phamENG
Structural
- Feb 6, 2015
- 7,568
I was recently asked to do a third party inspection for a residential structure. The City inspector was overbooked, and couldn't get it on the schedule for a week or so. So I went out and checked out the framing - and summarily failed the #&^%# out of them. Shear walls not installed, hurricane ties not installed properly, gang studs to support girders not in place. It was pretty bad. They acknowledged the mistakes and committed to fixing them. Now for the best part. I get back to my desk and I get a phone call - the framing inspection was conducted by the City inspector and, you guessed it, it passed. When was it conducted? That's a good question. We're not sure. When I went out there that morning, it wasn't in the system. By that evening, it was. Nobody saw the inspector. Fortunately, the contractor is an honest one and is still proceeding with correcting the deficiencies I found. But that still leaves me with the nagging ethical question about the City inspection.
On the one hand, the evidence appears pretty bad. They passed an inspection on a house that clearly should have failed, and nobody saw them on site.
On the other hand, just because nobody saw them on site doesn't mean they weren't there. The super had already moved on to another job site and if the carpenter had closed up for the day, it's plausible the site was vacant. Also, the drawings are a bit confusing. The approved architectural plans and the approved engineering (which is is a mashup of a consultant's shear wall plan, truss drawings, etc.) are separate sets. All of my problems with the structure were based on the engineering drawings. If the inspector didn't have them for some reason, it's plausible that they could have passed the inspection. Though that ignores the fact that certain items required to be inspected would not have been on the plans he had which should have either failed the inspection or at least resulted in some questions.
So the ethical question - what to do about it? I feel compelled to, at the very least, inform the building official of an irregularity in the inspections and lay out what I've seen so they can investigate and take appropriate action. It may not be negligence, and may just require some additional training for the inspector. I certainly don't want to accuse somebody of gundecking their inspections without solid proof.
What does everyone here think?
On the one hand, the evidence appears pretty bad. They passed an inspection on a house that clearly should have failed, and nobody saw them on site.
On the other hand, just because nobody saw them on site doesn't mean they weren't there. The super had already moved on to another job site and if the carpenter had closed up for the day, it's plausible the site was vacant. Also, the drawings are a bit confusing. The approved architectural plans and the approved engineering (which is is a mashup of a consultant's shear wall plan, truss drawings, etc.) are separate sets. All of my problems with the structure were based on the engineering drawings. If the inspector didn't have them for some reason, it's plausible that they could have passed the inspection. Though that ignores the fact that certain items required to be inspected would not have been on the plans he had which should have either failed the inspection or at least resulted in some questions.
So the ethical question - what to do about it? I feel compelled to, at the very least, inform the building official of an irregularity in the inspections and lay out what I've seen so they can investigate and take appropriate action. It may not be negligence, and may just require some additional training for the inspector. I certainly don't want to accuse somebody of gundecking their inspections without solid proof.
What does everyone here think?
