Power of Plans Checkers 5

[msquared48]

I have a situation I am pondering to resolve. I have not run into this before, and I don't think anyone should. I have called the state board for their undocumented opinion - a compliance issue drifting into the possible unauthorized practice of engineering.

I performed the lateral analysis on four small two story basic plan residences about two months ago. He has been trying to get them approved ever since for resasons other than the engineering. Yesterday my client received a phone call from the chief structural plans checker at this jurisdiction, and the plans checker made the statement to my client that the engineering was extremely overdone. The client understood what I did on the plans and why, but, nevertheless has taken them to another firm to be redone. He claims that it will cost him only $2000.00 to save $30,000 in the construction. At issue is the use of Simpson Strong Tie walls at the garage area, plus the extending of an interior plywood shearwall to the underside of the roof diaphragm, things I normally do not do unless I need to. According to another structural engineer I know, the plans checker in question is not a PE.

That being said, I have the following issues with what happened:
1. I do not believe it is the function of a plans checker to lower the quality of the design. I believe he should only make sure that the basic code minimum has been met.

2. Not being a PE, he was performing engineering by essentially giving an engineering opinion.

3. If he had a problem with my design, why did he not check it out with me first. This is professional courtesy.

My problem comes in that my client does not want me to report this checker as he will probably get in trouble, and my client wants to get his plans approved. I do not want to lose this client, but may already have. Additionally, there may be other issues here, some of which some of you can imagine, but I cannot say here directly, and for good reason. Lastly, this jurisdiction is the primary jurisdiction of the business for my firm.

This situation is very touchy, and I am pondering my best course here. I am inclined to approach the checker directly in private, and confronting him on what he did. But I am not sure this will solve the problem for other people in the future. The other consideration is that as the chief structural plans examiner, he has obviously been promoted. This raises the question of whether or not his superiors agree with what he is doing. The liability of the jurisdiction could be impacted.

Any input?

Mike McCann
McCann Engineering

 

[bacon4life]

As rather young electrical EIT not very familiar with how plan reviews work, I was taken a bit aback by this thread.

The checker is ethically required to be open and honest when something is out of the ordinary. He should have called you instead of the client. However it is clear that your relationship with the client was already suffering if they were willing to go to a different firm without even talking to you.

Set up a meeting with the plan checker to find out how you can improve the design package so it is clear why you needed to use expensive construction methods. Hopefully he will learn you are willing to take a bit of your time to help him learn and make his job easier. Thus he will:
a. Call you next time something comes up
b. Consider that other firms may be doing poor or "value" engineering
c. Consider agitating for code revisions to make you design require.

 

[msquared48]

Well, the client decided to build it as I designed it - still came down to money as he could not wait for the redesign. I am managing to still get referrals from him though. I think it is still salvageable.

You know though, if this is what the economy, and housing market is coming to, to put out a cheap product in a high seismic area such as mine, then I guess I better re-think whether I still want to be in the housing market due to the perceived risk from my viewpoint. A lot of decisions are driven by money, and an increase in risk is inherent in those decisions. When it gets to the code level, that, to me, is an unacceptable risk. It goes against my grain to design a code compliant seismically risky design. This is a professional structural engineering judgement call. If my clients cannot accept that, then they will bear the burden, not me.

Thanks for all the input.

Mike McCann
McCann Engineering

 

[DonPhillips]

Personally, I would talk to the bulding official, the person who ultimately issues the plan approval.



Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com

 

[IRstuff]

"code compliant seismically risky design"

That seems to be in the eye of the beholder. If you can explicitly quantify the risk to the customer, then he, indeed, can make the tradeoff. But, if all you can offer is your opinion, without quantification, that would seem to be a problem for the customer, and ultimately, you.

However, you then run the risk of appearing to offer a guarantee, e.g., "it can withstand a Richter 7.5". Moreover, it would clearly break anyone's bank to be seismically immune against any and all earthquakes, so everyone has to make a trade between reasonable cost and reasonable risk.

Is the "code" seismically low-side compliant? My understanding was that the code presented some statistically acceptable risk.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[DarthSoilsGuy]

the plans checker has come to this opinion because similar structures have come across his desk and he has "checked" them. i initially assume that permitting checkers are idiots until proven innocent. maybe you confused him with all your computations.

are you sure that the checker was condescending and not just being honest. i can imagine your client calling the checker and asking about it and his response be, "oh it's definately acceptable. i would have passed it without all that extra stuff." the whole time with a smile on his face and not thinking he was stabbing you in the back.

i can get my hands on about any approved design because of the many different town and state permitting levels. most of the time i can see approved designs on the internet. make sure you find out what the other engineer submits and evaluate if you want to be in that market (would you seal that plan).

my struggle with permitting checkers usually involves them having over-conservative recommendations, and always because one of our competition has a more conservative standard detail.

 

[eliebl]

I used to perform a job similar to a plans checker. It is very difficult to only look for compliance with the design code. I had to refrain from making comments many times when there are things which are over-conservative or simply poor design practice but not in contravention of the code.

A - It looks like the checker made comments which were outside of his area of responsibility.
B - Practice of Engineering vs. code compliance is a difficult area. If nothing goes wrong there would not be a concern about the practice of engineering. If something goes wrong and someone gets hurt then it is likely that it would be considered practice of engineering.

My 2 cents.

EJL