Structural engineering responsibility to the public 8

[x7r]

I'm trying to make sense out of this experience...

A local GC asked me to do the structural engineering for a residential pop-top addition. The house is located in a 130 mph wind gust area. The GC wanted to eliminate many of the critical first story interior walls (which were probably functioning as wall bracing). He also added several new windows that reduced some of the exterior shear walls to only 14 in. width. The design was even more complicated because the existing exterior sheathing was fiberboard with very wide nail spacing. I was finally able to make the design work using a lot of hold-down bolts, a steel moment frame inside a wall, interior OSB sheathing to increase shear capacity, etc.

The GC demanded that I remove all the special details because they were too expensive. When we eventually parted ways, he said he knew another SE who was willing to delete all the hardware from my design and resubmit it.

At that point I felt ethically obligated to follow-up. I eventually asked the city planning office to show me the submittal. Just as the GC promised, the lateral design was virtually non-existent. All wind-resistance hardware was gone. The pop-top walls were just glued to the steel beams supporting them. Even the gravity design wasn’t good – the steel beams would have crushed the top plates that they rested on. There were also some load-bearing walls around a stairwell that were discontinuous at the border between floors (without connecting to any diaphragm).

I wrote a detailed letter describing all the structural problems and sent it to the homeowner and our state board of engineering licensure. The other engineer responded that all his volunteer work shows that he has the highest ethical standards. I just received a copy of the Board’s decision – they say they have insufficient information to conclude there was a violation of the practice act so they are dismissing my complaint. The homeowner is satisfied that his house is well-designed and blames me for worrying him with a false alarm.

What just happened? Is there some kind of positive moral that can be learned from this? Does this kind of situation usually turn out this poorly?

 

[fegenbush]

I find it interesting that the other engineer felt that you were questioning their ethics. After reading your account of events, I thought it was pretty clear that you were questioning their competence. I would have been more interested in seeing the past projects and continuing education than what volunteer activities in which they participate.

 

[x7r]

fegenbush,

That's an interesting perspective. Maybe the other engineer knew that wind resistance features were required and he really did remove them because of a lack of ethics. There's a strong profit motive to do that -- the design will take less than half as many hours, so you can underbid ethical engineers.

 

[JAE]

You've covered yourself with that documentation - when the house falls down you have great deniability. You've notified the authorities and the engineer/client involved. Time to move on as I'm not sure what else one could do.

 

[Ron]

x7r...is there any chance that there's more than one way (your way) to accomplish a competent design for this building? Two engineers can legitimately have two different opinions on something and neither is necessarily incorrect or incompetent.

Remember...if you have three engineers review something, you'll get at least 4 opinions.

 

[x7r]

Ron,

Yes, there are always other good approaches. I proposed a few to the GC so he could look for the one with lowest cost. But it's difficult to find adequate lateral load paths in the final submittal. Only one side of the pop-top has a good shear wall. A perpendicular side is supported on a very perforated fiber board wall with minimal shear capacity. The other two sides are supported by steel beams on HSS posts (providing zero shear resistance).

I've been wondering if the Board expects complaints to be proved point-by-point with calculations. My letter was more like a list of locations where failures would occur below 130 mph. Maybe that's what they meant by "insufficient information."

 

[Compositepro]

This case involves a private property owner and a disagreement between two professional engineers about technical issues. The principle of "protecting the public safety is not really relavent. You would like the engineering board to investigate the facts of your case and prosecute the other engineer. They do not have the resources or mandate to do that. That is what courts are for. Do you really want a Board looking over all of your work with the threat of prosecution if they do not agree?
The world is not a perfect place.

 

[hokie66]

If you are located in an area where the building official has technical review responsibilities, then you should notify them in writing of your concerns. I believe it is a public safety issue, private property or not. If the permitting authority chooses not to act, there is not much more you can do.

 

[Ron]

Agree with hokie66....public is "at large, the population" not just public in the sense of public buildings or facilities. The homeowner is part of the public.

Most engineering boards are just as Compositepro noted. They are constrained by law and their power is limited by law (as it should be). This boils down to differing opinions, neither of which has been proved against the other. Do as hokie66 noted...contact the building official if you feel strongly that the structure has been compromised. Be prepared; however, that the owner is already pi$$ed at you so tread carefully or you'll be the subject of a civil suit.

As a professional courtesy, you might want to sit down with the other engineer and let him explain to you his approach and you do the same.

 

[x7r]

Ron,

Thanks. That's a great idea. I actually talked with the local planning office before contacting the Board. They said they had no one qualified to review the drawings and suggested that I bring it to the attention of some other entity with authority.

I'm satisfied that I've fulfilled my duty to inform and have probably eliminated liability in case of a failure. What concerned me so much about this particular situation is that a failure wouldn't just result in financial loss (as a foundation problem might). A failure could easily result in loss of life. I don't want to be thinking that I just made a minimal effort or only took care of my own interests.

 

[fegenbush]

x7r,

When the homeowner is not interested in hearing how their home is (possibly) structurally deficient, what more can you do? Just as Ron said above, to pursue beyond what you have already done may be interpreted by the homeowner as harassment.

In situations like these, I find that it is all but impossible to protect people from themselves.

 

[hokie66]

The current homeowner is not the only person who is involved here. Property changes hands, and subsequent owners have a right to expect a certain standard of construction. In the law, it may be caveat emptor, but that does not control engineering ethics.

 

[debodine]

It may be time to consult an attorney with experience in this type of litigation. There may be one or two other steps you can take to protect yourself and maybe even get the attention of the appropriate authorities without getting the homeowner or GC on your back. But I am NOT an attorney so I am really just guessing here.

 

[IRstuff]

But, ultimately, it's a bet on the come, to come a phrase from craps. At what wind level will the current construction fail? If the structure gets demolished by a storm, will anyone really check out whether it was constructed correctly? In my view, that would only happen if it's the only house out of say, 100, that gets demo'd while all the other 99 remained intact and undamaged. I would bet, and I would guess that the GC would also bet, that in any given storm that takes out this structure will also take out a bunch of others, and there won't be much scrutiny of why the structure failed. And finally, one can always blame either the materials or the SE that actually finished the project. Either way, the owner is covered financially, and the GC has some increased risk downstream, but profit today.

TTFN
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[PHovnanian]

What just happened?

You did your due diligence. Others either failed to do theirs. Or they did what they believed to be sufficient.

Is there some kind of positive moral that can be learned from this?

Pick your battles carefully. You will do far more for public safety by continuing to do good work in the future than risking career damage over this incident.

Does this kind of situation usually turn out this poorly?

Usually? No. Sometimes? Sadly, yes.

The other engineer responded that all his volunteer work shows that he has the highest ethical standards.

That could be a code for, "I've got connections in this community. Don't mess with me."
And perhaps that's the way the state board and the building department heard it as well. They are trading the odds of a future event (a 130 MPH wind gust and structural failure) for almost certain current grief.

In my opinion, someone's first defense of their ethics should be related to their professional performance. I'm the biggest jerk in town, but at least my designs don't fall down. Or burn up. (I'm an EE.)

 

[ztengguy]

I think you went above and beyond. Ethically, I would have stopped at parting ways with the contractor. I dont think we can police the world, and we can only prevent what we can control.

Hopefully nothing ever happens, and even if it does, you are protected.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

On a side note, I would keep an ear to the ground over the years should anything tragic happen. Should it happen, make sure you hold that engineer's feet to the flame to ensure he never puts another soul in danger again.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[KENAT]

Of course, if you chime in again after something tragic happens someone may decide you should have done more now and try suing you.

(This is based on DMAIC training I went to where the Challenger Space Shuttle incident came up. I suggested that from memory part of the cause was that management ignored engineering concerns or something like that, the response from the HR guy helping conduct the training was that maybe engineering should have pushed their case more or something along those lines.)

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[GregLocock]

" I suggested that from memory part of the cause was that management ignored engineering concerns or something like that, the response from the HR guy helping conduct the training was that maybe engineering should have pushed their case more or something along those lines."

"The Impact of Misinformation

The manner in which misinformation influences top management has been illustrated by former Associate Administrator for Space Flight Jesse Moore.

"And then we had a Flight Readiness Review, I guess, in July, getting ready for a mid-July or a late July flight, and the action had come back from the project office. I guess the Level III had reported to the Level II Flight Readiness Review, and then they reported up to me that-they reported the two erosions on the primary (O-ring) and some 10 or 12 percent erosion on the secondary (O-ring) on that flight in April, and the corrective actions, I guess, that had been put in place was to increase the test pressure, I think, from 50 psi [pounds per square inch] to 200 psi or 100 psi-I guess it was 200 psi is the number-and they felt that they had run a bunch of laboratory tests and analyses that showed that by increasing the pressure up to 200 psi, this would minimize or eliminate the erosion, and that there would be a fairly good degree of safety factor margin on the erosion as a result of increasing this pressure and ensuring that the secondary seal had been seated. And so we left that FRR [Flight Readiness Review] with that particular action closed by the project ," 16

Not only was Mr. Moore misinformed about the effectiveness and potential hazards associated with the long-used "new" procedure, he also was misinformed about the issue of joint redundancy. Apparently, no one told (or reminded) Mr. Moore that while the Solid Rocket Booster nozzle joint was Criticality 1R, the field joint was Criticality 1. No one told him about blow holes in the putty, probably resulting from the increased stabilization pressure, and no one told him that this "new" procedure had been in use since the exact time that field joint anomalies had become dangerously frequent. At the time of this briefing, the increased pressure already had been used on four Solid Rocket Motor nozzle joints, and all four had erosion. Erosion was the enemy, and increased pressure was its ally.

While Mr. Moore was not being intentionally deceived, he was obviously misled. The reporting system simply was not making trends, status and problems visible with sufficient accuracy and emphasis."

Above quote from

http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1ch7.htm

Maybe HR need to get out more.



Cheers

Greg Locock


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[moltenmetal]

The accountability system in this case has failed. The homeowner might not care because he won't be living there- he wants to flip it and make a quick buck. The GC only cares about making a buck too, and likely thinks engineers are all a bunch of pinheads and worrywarts who overdesign the p*ss out of everything anyway (and he has a point there- a lot of structurals I've worked with seem to have a design philosophy that can be summed up more or less as "steel is cheap"...). The building department/plan review staff don't give a sh*t about the design, because they have a professional engineer's stamp on it and hence have someone to blame when it goes wrong- and they're not competent to review it anyway. The engineering licensing body doesn't have the resources to sort out what appears to be a conflict between professionals in this case, even though this seems per the OP to be a clear failure to examine all the failure cases required by code for a known loading (i.e. 130 mi/hr wind gusts). They'll be satisfied with punishing the offender after the failure- protecting the public is a lofty goal rather than a practical reality to them.

I've made one licensure complaint, ever. It was in relation to a boiler manufacturer who supplied us a unit with multiple deficiencies, which in my professional opinion WOULD have led to serious injury or death had the unit been put into service before we'd caught and corrected them. After many years grinding through their system, the complaints committee concluded that it wasn't certain that the unit would have failed, though how they could have drawn that conclusion on a unit where 300# fittings were used on a 1500# unit, and a relief valve protecting two connected units was set at the HIGHER of the two MAWPS, is beyond me. I think their real issue, which was missing from their written judgment, was that they considered the engineer's duty of care to extend only to the design, which in this case was limited to the vessels rather than the piping and relief valve settigns- even though the scope of the engineer's responsibility DID extend to the boiler piping and protection in my opinion by law...

I learned a valuable lesson about our local licensure body during that process: the only area they're competent to assess professional misconduct is in relation to structural engineering issues, since in our region only structurals have any meaningful right to practice- a right granted by 3rd party legislation and regulation (i.e. building departments requiring stamped drawings). The rest of us continue to practice under a putative exemption from licensure which doesn't exist in law but which exists by virtue of zero meaningful enforcement. We have no profession. And since medical errors kill probably 100x as many people as engineering errors, I guess that's OK as far as the general public is concerned- we're not killing enough people to matter. The rare occasions where there are deaths that might be tied to professional misconduct, such as the Algo Mall parking rooftop parking garage collapse, they go after the responsible party with criminal negligence charges after the fact and everybody is satisfied (a 64 yr old structural eng has been charged in that case, but is innocent until proven otherwise). Cynical? Sure- but that cynicism has been well earned.

To the OP: you've already exercised your professional responsibility. You're covered. That building isn't putting anyone's life in imminent risk: if they're still in it during 130 mi/hr wind gusts, they're stupid- and if they get injured, nobody will be there with an anemometer to know that it wasn't a 150 mi/hr gust that did the damage.