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Outsourcing Plan Review Poll

Outsourcing Plan Review Poll

  • Yes, Overflow work only when we can't keep up

    Votes: 1 8.3%

  • Yes, Only Residential projects

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Yes, Only Commercial projects

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Yes, All plan review is outsourced

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • No, We do 100% of our plan review at all times

    Votes: 9 75.0%

  • No, We don't even do plan review

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Yes, As needed for special projects/reasons

    Votes: 2 16.7%
  • Total voters
    12
jar546

jar546

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Oct 16, 2009
Messages
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Location
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I am very curious as to how many of you outsource either all, part of or none of the plan review, or don't even do plan review as part of your job. Please answer the questions appropriately. This also applies to architecture and engineering firms. Thank you,
 
I heard from an inspector that went to work for San Bernardino County that the county does not plan check anything that is submitted by an architect or engineer. Word has it that he quit the county because he couldn't deal with that.

It could be a fabrication but that's the way I was told.
 
I do all of ours, unless it's stupid busy and I can't get to it in a reasonable amount of time. If we send them out, they go to ICC.
 
Great information. Keep the poll going. I appreciate it.

I find it interesting so far. I wonder how many architectural and engineering firms answered the poll?
 
Jar546,

I work at a large A/E firm and the person that answered: "No, we don't even do plan review." That does not mean we do not QA the work before sending it for plan check. The construction documents are reviewed by people that have not worked on the project. Frequently, this means sending it to another office.
 
Currently not doing direct enforcement, so not a part of my job... per se.

I am an instructor for my State and we do include plan review classes in our basic training regimen.

When I was in direct enforcement we did plan review in-house. The only times the municipal Engineer reviewed pans for the Building Department, it was a disaster as the Engineer was not familiar with the Code.
 
ICE said:
I heard from an inspector that went to work for San Bernardino County that the county does not plan check anything that is submitted by an architect or engineer. Word has it that he quit the county because he couldn't deal with that.It could be a fabrication but that's the way I was told.
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My biggest problem is architects and engineers that do not coordinate their drawings

Even engineers in the same office that have conflicting information.

Just because it is signed by a design professional does not mean the signator has looked at them

Many architectural firms I worked for, the licensed design professional never reviewed the drawings
 
jar546 said:
I know there are a lot more people than that who could take this poll....please.......
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I'm in a suburb of Chicago...I could get some dead people to vote if you like...I voted special projects as we send all the fire stuff and commercial kitchen hood & duct out.
 
We do not outsource anything.

We do have directly employed alternate/backup plan reviewers and field inspectors that are employed full-time by other Third Party, Municipality and Engineering Firm on a part time as needed basis to use when we get swamped, multiple vacations, injury or seminars... We run a fairly tight office and workload.
 
We plan review everything with some exceptions for fire. Bigger projects get sent out for some reason even though structural, mech, plumb and elect still are in house. We also do all inspections, except special inspections, in house.

The city I live in has a different approach. They plan review in house, which takes a very long time and multiple phone calls to get through, then they outsource the inspections. A few inspections for my remodel were more like drive by's except that they rang the doorbell, peeked inside the doorway area, got a signature from the contractor, and moved on.

Which explains all the problems that I have had to fix in my new home, outside of my remodel.
 
I know we have more people willing to answer this poll. Looking to get some better numbers so we get a sense across the country what code offices, architects and engineers are doing.

Thank you.
 
Plan review, is't that just another delay?? ;)

"If it's stamped its golden!" according to my super, "why have another engineer review what the first engineers putting his stamp on"?

Just my little review I find the cut and paste mistakes like the wrong city, wrong address and wrong codes used and that's just the first page!

Poll answer; Building official review, between checking on weeds and complaints.

It's not as rosy as ICE makes it!

pc1
 
mark handler said:
My biggest problem is architects and engineers that do not coordinate their drawingsEven engineers in the same office that have conflicting information.

Just because it is signed by a design professional does not mean the signator has looked at them

Many architectural firms I worked for, the licensed design professional never reviewed the drawings
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In the offices I worked at this was the case more often than not. The partner in charge was lucky if they did a quick review of the documents before they went out the door. Coordination was always a problem between disciplines. It didn't matter how soon we got structural drawings, plans, elevations, and building sections for the project to the consulting engineers. When I got their 95% docs back I'd still have to spend considerable time checking for conflicts with they're systems, the structure and the room above ceiling and there were always plenty. Made me mad as heck considering the % of fee they got on our projects. It's like they didn't even look at the other guys work. Some were better than others obviously, but it happened more than it should have. I imagine many don't bother to check because they figure it's taken care of by the consultant they hired...good luck with that.
 
We do all plan reviews in house. I also do plan reviews from other townships for my company and have no idea who does the inspections. I have accepted one electrical review recently but it did not change the permit fee. The townships fee schedule does not change if others do the plan review.
 
I work for a third party plan review agency in the DC area. More and more jurisdictions here are permitting third party reviews and inspections. This market, for many reasons is very unique though and would not say it is the model for the rest of the world.
 
City Managers prefer out sourcing to acquiring additional retirement costs, this in difference to loss of Institutional memory. They don't get it until a street collapses or a bridge fails that was built before they were born.
 
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