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Just when you think you've seen everything ...

Yankee Chronicler

Yankee Chronicler

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Joined
Oct 17, 2023
Messages
1,336
Location
New England
Fresh set of plans came in today. Large-ish industrial building, the plan calls for walling in a small portion of a shop/warehouse space to make it an office/laboratory. The space is in a recess, so it already has three walls, with a wide cased opening on the fourth side.

Plans were prepared by an engineer (area of expertise not known) rather than by an architect. Plans call for the new enclosing wall to be a 1-hour rated wall, with a 2-hour rated door in it. There is an existing door at the opposite end of this new office/lab -- no rating mentioned.

How do these people even get a license?
 
Situations like this always make me wonder what they know that I don't. In a lot of cases they know more and my questioning leads to an increase in knowledge, in some cases they don't, which leads to time I'll never get back.

In this case, you may get to do a revision when they contractor puts in a lesser rated door, and the inspector fails them for it.
 
Yankee Chronicler said:
For those who missed it -- there is no such critter as a 2-hour fire-rated door. Listed/labeled doors come in 20-minute, 45-minute, 1-hour, 1-1.2-hour, and 3-hour ratings.
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I must admit, I missed that one, but I learned something by you pointing that out - thank you.

What caught my attention was a door with a higher rating than the wall. My thinking was that this was an example of poor quality control, like the drawings weren’t reviewed thoroughly before being sent out of the office. Sure, ideally the mistake would not have been made in the first place. But let’s assume it was an innocent typo, they should have looked the drawings over better to catch mistakes like that.

In reviewing the plans you had the advantage of fresh eyes - it’s weird but sometimes the more a person looks at something the less they see. But that’s not to excuse the engineer from doing a thorough and effective final review.

And of course we can’t ignore how maybe the engineer was working outside his area of expertise and really shouldn’t have been doing the architectural plans anyway.
 
I've also recently seen an alarming number of drawings come in that call for 45-minute fire doors on exit stair enclosures -- including some that connect four stories.

This is why I wonder if these people are buying their architect's or engineer's licenses from Amazon. I learned that up to 3 stories stairs get 1-hour doors and 4 stories and more the stairs get 1-1/2-hour doors before the ink was dry on my diploma. That was two years before I was eligible to take the licensing exam. It's actually scary for me to keep seeing licensed professionals, with their names on the door and on the title block, who DON'T know this stuff.
 
I don't know what an architect 's curriculum is but from observation - since architects have been my clients for 40+ years - my sense is the education has drifted away from technical skills towards design, and the apprenticeship time is more about computer adeptness than basics.
 
Yankee Chronicler said:
Speaking of typos -- I just saw that I made one. I typed 1-1.2-hour when it should have been (of course) 1-1/2-hour.
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Anyone can make a typo, we’re not machines.

Yankee Chronicler said:
But I didn't seal and sign my post and submit it for a building permit ...
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Very true. When someone is releasing drawings under seal that person needs to apply a higher level of quality control. I was about to say “higher standard of care” but the professional standard of care doesn’t require perfection - but that’s not an excuse for not doing an adequate review to avoid mistakes.

bill1952 said:
education has drifted away from technical skills towards design, and the apprenticeship time is more about computer adeptness than basics
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Based on student portfolios I’ve seen online I think “technical skill” in architect schools now focuses mostly on learning how to operate software and make nice renderings and presentations. None of the portfolios I’ve seen showed any technical drawings, like a wall section or plan with dimensions and notes.
 
Yankee Chronicler said:
there is no such critter as a 2-hour fire-rated door
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I found your critter, it was hanging out with a jackalope. Here’s an article where they describe common sightings of 2-hour doors, see the “Applications of 2-Hour Fire-Rated Doors” section (halfway down the page):

“Commercial Buildings: 2-hour fire doors are common in commercial structures…”
“Multi-Family Residences: …2-hour fire doors are often used…”
Other parts of this section describe 2-hour fire doors as “crucial” and “essential.”

2 Hour Fire Rated Doors

Order 2 hour fire rated steel doors for commercial and industrial properties from CDF Distributors. 2 hour steel fire rated doors are ideal for heavy traffic and security. Buy fire 2 hour rated steel doors from CDF Distributors.
www.cdfdistributors.com www.cdfdistributors.com

If you ever come across a 2-hour door in a building don’t open it, Bigfoot might be on the other side.


The engineer who submitted the plan you mentioned should read the article below, two choice quotes:

“Design professionals occasionally request two-hour fire rated doors. This often leaves distributors and manufacturers scratching their heads because there aren’t any US code requirements for a two-hour door. We believe these requests may be due to a misunderstanding of the International Building Code (IBC).”
“Specifying a 1 1/2 hour door rather than a 2-hour door is the way to go because it is an infinitely more common product.”

steeldoor.org

Steel Door Institute Newsletter: Two Hour Fire Rated Doors

Design professionals occasionally request two-hour fire rated doors, which can cause confusion since there are no US code requirements for this; learn more.
steeldoor.org steeldoor.org
 
walker.t said:
Based on student portfolios I’ve seen online I think “technical skill” in architect schools now focuses mostly on learning how to operate software and make nice renderings and presentations. None of the portfolios I’ve seen showed any technical drawings, like a wall section or plan with dimensions and notes.
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The only technical skill I have seen recently is the ability to cut-and-paste details and produce pretty 3D renderings. They really don't seem to care about getting things right!
 
I can't speak for other locations, but we have two accredited architecture schools in NC, and both schools focus on design, history, theory, 3D modeling, and environmental strategies. There is very little emphasis on building codes, with the understanding that you should learn the codes once you get a job and/or when you study for the licensing exams. However, I can't say that many do.
 
bill1952 said:
I don't know what an architect 's curriculum is but from observation - since architects have been my clients for 40+ years - my sense is the education has drifted away from technical skills towards design, and the apprenticeship time is more about computer adeptness than basics.
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This is what we've been seeing here as well.

One of my former employees worked a lot as a design tech in architectural firms and said most of her time was spent trying to cram whatever design the architect came up with into the code shaped box it has to fit in.
 
I find architects fall into two categories:

Professionals who have a strong understanding of Code, building design and other requirements whose plans are wholly if not largely bulletproof - and the other 65 per cent who didn't seem to learn much in university and are asking me to fill in the gaps in their education.
 
Inspector Gadget said:
I find architects fall into two categories:

Professionals who have a strong understanding of Code, building design and other requirements whose plans are wholly if not largely bulletproof - and the other 65 per cent who didn't seem to learn much in university and are asking me to fill in the gaps in their education.
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That's about right. Of course, you can't tell from an architect's license what school they went to, but my sense after being licensed for 50 years and having been at it for "a while" longer than that is that the less prestigious schools (like Penn State) do a much better job of preparing students for the real world than the Ivy League schools like Harvard and Yale. You are correct -- the "name" schools are all about design. In fact, there was a period when the famous architect Cesar Pelli was the Dean of the Yale School or Architecture. He maintained a design office in New Haven at the same time he was dean.

When I say "design" office, I mean "design" office. ALL he did was design the exterior of the building. His firm then farmed out the construction documents to one of two or three other local firms he had arrangements with. It was quite a deal (for him) -- if the project went well, he got all the publicity. If there were problems -- somebody else's seal was on the construction documents, so their insurance had to pay up.
 
Inspector Gadget said:
I find architects fall into two categories:

Professionals who have a strong understanding of Code, building design and other requirements whose plans are wholly if not largely bulletproof - and the other 65 per cent who didn't seem to learn much in university and are asking me to fill in the gaps in their education.
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I won't say the first group are all over 65 (years), but I suspect the second group are all well under 65.

I will add that the trend away from long meetings with the whole design team represented around a conference table hasn't helped. I sure learned a lot from those meetings and believe I was able to share a lot as I grew more experienced. And you had a good chance of knowing if everyone understood. Everything now is in email snippets and short video meeting bytes and very little feedback.

I've become my elders.
 
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