Sketchy Special Inspections?

[ICE]

Get real.

The people that populate this forum see the industry through rose colored glasses. You see a response from a guy like the Yankee and you run with it. Few people other than the Yankee do stuff like that. Inspectors get a report from a special inspector and file it. It's the same with structural observations from engineers.

I am not like you or the Yankee or most of the other people here. Large projects have a pre-job meeting with all of the players. I always made it clear that the special inspector was me when I was not on the job. The special inspector had the same authority as I held. I made more than a few field promotions... that's why we called them deputy inspectors.

 

[Yankee Chronicler]

The people that populate this forum see the industry through rose colored glasses. You see a response from a guy like the Yankee and you run with it. Few people other than the Yankee do stuff like that. Inspectors get a report from a special inspector and file it. It's the same with structural observations from engineers.

I am not like you or the Yankee or most of the other people here. Large projects have a pre-job meeting with all of the players. I always made it clear that the special inspector was me when I was not on the job. The special inspector had the same authority as I held. I made more than a few field promotions... that's why we called them deputy inspectors.

Point of order: My role on the project I described -- where I checked the lab reports against the ASTM standard for the test being performed -- was not that of the building official. I was the Special Inspections Coordinator. It was my job to ensure that the special inspections reports that I was submitting to the building official (in that case, the State) were correct and accurate.

Yes, it was also the job of the guy who owned the testing lab and the engineer who put his seal and signature on the reports, to have ensured that they were correct and accurate. And that was my point -- they lie. I don't know if the errors were errors of omission or errors of commission, meaning I don't know if they intentionally falsified the reports, or if they were just too lazy to bother reading the ASTM standard they were paid to conduct testing under. Either way, the reports were incorrect, yet they carried the seal and signature of a licensed PE. Anyone receiving them would have been justified in looking at them and feeling assured that everything was okay -- even though it wasn't. Had there been a problem down the road, the liability would have fallen on the testing lab for having submitted inaccurate test reports.

That was only one example. I have dealt with testing laboratories since 1983 -- 40 years. In that time, I haven't yet encountered a single one I felt was trustworthy. I could write a book about the ways testing labs have screwed up reports on projects I've been involved with.

 

[Mark K]

Licensing is how the State decides which individuals can offer to provide engineering services to the public. Think of it as similar to having to have a drivers license to drive a car. Think of the building department as playing a role similar to a police officer who is checking to see that the driver is complying with the traffic laws. If the building department only checks if the individual is licensed why do we need plan checkers?

The existence of a license is not a guarantee that everything is ok although it greatly increases the odds.

A plan checker who just checks to see is there is an engineers stamp is not doing his job.

The existence of an engineers stamp is not a guarantee. A building department that thinks that it is does not understand the law or is trying to shift the responsibility.

The engineer is not liable to the building department rather he is liable to his client and to users of the building who suffered losses resulting from the engineers' actions. It is not the building departments job to hold the engineer liable. Liability is ultimately decided by the courts not the building department. When has a building department sued an engineer? It doesn't happen.

Focus on compliance with the building code that was properly adopted.

 

[Yankee Chronicler]

Mark M is correct. As a licensed architect, I know first-hand that -- under the law -- my putting my seal and signature on a drawing is in no way a guarantee that the information on that drawing is correct. The registered design professional's seal and signature by law ONLY attest that the drawing was created either by the registered design professional, or under his or her direct supervision. In my state, architects are NOT allowed to seal anything they did not prepare personally or that they did not directly supervise. Period.

My state's registration laws do include a provision under which professional engineers may seal work they didn't prepare or supervise personally. However, that law includes a provision requiring the engineer to conduct a review of the document before sealing and signing it, and to prepare a written report setting forth the nature of the review he/she conducted. The law does not require that this review report accompany the document(s). We see a LOT of plan stamping in my town, by both architects and engineers. With the engineers, I have started asking for a copy of the report. It's required by law, so they can't object that I'm asking them to do any extra work.

When we know an architect has sold his seal, we can't ask for the report because it's not required (since architects aren't allowed to seal work by others at all), and our town administration has told us we can't report them to the licensing board. So we have to grit our teeth and find other ways to deal with it. A saving grace is that our State Building Inspector recently sent out a notice reminding us that we can accept only "wet" seals or proper digital seals with third-party authentication. Often, "sold" seals are just JPEG images -- so we now reject those, citing the directive from the State Building Inspector. I don't know how much an architect makes each time he/she sells their seal, but our hope is to make it more trouble than it's worth.

 

[Paul Sweet]

"It isn't up to a special inspector to "flag" non-compliance with the building code"

That's true. What I've seen done is flagging non-compliance with the specs, such as inadequate compaction or low-strength concrete. It made my job as the owners project manager easier because I knew which few of the hundreds of reports on a project needed to be followed up. It also reminds the A/E that they need to track the correction, or state a reason that they find the work acceptable anyway, especially since so many specs are beyond code requirements.

 

[ICE]

I was assigned to a city that has a private university. The university has a construction crew. The university had a habit of buying single family dwellings, duplexes and apartment buildings. These dwellings were for students and faculty. The construction crew performed a lot of additions and remodel work. There was a bunch of epoxy anchors for generic walls as well as shear walls.

Special inspectors had a cottage industry for the anchors. The special inspectors abused the privilege. For example, if there was a missing anchor or two, the inspector didn't say anything and would have to return after I wrote a correction. Of course the SI was getting paid each visit. After a while I decided to fulfill the role of special inspector. The crew would have it ready for installation and I would witness the work... no special inspector required.

There have been many cases where a SI was called out for epoxy anchors but the contractor missed a few. I would usually, but not always, let the contractor install the missing anchors without a SI.

Now don't get the idea that I think that you should do any of that unless you have a TCC... you don't.