Competing against engineers that under-design
Competing against engineers that under-design
(OP)
I work in a market that includes engineers that routinely under-design the buildings they engineer. Specifically, I seen many designs that are based on moment arms for overturning that are shorter than where they must be. I have seen designs that calculate uplift forces for shear walls inaccurately. They assuming that shear wall of buildings see only the shear from the roof. They routinely ignore the uplift that would be imparted onto the shear wall by the seismic force acting at the center of gravity of the roof. The same calculations ignore the uplift that is transferred to the shear wall by wind forces. If going by the letter of the building code, this is an underestimation.
Does any one have any suggestions for dealing with this? Do I go to the building departments and ask them if they sanction the practice that my competition engage in? Do I just let my clients go off to those that are exposing themselves as well as my client to potential liability? Am I obligate under the board rules to alert authorities to this practice? Do you suggest I take the bull by the horn or pretend that I don’t know what I suspect?
There is a wide spectrum of avenues this issue can be approached and dealt with. The way I see this, I would be unfairly competed against as long as there are other engineers who are willing or unaware that they are assuming the liability associated with shorter moment arms for wind and seismic case as discussed above. I may point out that this practice expose everyone involved to potential risks. In support of exposing this practice, I have an ethical dilemma and continence to deal with. I may also choose to underplay this and take the complacent approach. This wouldn’t rock many boats and wouldn’t pull chains.
On the other hand, my predicament cannot be a unique and I cannot be the first engineer to come face to face with such dilemma. I am hoping that I can draw on someone’s experience in similar position.
I appreciate any comments and suggestions on how to deal with this seemingly no so unique situation.
Thanks
Amir Zamanian
Does any one have any suggestions for dealing with this? Do I go to the building departments and ask them if they sanction the practice that my competition engage in? Do I just let my clients go off to those that are exposing themselves as well as my client to potential liability? Am I obligate under the board rules to alert authorities to this practice? Do you suggest I take the bull by the horn or pretend that I don’t know what I suspect?
There is a wide spectrum of avenues this issue can be approached and dealt with. The way I see this, I would be unfairly competed against as long as there are other engineers who are willing or unaware that they are assuming the liability associated with shorter moment arms for wind and seismic case as discussed above. I may point out that this practice expose everyone involved to potential risks. In support of exposing this practice, I have an ethical dilemma and continence to deal with. I may also choose to underplay this and take the complacent approach. This wouldn’t rock many boats and wouldn’t pull chains.
On the other hand, my predicament cannot be a unique and I cannot be the first engineer to come face to face with such dilemma. I am hoping that I can draw on someone’s experience in similar position.
I appreciate any comments and suggestions on how to deal with this seemingly no so unique situation.
Thanks
Amir Zamanian






RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
i work also as an structural engineer and we have also a
hard competition resulting in very light steel structures.
so the structural engineer is fully responsible for the
correctness of his calculation or design.
for example if there is severe damage to people or buildings, the structural engineer can even go in jail !
i thinks this is in your country the same !
but if you see things that are obviously dangerous to other
people, then you are obliged to the police for example
please excuse my moderate english !!
wolfgang
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
Given what you said, what do you do? Do you allow your clients to go to others that under-design or did you try to fend for yourself and point the inferior design to stakeholders, thus exposing others, possibly getting a chance to retain your client, and certainly dealing with the aftermath?
I would really like to get a feel for how others faced with this issue would react.
Thank you
Amir Zamanian
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
if there are clients seek these under-designing engineers, they will find someone who does it.
its like people who like to drive without brakes, you can
try to explain themselves the risks but you cannot stop
them.
thanks god, my clients want economic and save designs,
and not an underdesign.
but if anyone wants an underdesign, i would try to explain
him the risks, but if he would go to another its his own risk.
are there so much people who want an underdesign of you ?
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
I find that this is more of a problem with smaller buildings. With larger buuildings, everyone is pretty much designing and detailing the same.
Without someone calling attention to these practices, everyone suffers. Clients do not want to pay higher fees because the engineer or architect that under-designs is only charging a minimal amount.
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
I have felt the pressure to "measure down" to those that under-design. It also the case that these encounters have been builders of smaller buildings. You are also accurate that the engineers that have given into this are often the less pricey ones. It is possible that they can afford it because they don't spend as much effort in their designs as they otherwise would have had to.
It is a hard place to be in. I would hate to lose the business, but that has often been the outcome. Do you let the business go to your under performing competition? Do you happen to come across this often?
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
If you are sure and truly aware of bad or under designed structure, it is your ethical duty to alert some of the situation before it makes it into the 6 o'clock news!
I would start by calling the engineer, owner, and the state board of engineers. Public safety is the utmost duty for us structural engineers.
Second:
Unless you mean that other engineers perform engineering work much cheaper than your firm, design fee wise. Then theses engineers skimp on the design information and details. They also tent top produce poor quality plans. This is a separate and soar issue to me.
Does everyone agree with me?
Regards,
Lutfi
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
i agree.
at first, every engineer has to decide for himself if he
want to to his job right or not.
there is always someone, who offers the same job for less money.
if you do an job properly for less money, you just lose some dollars.
if you systematically underdesign, chances are good that you land in jail an lose all !
so never ever underdesign !
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
I want to stay in business and out of court. I also want to be able to afford my insurance.
I once reviewed some marginal or questionable design work, and the Engineer said that he had never been accused of overdesigning. I didn't respond, but I knew that from reviews of some of his other jobs.
If the client wants cut rate construction, he also wants cut rate design fees; once you get in the circle it's hard to get out. I'd rather try to not hurt our profession that way.
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
1) If the engineer is underbidding you, it's hard to do by under-designing. It takes more work to cut corners than to over-design. If I wanted to do a cheap design (engineer's cost only), I would use 2 x 8's at 12 inches everywhere. Then I wouldn't have to run any calculations.
2) I don't like to throw out accusations of under-designing unless I'm 100% sure I can defend them. I've thought structures were under-designed or badly designed, but after I talked to the designer realized that I missed some critical assumption or detail. I'm not saying you're doing that, but be careful.
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
I realize this is a small portion of the construction industry and that manufacturing is probably a different culture than in general construction, but I bring it up here because of my conclusion that the "under designers" tend to pull down the rest of us. This can happen because the customer will go with the lowest bid and because management tends to favor the people (whether an engineer or not) with the lightest or lower cost design over the rest of us.
Understand that this is just my opinion based on how things look from my vantage point.
Regards,
-Mike
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
RE: Competing against engineers that under-design
In my experience, this problem is worse with wood buildings, because anyone can drive some nails or pick up a circular saw, thus making them more qualified then some "college boy" engineer. We are basically being pressured right now to "not over-complicate" things to keep costs down. Translated, this means they want us to "wink" at some of the code requirements to save some pennies. Of course we will not do this. The contractor wants to pinch pennies so they can look like a hero to the owner, and both of them can profit monetarily when engineers don't follow the code and give in to them. However, the engineer has to shoulder all of the potential liability for the benefit of the other two. Why other engineers do this is beyond me, but they do. I think it is a mis-guided attempt to keep business, but what they are doing is dragging the whole profession down. Another thing, when the contractor does find an engineer to go along with them, and then they work with another engineer who will not, that engineer is guilty in the contractors eyes of doing things that are never done, and in 30 years he's never even seen anyone do anything like it.
With the unrealistic schedules, budgets, contractor/owner penny pinching, and reliance on the computer by unqualified but "cheap" individuals, I'm surprised we haven't had a major collapse for a while.