimensioning to outside faces or centerlines but they do not draw in that fashion. I can still do my structural design with the incorrect dimensions but you cannot fabricate based on them.
2. Due to CAD, people make more changes and do not cloud the changes. In the paper days, versions were released, marked up and corrected and documented. Now I get CAD files emailed to me daily with no reference of what actually changed from the previous version. You have to look for the changes. You cannot measure everything with CAD because sometimes they just change the dimension text. 9' becomes 9'-3" with no actual drawing change other than the text. Also, they make some change that does not affect me and 3 others at all and then resend the entire set of drawings to all of us. Easier to just email everyone all drawings rather then sending 2 drawings to 1 person.
3. They dimension to things that are not designed yet such as to the outside face of a round column while also having a center line grid mark for that column. Later we size the column and it is a 10" pipe not a 6", which measurement has to change?

Existing Construction
1. The person who field measured did a sub-standard job. Good enough for architecture or engineering is not good enough for fabricating. When I had to measure my own stuff, I did a bang-up job of field measuring. My drawings had dimensions. When someone else field measured, I CYA myself with Kevlar.
2. Everyone assumes the existing building is square, plumb, level and perfect. I know otherwise from a lot of past experience of actually checking them

I have other reasons, but these are enough to illustrate my point. Also I would easily design a roof for a gas unit, I only size the structural members, not select the units. You need to go to a mechanical forum for that complaint. It is not all structural engineers fault. Your complaints went from dimensions to things unrelated to structural engineering. I will probably read a rant next week about how the Attorney General won't create a task force to combat structural engineering sloppiness.

 

[Huevo]

@Ken62465 Just some friendly advice here. I believe a vast majority of the folks on this forum care quite a lot about the quality of the product we produce. Know your audience.

 

[WinelandV]

ou cannot measure everything with CAD because sometimes they just change the dimension text. 9' becomes 9'-3" with no actual drawing change other than the text.

As a corollary to this, many architects have their rounding on dim lines turned on to the nearest 1/4", resulting in overall building dimensions being bigger or smaller than the sum of the distances between column lines. Just a teensy bit frustrating.

 

[jayrod12]

Just a teensy bit frustrating.

To put it mildly....

 

[Ron247]

I'm sorry but if you can't put a single dimension on your drawings, while the architect can, or you design a roof for a floor mounted gas unit you have no business being a PE!!

Please post 3 or 4 drawings that do not have "a single dimension" by either written note or actual dimensioning. I do not think I have ever seen one that did not have even 1 dimension.

Also, floor and roof mounted can mean the same thing. It is supported from below versus supported from the side (wall mounted). Also to support from above could be called ceiling mounted or roof mounted. Its that terminology thing we get involved in many times in this forum.

 

[FoxSE14]

Ken62465, you've struck a nerve among EORs that do 'give a S#@%'...."walk a mile in someone else's shoes"...

I recommend you take a different approach going forward. The next time you come across an EOR that you have seen before, pick up the phone, reminisce about projects and otherwise talk shop for a few minutes, get to know them, ask if they have kids/family/vacation plans, and then ask, politely, why he/she has done something the way they have. Chances are, you will either A) gain insight into why they've done it that way, or B) you will have given them a polite nudge to straighten up without saying those words and offending directly.

My two cents: Omitting dimensions is almost never laziness. Rather, it stems from the litigious society we live in. Many of us are taught by our employers' professional liability insurance carriers to 'never ever ever ever' dimension something in two locations within the same drawing set. "Set" as in "all involved disciplines". If someone you are working for (i.e. architect) has already dimensioned the column bay, or a mechanical plan shows a gigantic pipe, as the EOR you'd better show it generically, but not show that exact distance on the structural drawings because doing so takes ownership, and liability, of the building layout and another disciplines' work.

 

[sandman21]

When these threads pop up I go with the old saying "When you point one finger, there are three fingers pointing back to you." I hate to break it to you but your drawings 30 years ago were not better you simply are not remembering the mistakes,confirmation bias.

 

[mbullism]

I think Jayrod12 hit it on the head...ridiculous timetables. Never have so many been asked to do so much with so little, and so fast. I'm constantly getting partial updates of A drawings without MEP, no cuts for ANY equipment. If I do get MEP it's usually a lot of boilerplate and the rest work in progress. If existing building drawings exist the architect will send only the sheets that THEY think I need...changes right up to the end, late submittals with requested turn arounds in hours, not days...it goes on and on. And in the end I can't half blame the architect for the schedules because the owner will find someone else that will make the promise.

Time is in fact money. (a.k.a. You can have it fast, right or cheap...pick two).



Analog spoken here...

 

[DrZoidberWoop]

I agree with Ken on this one.

 

[EngineerMary]

MrHershey; Thanks for the information on why you don't always dimension grid lines. I've always wondered that and your explanation makes a lot of sense.

I detail concrete formwork and do a lot of layout drawings for our clients. I have to say that there are many of times when I PREFER fewer dimensions. I'm thinking specifically of steel pan decks. If I have the edge of slab dimensions, opening dimensions, max slab span, and a beam schedule, I'm happy to figure out the pan layout; particularly around walls and deep beams/girders where a lug may be required.

Some contract documents are better than others. When we get a really good set of contract documents, I'll usually put a note to the design team right on my shop drawings indicating that the plans were fantastic and a pleasure to work with.

Occasionally, we get poor drawings. I just RFI what I don't know and go on with my life.

Someone suggested calling the EOR directly. I have had mixed results with that. About half of them are happy to talk to me and the other half freak out and tell me to go through the contractor.

My only huge complaint about dimensioning on contract documents is when dimensions are to face of CMU. A lot of times it isn't clear if the CMU is shown as 7 5/8" or the old school 8". Other times it's very clear and then it doesn't matter if the dimensions go to face of CMU.

I get frustrated sometimes - just like everyone else in the world. But I always try to keep in mind that most people don't knowingly put their names on crummy work and it could just be a lack of education on one end or the other. I don't know everything about creating contract documents and I don't expect a design team to know everything about means and methods. We are all on the same side with the same goal - at the end of the day, everyone involved in a project wants a SAFE, successful, profitable project; we need to work together to that end and quit being antagonistic to each other.

 

[canwesteng]

I work in industrial, not AE, but my drawings are miles better than the old drawings I have to read when we work brownfield. Can't imagine CAD has made drawings worse.