Plan Review - What happened? 1

[Aesur]

This is part rant and part wanting others thoughts.

Lately I have been noticing a change in plan reviews for both my projects and in talking with other engineers, below are a few things I have noticed.
1. 3rd party reviewers are becoming very common.
2. Plan reviewers are making ridiculous demands.
3. Many plan reviewer seem to have had their power go to their heads and are IMO abusing it.
4. 3rd party plan reviewers are not familiar with local design and try to implement more stringent criteria.

With the 3rd party reviewers, I am noticing typically their comments include things such as:
1. Provide seismic bracing for mechanical ducts, when by code seismic bracing is not required for the SDC.
2. Rejecting plans saying "while by law you are allowed to seal these plans, we cannot verify your experience ourselves and therefore reject these". The engineers seal is active and in good standing and has been practicing for many years without issue.

Comments from both 3rd party and city plan reviewers:
1. Many comments asking where something is in the calculations which require a simple response of, see keyplan on page ?? which shows that member is B?? and the calculation for said member is on page ??. ie the information is there, it's clear, but they just didn't look.
2. No deferred submittals are allowed - therefore requiring truss, I-joist, etc.. up front. One even required the PT tendon shop drawings.
3. Jurisdictions trying to get the EOR to seal shop drawings (not going to happen).
4. Correlate the member designations on your plans to the member designations in the calculations package, ie, B1 on plans is B1 in calculations, B2 is B2 etc... (as you can imagine this gets quite fun on some large apartments or commercial buildings with potentially hundreds of members). What can you do, give a few plan sheets with a long schedule with repeated beam sizes?
5. Contrary to 2 above, other jurisdictions had 3rd party reviewers that required items such as walk in coolers (inside the building) and other items like this be listed as deferred submittals. You can imagine how this went when they had no shop drawings nor calculations for said cooler and couldn't finish the project to get permits without jumping though hoops.

Finally, good luck getting ahold of someone to talk to, they don't seem to exist, no contact information provided, calling cities gets you in a loop of people who don't even know there is a building department.

Anyways, curious what others have been seeing.

 

[Enable]

I live in a funny jurisdiction where it seems that plans are almost never reviewed in detail for structural considerations or at least that is how it has been in my experience. Maybe it’s because we are low wind, low seismic, and Canadians are generally trusting? But there is a decent review of life safety elements (e.g guard heights, fire stopping details, etc), which usually is more helpful than not.

My major gripe with code officials would be the building inspectors being complete and utter tools who don’t know our code very well. They demand XYZ to close out the permit when XYZ isn’t required for the building you’re working on. Then they’ll relent and move onto needing ABC when ABC isn’t required. All the while the things they are asking for are not very important to begin with. And lately, scheduling inspections is beyond nightmarish. I cant get them out within a week and when I do they provide like a 24 hour period when they’ll be there and if you don’t pickup their call after the 3rd ring they go to another site. It’s impossible to build to a schedule with these clowns.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

Why are 3rd party reviewers becoming popular? I have a theory.

It's very expensive for Cities and Counties to hire engineers of their own for plan checking. Partly because they have to do all the training themselves. Partly because it is difficult to fire a government worker for any reason. Partly because the benefits package for government workers is excessive compared to the private sector. Why wouldn't they want to farm out this work? It makes so much financial sense for cities that they practically HAVE to do it.


For what it's worth, I think clear correlation between calculations and drawings (however it's handled) is one thing that many engineering firms do NOT do very well. IMO, getting occasionally dinged for this should make you put together better calc / drawing packages.

Note:
I have a few friends who are very experienced plan checkers (here in Southern California) that have worked for these 3rd party plan check companies. They're pretty darned good. Though if they work on job outside of seismic country, I can see where they might go a little overboard at first. But, if you give a clear code section that indicates why seismic bracing of HVAC isn't required, they would concede..... unless this is something that the jurisdiction objects to.

 

[JedClampett]

Another theory I'd present is that if you use a third party, you can assign a cost to each plan review. You spent 10 hours on the Clampett Mansion, you charge them 10 times the hourly rate. I suspect that in house reviewers are harder to track. They charge 8 hours to their department each day, and that's as refined as it gets.

 

[rb1957]

give someone power without responsibility and wait for the cr@p to happen !

We had a reviewer insist that the font on some placards and drawings be something specific. He was under contract, he was asked not to come in to work next week.

"Hoffen wir mal, dass alles gut geht !"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.

 

[Aesur]

I would definitely agree it's cheaper for the jurisdiction to use a 3rd party plan reviewer; also to add to that, it's hard to find good qualified people for those positions.

For what it's worth, I think clear correlation between calculations and drawings (however it's handled) is one thing that many engineering firms do NOT do very well. IMO, getting occasionally dinged for this should make you put together better calc / drawing packages.

I agree with you that calc packages are not always clear, however I also cannot see going overboard with calculation packages either ie, keyplan with B1 referencing the page number in the calculations or correlating a beam schedule to the keyplan/member sizes. I could see at the end (given enough time - which is a rarer and rare commodity these days) going into the calculations after the fact and marking B1 through B4 is B1 on S1.? or something along those lines, but again, there is no code requirement to do this, nor is it needed for clarity. The keyplan should indicate the design ID and they should be able to look at the plans and look at the keyplan and find the design to verify. I'm honestly surprised that I'm seeing as in depth reviews of member sizes as I have been lately, it's actually quite nice for that extra set of eyes.

Note:
I have a few friends who are very experienced plan checkers (here in Southern California) that have worked for these 3rd party plan check companies. They're pretty darned good. Though if they work on job outside of seismic country, I can see where they might go a little overboard at first. But, if you give a clear code section that indicates why seismic bracing of HVAC isn't required, they would concede..... unless this is something that the jurisdiction objects to.

I have no doubt there are some really good plan reviewers at some 3rd parties, however I would counter that if they are providing plan review services in an area that is lower seismic, or any other different criteria, they should know that just as well as higher seismic requirements. This is sim to how an engineer should know the local requirements for where they practice. I would be willing to bet I have come across the companies you have friends at and it was quite easy to reference the applicable sections and get approved, but still a pain to have to prove something, then again I would take those comments over some of the stupider ones I am aware of.

 

[jerseyshore]

Reading this thread makes me very grateful to be in a low seismic region because the people who review structural drawings rarely have comments. Third-party reviews for structural I haven't come across, although I did just read that the gov of NJ signed a bill allowing 3rd party inspections. Will have to see how that goes.

Similar to what Enable said, most building official reviews and inspections I've dealt with focus on safety issues, not structure.

In NJ & NY I very rarely have to submit calc packages for township reviews. Most times if I do submit calcs it's for the landlord's engineer to review or something like that. CT and Mass I do a bit more calc packages, but overall pretty rare. They have no idea what they're looking at anyway so I've never got a comment on those.

 

[azcats]

I got so sideways with a BV plan checker working for some norcal municipality that we had to get the city's head engineer involved to get rid of the ridiculous comment. Fortunately they were a partner in the development and had incentive to help.

We're outsourcing our government to the lowest bidder and expecting adequate service.

 

[JStructsteel]

Add in a 'cost factor' for this. If our costs go up, so do the contractors, Eventually it will get out of hand and be sorted out.

We should not bear the cost of a shitty reviewer and the extra work.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

I could see at the end (given enough time - which is a rarer and rare commodity these days) going into the calculations after the fact and marking B1 through B4 is B1 on S1.? or something along those lines, but again, there is no code requirement to do this, nor is it needed for clarity.

It's required for OSHPD project, I know that. We would generally add a "header" to the calculations towards the end that referenced the drawing or detail number that corresponded to that calculation. For individual members, usually had "results" print outs labeled as floor levels showing the project grids, and member labels so that anyone could dig into the output for further investigation should they so desire.

 

[Aesur]

It's required for OSHPD project, I know that. We would generally add a "header" to the calculations towards the end that referenced the drawing or detail number that corresponded to that calculation. For individual members, usually had "results" print outs labeled as floor levels showing the project grids, and member labels so that anyone could dig into the output for further investigation should they so desire.

Interesting, it's been years since I have done an OSHPD or DSA project. When I did those they were typically the type of project that was modeled in RAM or sim program, so the only comments I ever got (at that time) were print some extra results and share the model.

Right now, 90% of our projects are done by hand/EnerCalc due to the nature of them, I would love to see more larger projects in this area that could use larger modeling software, but they are few and far between.

Add in a 'cost factor' for this.

That's the plan, many of the engineers I have talked to are saying they are going to start going hourly for plan review. It's always easier said than done however and it's a tough spot because it could be abused. It's hard to differentiate what is legit (it happens) and what is a waste of time plan review comment to an owner/architect.

Third-party reviews for structural I haven't come across, although I did just read that the gov of NJ signed a bill allowing 3rd party inspections

Interesting, been years since I have done a project in that area and at the the time a 3rd party inspector (another firm) hired by the firm I worked at did the inspections under the EOR. Honestly not sure how all the legalities worked out but the city allowed it as there was no real presence in that state and you can imagine the costs to fly someone there if needed. My honest opinion is I don't want to do SSI, owners want the cheap rates that many companies employing non-engineers have for those items, the nature of last minute scheduling isn't appealing and if I'm not mistaken, liability increases as does insurance costs.

 

[jerseyshore]

Yes that is common, especially for Special Inspections, but I was more referring to third-party plan review as OP mentioned that was outsourced by the building department. Super rare here for structural. For special inspections, most use those inspection & testing companies where that's all they do every day.

 

[Aesur]

Sorry, I misunderstood, I thought you were talking special inspections

 

[Lomarandil]

Add in a 'cost factor' for this. If our costs go up, so do the contractors, Eventually it will get out of hand and be sorted out.

We should not bear the cost of a shitty reviewer and the extra work.

I think it's telling that my company (which has very loose proposal terms, very few exclusions) always makes a point to exclude dealing with "unusually onerous review comments".

It only comes up once every hundred projects or so... but when it does...

We have a favorite story of one peer reviewer who sat us down to chew us out in front of the owner on a major project, saying he had read an article lately about another major project which used really nifty staged finite element analysis to account for the complexities of that other bridge (and wanting us to do the same for his project). We had literally written the article.

 

[jerseyshore]

We have a favorite story of one peer reviewer who sat us down to chew us out in front of the owner on a major project, saying he had read an article lately about another major project which used really nifty staged finite element analysis to account for the complexities of that other bridge (and wanting us to do the same for his project). We had literally written the article.

Amazing. That is every engineers fantasy right there.

 

[KevinChez]

I wasn't part of the meeting so I didn't hear it but I'm told the third party plan examiner said that he "knew in his heart" the design wasn't right. wow.

 

[Lomarandil]

Kevin, I think they have antacids for that..

 

[JLSE]

I never have a major problem with them.

They have always seemed to have a better understanding than the jurisdictions do because, as noted previously, jurisdictions cannot afford an SE. I think a lot of engineers have trouble adjusting their standards because they are used to reviews by ... candidly.... mostly underqualified reviewers. Lots of times, I dont think jurisdictions even open the calculations.

I have had review letters that are out-of-line, but usually its a matter of references that they did not notice and asked for. A simple response is all it needed.

And while I do charge for extraordinary reviews, I am happy that these reviews are sent to more qualified individuals.

I myself have plan checked for DSA, as an outside consultant certified plan review engineer. I have reviewed for other authorities as well. And I have worked for design firms in heavy and light construction. I have worked for myself as well.

So I have seen both sides of this... and these 3rd party reviewers do more good than harm. Occasionally you may be inconvenienced. But overall they bring the standard up so that engineers who do thorough work can compete, and so that contractors who do quality work can compete. This is better for the construction industry, and the people these buildings serve.

Im a fan.

 

[TLHS]

I think it's hard from the other side too. I know I have trouble when I am acting as owner's engineer for an agency where I've specified a design-build or something similar. You get engineering deliverables from third party engineers. You'll see deliverables where people are doing things that you think are bad practice or don't meet the intent of what you think code is, but they're common practice, or might be based on another person's understanding of code.

Where's the standard of care in those situations as a high level reviewer?

All these little details where we have 30 post discussions on here show how much grey area there is in seemingly straight-forward items.

Trying to decide where the lines are between 'this isn't how I approach it,' 'this detail is not ideal,' 'this detail is not meeting the intent of code,' and 'this is dangerous' is hard when you can only do a cursory look. So I can see why there are lots of contexts where people just ask questions when they see those things.

I love doing reviews for people I know, for people in organizations I'm part of, or for places that are getting purchased from and will get paid for collaborative changes. It gets stressful, though, when you're trying to be an authority for a third party in the grey areas of the code.

If you're just supposed to be checking that the design criteria are right and the statutory information is listed on the drawings, that's one thing. If you're supposed to look at anything more in-depth than that it gets real fuzzy real fast.

 

[dik]

I suspect that if the profession was working properly... it would be a simple matter for the EOR to stipulate that his work was in accordance with the Code... seems pretty simple.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik