Acceptable engineering practice has more to do with rational design and analysis methods, tested over time, and accepted by the engineering community, which would be defended by the majority of the engineering community as a proper approach to that particular problem.
DRP’s statement was “according to accepted engineering practice,” and another way I’ve seen it stated is ‘rational analysis in accordance with well-established principles of mechanics and engineering.’ And technically, “by a licenced engineer” is not part of that verbiage. In fact, I have had people working for me and doing that kind of work, who were not licenced engineers, as long as I supervised their work and assumed responsibility for it, of course I had a hand in their training, so I trusted their work. Someone sufficiently trained in the science and art of engineering should be able to apply various acceptable methods to arrive at a solution to the problem, and several different people might arrive at slightly different solutions, to the same problem, each rational, explainable and justifiable. This exercise really says nothing about what school that person got their education from, a few of my people were actually very capable VoTech grads with some good guidance and experience. Engineers generally find it easier to sit for testing and get registered if they have attended a properly accredited college, land grant or otherwise. You guys are sorta doing some elementary engineering by interpreting the code or by looking in the tables, etc. and saying ‘yes that beam should be O.K. or that column meets the code. This assumes you understand how to properly use those tables and their limitations. Some of you sorta seem bent on running engineers out of the business. The place that licensed engineering comes into play is that most states (probably all jurisdictions) have laws which say that the practice of Architecture and Engineering should only be performed by people licenced and proficient in those fields. To me that means if you are not licenced you should be very careful what engineering you do, you should be very careful that you know how to add up all the loads correctly, understand the load paths, all so as not to negate the usefulness of the tables, then if you can’t pick it out of the IRC tables, you probably need a licenced engineer.
Std. engineering practice or acceptable engineering practice is a slightly nebulous thing until you do something wrong or do something that fails. Many people get along for years on luck, lack of ever seeing max. design loads, and the grace of God. But, when they finally end up in trouble, the Court’s terminology is something like, ‘in a manor which a prudent engineer would perform this function,’ and there will be plenty of experts there to refute that person’s prudence and use of rational methods, and then they use the ugly word negligent, and then you’ve got a real problem on your hands. The sad thing is that some other people who strut around claiming to know everything, and doing engineering in a dictatorial way, are not held to that same std. in court.
The IRC is a prescriptive code written and engineered in a conservative way with the idea of keeping you and house builders out of trouble in most cases, and with the realization that there probably won’t be much engineering oversight on most of the covered projects. I can do many things by following the IBC, that your code won’t allow, they take full engineering advantage of the materials, and our design methods, and I wouldn’t expect to get any hassle in getting them accepted by your bldg. dept. or a higher authority if needs be.
Accepted engineering practice has been used to set up the IRC, if you stick to the IRC you should be O.K. Accepted engineering practice does not mean you can practice, or are really practicing engineering because you can pick a joist or beam out of an IRC table. If there is a question about accepted engineering practice in your mind, you should certainly not be doing any engineering, and this determination is beyond your purview. If the engineer’s work fails to meet the code, and you can point to specifics, where he can’t legitimately explain how his approach still complies, you probably have a case. Otherwise, I would make him provide calcs., sketches, drawings, written explanation of how his method complies, and then let him assume the full responsibility which he does every time he signs construction documents. You sorta have to be able to explain and defend your objections to his details, methods, etc., unless you can point to a code sentence which says “he can’t do that,” using exactly those words with his picture and his detail as accompanying figures, a & b. It would seem to me that you generally have some obligation to tell then why you are objecting to the situation. Surprisingly enough, over 45 yrs. I have had very few objections or red lines from plan checkers, or bldg. inspectors; very few disagreements which I could not explain and resolve to the mutual satisfaction of both of us. I also knew when to pick my fights, and if a two bit addition would please an ornery inspector, I told the contractor do it, for me, then you can buy me lunch, because if I have to go argue with his boss my time will cost you more than this fix, and he’ll just be the ****yer because he got overruled in front of you.
