I'm Giving Away Structural Engineering for Free - Visit Your Wrath Upon Me 23

[KootK]

THE SHORT

I am giving away free, preliminary, residential structural engineering services to my neighbors and am interested in collecting negative opinions about that. Such opinions may not alter my course on this but are valuable to me none the less. I feel that I've thought this through fairly exhaustively but, then, it's things that you think you know front to back that tend to get you into trouble. Specifically:

1) Liability issues.

2) Ethical issues.

3) Doing my part to further foul up an already fouled up marketplace for our ilk.

THE LONG

I) The Motivation

I've always wanted some kid of volunteer "thing". My rational self believes that altruism is really thinly veiled selfishness but, still, I've never been able to shake the impulse. Unfortunately, I've long struggled to find a volunteer thing that I deem satisfactory. Once one's income reaches a certain level, it just make more sense to give money than time. Bill Gates needs to be running the Bill & Not Melinda Foundation, not collecting pop cans or manning the phones at the donation hotline. My situation is a much, much more modest version of that. At the same time, giving money isn't something that satisfies my itch in this arena. I want to do something.

I moved into a new neibgorhood last June that has a real chance of ending up being my forever neighborhood. Yay me. Since closing on the sale, my plan has been to seize this opportunity to offer my neighbors my high value expertise on a pro-bono basis. Things like looking at basement wall cracks, leaning retaining walls, deck guard rails, basement post removals... you know the drill. I was thinking Facebook but, recently, my neighborhood got set up on a social media platform developed just for Neighborhoods. And it's catching on like wildfire. So, a couple of months ago, I set this plan into motion for real.

II) The Deal

If you live in my community, I will do the following free of charge:

a) Come to your place one or more times to discuss your renovation dreams and structural concerns as they relate to your property.

b) Advise you, in general to terms, as to your renovation options and whether or not I feel that your structural concerns have merit.

c) Refer you to a couple of local guys to do any detailed engineering required for permitting, construction, etc.

d) Casually and jovially make it clear that the cost of my free help is my expectation that I'll not be getting sued for the consequences of any of my advice.

e) Let you know that my insurance has an exclusion clause explicitly omitting coverage for any work that I do without remuneration.

What I will not do:

f) Accept any paid assignments.

g) Stamp or sign anything.

h) Prepare detailed, actionable drawings or specifications.

i) Have you sign a waiver of liability. I thought about that but don't really feel that it offers me any meaningful protection beyond [d] above.

III) My Appraisal of the Risk

j) Obviously, there still is some, particularly with stuff like cracked basement wall evaluations where someone might chose to not do something based on my advice.

k) I would say that I'm accepting a calculated risk in this instance. Of course, it's a calculated risk that I'm altogether unable to calculate with any accuracy, so there's that.

l) From a purely business perspective, this is foolish, no question. Although, interestingly, I've been offered tons of paid residential work as a result of this exercise. I turn it all down as promised. The head of the senior's association has actually turned out to be a retired, formerly quite prominent architect which has obvious potential from a networking perspective. That old adage about trying to be useful rather than trying to be ostensibly successful seems to have an oddly quick ROI.

IV) The Results

In a world full of disappointments, this has panned out great so far. I've met a bunch of my neighbors and I'm providing real, charitable value. I've even become a bit of a community celebrity for my being willing / stupid enough to do this. Our neighborhood has a very active senior's association and they've invited me to offer the same services within their cohort (who doesn't like free stuff?). The nature of my neighborhood is that there a lot of older folks here that are what I'd call "house rich". Their properties have octupled in value since 1807 but they are on modest, fixed incomes just the same. This development has taken something that felt good to me to begin with and amped up the feel good factor another 50%. Sometimes I even get milk and cookies, like Santa.

Will I regret my decision if I wind up getting myself sued out of having a livelihood with which to support my own family? You betcha. And that brings us back to the calculated risk part. To an extent, the libertarian streak in me just refuses to be cowed by the realities of my marketplaces litigiousness.

 

[Tomfh]

the structural engineer is always just some poorly dressed, charmless chump who does nothing more than confirm that the property brothers were right in assuming that a beam would be required there

..to the vast majority who have to deal with us, we are nothing more than another barrier of red tape to cross

Our reputation runs quite deep. From 1984:

...The door opened, and another prisoner was brought in whose appearance sent a momentary chill through Winston. He was a commonplace, mean-looking man who might have been an engineer or technician of some kind...

 

[Ingenuity]

A coworker asked my boss to design his house a few years back. My boss gives me the job. The design is pretty intense. Large two story structural steel moment frame in the front of the house with large glass windows. It's a really nice abode. Our relationship turns sour during the design phase because I wasn't working fast enough (partly justified on his part but I was doing this for free in my spare time... partly because he's just a power-hungry jerk that waits for no man.) In the end he never ends up building the house. 2 years later he wants it redone to a more mellow design. My boss approaches me and asks me nicely to redesign the home for our coworker. So I redesign it (mostly wood with very little steel this time) in 2 weeks time and in the end the coworker still hates me and won't speak to me.

I think I know the SOB you are referring - first initial "G", used to work for large GC on island. If so, I worked with him on a few projects when he was at his previous employer. Definitely a 'power-hungry jerk'. Consider yourself fortunate that he wont speak with you.

 

[STrctPono]

Ingenuity,

Wow! I have no idea how you got that. I'm baffled. So that means you know what company I work for? Perhaps I've been saying too much... Did you used to work in the transportation industry when you were out here? It's a smaller island than I realized.

 

[jayrod12]

Canada is an extremely small place when it comes down to it. The island even more so. It's almost like the rock, where it's 2 degrees of separation.

 

[KootK]

@Tomfh:

Great quote. If I was still doing signature lines, I'd be tempted to make that it. But yeah, pretty deeply ingrained. I've been thinking about this aspect and even the few structural engineers that the public might no of are usually only know by association with architectural work. Kahn, Baker, Robertson... When's the last time that you heard anybody celebrate a Rockstar, industrial structural engineer? Maybe Jim Fisher over hear a little. And that's only because he's a prolific author.

@Heuvo/STrctPono:

Lack of gratitude and successful ends to these stories is precisely why I'm only doing the highest of high level preliminary and none of the nuts and bolts work. I have a story from as recently as last year. A coworker wanted to help out a homeowner/friend of the same local ethnic minority. Understandable I agreed to run this through my operation at a fee so low it might has well have been free. I got busy with the clients that pay my bills and drug my feet on the semi-pro bono thing. Long story short (and predictable), everybody involved in the process now thinks less of me.

 

[Ingenuity]

Wow! I have no idea how you got that. I'm baffled. So that means you know what company I work for? Perhaps I've been saying too much... Did you used to work in the transportation industry when you were out here? It's a smaller island than I realized.

I believe that I do know who you work for, and if correct I therefore know your boss, and I know the other two other Co. founders too - coconut telegraph. However, I do not know you. I have been involved on projects designed by your company, from VESLMC, to concrete bridge girders, to testing etc. I don't mean to make you uncomfortable, and I do not believe you have ever said 'too much' - and what you have ever stated is all factual from my perspective/knowledge too - just that the little bits you have said I was able to deduce who you worked for. Honolulu is indeed a small place!

KootK - sorry to hijack your thread!

 

[jari001]

Instead of doing individual consults, would you be interested in doing a layman's "course" in common residential structural pitfalls and offering that to your neighbors via some local organization (e.g. HOA, community center, local library, community college, someone's backyard, etc.)? You wouldn't have to charge and there may be less risk since it's a educational seminar? I'm thinking of how Home Depots near me have workshops on how to do this or that and I don't listen to those with the thought of suing if I did what they said and it didn't work out. Arguably, it's more work for you to prepare "course material", but you could engage with more people per unit time to make up for that.

 

[HouseBoy]

KK - I like what you are doing.
In my neighborhood (about 25 houses total), I have the reputation of "everybody needs a steel beam in their house!"

 

[kingnero]

In complement of what jari001 said:
I also wanted to do something local, in order to "give something back" since my son (at the time, ~8 years old) was getting a rather decent education in a local comunity institution.
I signed up for the "parent's committee", a common idea that almost every school has in our country. Goal is to improve school, by raising some funds and actively participating in school activities. I am not a very social/outgoing guy (oh no! he's got the knack!) so this didn't end well.
I did however do some presentations for some local clubs (one was a radio club, a group of very enthousiast radio amateurs, all electronics wizards and rather handy guys). I'm a welding engineer, so I talked about the most common welding processes for DIY, what to look for when buying a welding machine, some pictures of home setups with a gas bottle, a home made welding fume extractor, ...) and this was very well perceived.
The participants knew in advance what I was going to be talking about, and I had it written on the mailing to not hesitate to ask questions or bring up examples or problems.
The 30 minute presentation had a 3 hour Q&A, and resulted in some appointments to do exactly what you, Koot, are proposing to do. One-on-one advice for local problems.
The target audience was perfect: people with a technical background, and more specifically, they are used of learning from one another. That is basically the #1 reason of their membership of that club. So they appreciate what you are trying to do, and they also know the limitations of your interventions.

 

[KootK]

Thanks for your input jari, kingnero, and Houseboy. I agree, a house without at least one steel beam isn't being pushed hard enough.

I did my third one of these Saturday morning and hit pay dirt with regard to the kind of experience that I've been hoping for.

'Twas a beautiful day so I donned the crocs and rode my vintage road bike up to the subject home. It was a small, late 60's bungalow owned by a cool gal with three early teen kids. Those kids need an extra bathroom, more open space, a mudroom, and a better way to access the deck from the kitchen. In her head, the owner had this divided up into four mini projects that she might take on as finances allow and depending on how much structure work is required at each stage. She's on a budget but is obviously looking to do the best she can to make family life as good as it can be for the last 5yr+ that the kids will be living at home. Been there.

I pop my head up into the attic and discover that, despite the look of a mid-span bearing line below, the roof is unambiguously clear spanned by some pristine looking metal plate connected wood trusses. So I climb down and say, along with all of the disclaimers:

"Good news, there's not an interior wall on this entire floor that is structurally significant. Assume that you can do whatever you wish with the interior walls and start dreaming the biggest possible dream that you can inside this four walled box. If you can swing the finances for the MEP, appliances, and envelope work, I'd recommend doing all of your projects at once to avoid rework and to get to awesome as fast as possible".

The owner's eyes lit up and she said that she was a bit low on cash but could probably mobilize enough equity to move forward with all of the work this fall pending some rough numbers from the plumber etc. It was a good morning. A couple of extra bonuses:

1) I suspect that I drummed up some work for the local guy that did the thermal imaging on my own house.

2) The owner designs control rooms and offered to model my house in Revit pro bono. Mrs KootK has been wanting that for our own renovation planning.

3) I'm pretty sure that I could have gotten a hug out of the deal if I didn't deliberately set my body language to preclude such things.

 

[TLHS]

I offered to help a guy I know who's trying to build a donation funded community fitness facility with outdoor fitness stations. I figured there was likely an engineering gap from the supplier somewhere and they'd need foundations, drainage, or other similar site specific things done. Turns out it's an all-in design/build. While I'm happy they have it under control, I am disappointed I didn't have a chance to help out.

 

[dhengr]

TLHS:
That was your guardian angle looking out for you. You would have been the only Professional Designer/Engineer, with real engineering knowledge, judgement and experience AND insurance, involved on the project. With parts from some outfit who is selling a product and assumes no responsibility for how it is used or installed. And, I’ll bet there fine print has that that exact disclaimer. Put together by a bunch of well-meaning armatures, who can’t read or understand engineering plans and details, or understand the rational behind them. You know, the old…, that post stands there with 18” of embedment, so why all that extra 3 or 4’ of post hole digging? And, the other attorneys and the judge would say, ‘you should have known better, or you should have supervised what you designed and its construction better.

 

[YoungCapacityEngineer]

I have a simple opinion on the matter:

While the desire to help neighbors, friends, family, and the community as a whole is certainly noble and appreciated, offering these services for free devalues our profession and negatively impacts working engineers. This negative consequence is - at minimum - felt locally (the neighborhood) and may eventually serve as a detriment on a larger scale (town, city).

Lastly, IMO, offering free assistance as described is the quickest route to complacency. Without a meaningful, proper transfer of funds, you do not feel obligated to hold yourself to a standard of care that is required by our profession. Supposedly this issue is "resolved" by providing disclaimers in the advertisement or simply informing people. This will not matter. People will not pay attention or care to these statements because ... well... why take a free service seriously? But when something goes awry, regardless of what you stated at first, you will find yourself in court. Lost time, wages, etc., just to get out of it unscathed - the best case scenario? No thank you.

Cleaning the neighborhood of litter, volunteering with the little ones, organizing events, etc. are all better ways of helping and making a difference. These suggestions also allow you to assist or make a greater impact on a larger scale...

B.Eng. (Carleton University)
Create. Enhance. Sustain.

 

[phamENG]

YCE - you probably didn't read the whole thread, but KootK covered most of your concerns and has figured out good ways of countering the negatives (including ensuring that the real work goes to a local engineer). The impression I get is that he's helping people with a go/no-go criteria. He comes in, takes a look and says "yes, that's feasible" or "no, you need to adjust your focus/priorities/etc." with regard to a project. If it's a go, the project goes to a working engineer...if it isn't, then the homeowner didn't waste any money getting an architect/designer involved first.

As for complacency...I get it...and you may be right for some people. But I have to admit that KootK's level of performance when he's complacent is something that many of us can only aspire to reach on our best day.

 

[CELinOttawa]

Hi Adam. Long time no talk.

You asked for negative, so here it is:

"My fair wages I will openly take" I paraphrase. It's been a while. For our American and international colleagues, this is a part of the Ritual Calling of an Engineer. I believe it needs to be taken very seriously, and quite literally.

Two questions to answer, somewhat Socratically:

1) Would these people have to pay someone else if you didn't do it for free?

2) If yes to my first question, how can one justify reducing the value of the profession's product.

This is how our profession gets itself into trouble with long road, slow, gradual reductions in fees. This isn't even a race to the bottom; it is cutting the bottom out of the bucket and insisting it is still a bucket. If we don't value what we do as a commodity, why should anyone else?

How many clients call for free advice, get the information they require, and disappear? How often do you find yourself fighting for reasonable compensation for a ton of work done? Would such a thing ever happen at a Doctor's office? At a Lawyer's? IF ENGINEERING IS GIVEN AWAY FREE, THEN ENGINEERING IS WITHOUT VALUE.

This is wrong, and I think you know it. You are one of the few engineers on this planet who I respect enough to worry about arguing with. What you're doing isn't right.

 

[jayrod12]

I have to chime in on the complacency bit. I know Koot personally having met him once when I was in his town and chat with him off board on occasion. Koot's level of complacency would still leave his standard of care far above many other engineer's I know, myself included.

YCE - Have you never helped out a friend with a feasibility question for a renovation on their home? I know I have multiple times, in fact I enjoy talking about that stuff so much I encourage my friends to reach out if they ever want to chat about it. That's all Koot is doing except he's expanding his friends group to include his neighbours.

I just moved into a new neighbourhood, and based on the number of hellos we get daily from the people walking by and the neighbours within shouting distance, I expect that I will start to expand my friends group as well.

 

[KootK]

@YCE: thanks for your input.

@phamENG: thanks for basically fielding this one for me.

But I have to admit that KootK's level of complacency is something that many of us can only aspire to reach someday.

Thanks for that. For YCE's benefit, my solution to the complacency problem is best articulated this way: I'm doing so very little that there's truly nothing to be complacent about. When I leave a home that I visit for Go/NoGo consult, I'm done with project 100% unless somebody wants me out of a repeat of the same.

I had my first negative experience with this last week and, for the sake of truthiness, should report that.

START BAD EXPERIENCE

Homeowner: Can you come take a look at a beam that I've had installed in my basement to remove a post?

KootK: Sure, see my ad for my service limitations though... blah, blah... I won't be telling you if your beam is okay.

Homeowner: That's perfect! I've already run up a large engineering bill and want to avoid another if I can. My contractor has made some minor changes to the original design.

KootK: If you've already had another engineer involved, that changes things as follows:

a) Whatever I see at your place, my answer will be "you need to run this by your stamping engineer".

b) As an ethical matter, I'll need you to put me in touch with your stamping engineer to let them know that I'll be reviewing their work.

END BAD EXPERIENCE

Now the homeowner seems to be ghosting me which, frankly, seems like it's for the best. Among other things, he's located a couple of blocks outside of my clearly defined service range and, I feel, has thus failed to respect my limitations.

 

[KootK]

Long time no talk.

NO KIDDING! This thread has already paid for itself if it's got you back in the pool for a conversation.

1) Would these people have to pay someone else if you didn't do it for free?

Yes.

2) If yes to my first question, how can one justify reducing the value of the profession's product.

Easily. Reiterrating from stuff above that I'd expect nobody new to have read:

1) As I anticipated, and someone else articulated well, the trend seems to be that my high level advice gets projects moving forward that wouldn't otherwise. See my recent post about my uber-positive experience [31 May 21 15:25}. My view is that I'm creating paid work for the structural engineering community, not destroying it.

2) By doing good in the community, I feel that I'm raising awareness of, and respect for, the value that our profession brings to society, particularly when creatively and skillfully applied. In my view, this is not cheapening the profession, it's elevating it.

IF ENGINEERING IS GIVEN AWAY FREE, THEN ENGINEERING IS WITHOUT VALUE.

This is how I've spoken to that issue previously. Our market is broken and that's sad. The saddest part about it, in my opinion, is that it has us thinking about these thing from a perspective of fear and scarcity.

With regard to the health of the profession, I have great concern for the notion that something like this "cheapens" the profession. When I hear that term bandied about, what I read between the lines is this:

"cheapening" = hindering our usual ability to fight over the fee equivalent of table scraps like a bunch of frothing baboons. I often feel that this is a fear based perspective that leads us to believe that a thing that is not invoiced for becomes a thing having no value, ultimately threatening our livelihoods.

I take the opposite view and feel that what I'm proposing actually ennobles the profession. I help out my local community and pass along the paid opportunities to other local engineers. That, precisely because I do not feel compelled to desperately defend my meager little corner of the profit universe tooth and nail.

Would such a thing ever happen at a Doctor's office? At a Lawyer's?

Doctors and lawyers do, in fact, both typically do a good deal of probono work. And I feel that their professions are elevated as a result. Granted, a lot of that which gets public notice is for people in greater need than those that I'm serving. See MBJ315 [14 May 21 13:59}] for a top notch description of why it's so dang hard for us to find meaningful pro-bono work that doesn't require us to relocate to Cambodia etc.

You are one of the few engineers on this planet who I respect enough to worry about arguing with.

Thanks & ditto. I'm glad that you've chosen to chime in on this.

 

[KootK]

I thought that LittleInch did an exceptional job of articulating the nature of my offering on this. I've been wanting to quote him for a while but struggled to make my way back to his contribution. For the benefit of the new folks, this is something that I really could not have said any better myself:

I also think as engineers, we tend to forget that the majority of the population (90%+) have no basic clue about structural or engineering issues and are either

A) Scared to death that anything they do will cost them a fortune in either engineering fees or construction costs, when it is actually fairly simple or
B) Have no comprehension that what they want to do could be very costly or cause death and destruction and Old joe the builder doesn't know that either

Hence you get load bearing walls knocked down, trusses butchered, beam sections and strength destroyed, wooden decks in particular built and fall down, cracks appearing or floors bowing etc etc , all because no one with our level of knowledge has taken an hour or so to say

"Yeh that looks Ok and should be reasonable, here's the number of a man / company etc that can help you further" or

"That looks to me like this is going to be a lot of money / really needs to be repaired / replaced and here's the number of a man / company who you need to contact tomorrow to stop your house falling down"

The positive experience that I relayed in my [31 May 21 15:25] post was textbook A). And I expect some structural engineer will be earning some $$$ this summer as a result.

 

[KootK]

FYI: there's a free NCSEA webinar tomorrow that sounds at though it will touch on some of the issues raised in this thread and on this forum in general. I've created a separate thread for it here: Free NCSEA Webinar June 17th - Elevating the Public Perception of Structural Engineers