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This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)
13

This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

(OP)
The photo and the plan explains it all.  Enjoy  smile

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

a star for making me laugh

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Nice spot for a potted shrub!

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

10
(OP)
Since they added another riser, each riser is probably only 5" high.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Ha!

Very good, COEngineeer!

Lineweights do matter, do they not?

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Hi COEngineer:

So, for a play on your words ... one needs good drawings and a contractor with common sense. This should make a good text-book illustration.

Yogi Anand, D.Eng, P.E.
Energy Efficient Building Network LLC
ANAND Enterprises LLC
http://www.energyefficientbuild.com

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

(OP)
Yup they do, and putting the tag the same spacing as the risers don't help either.  smile

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Can't build stairs from plan view.  Detail leaders are unnecessary if only one detail close to label.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

I would think the building inspector will require the landing to meet the minimum 5' depth required by code.

Don Phillips
http://worthingtonengineering.com

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Had you not doctored the photo, I wouldn't have believed it...

Dik

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

OMG !

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Everyone in our office is laughing out loud as I type this.

What a classic boner!!!!!

Stupid is as stupid does.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Looks to me like the contractor was trying to make a point.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

I would be curious if you have any additional information on this?  (IE, is it an actual picture of a stairway that was constructed from that actual drawing?)

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

(OP)
No I dont have anymore information.  Yes, that is the actual picture from that drawing.  

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Who are we laughing at here?  The draftsman or the builder.  No, its both!

BigInchworm-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Good laugh for a cold Monday am in NE. I would love to have seen the architect's reaction when he discovered this and heard the contractor's explaination.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

(OP)
I wouldnt blame it on the architect.  I think his drawing is not that confusing.  You can see the line doesnt go all the way to the wall.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Yup, but that's exactly why the step doesn't go all the way to the wall either.  

Since when have detail callouts been allowed to be stuck on the object to be constructed?  The callout is also missing the arrowhead and I assume the heavy broken line is a hidden pedestal below.
  
Can't figure why the contractor didn't paint "2/A6.10" on the two stair treads though.  

BigInchworm-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Fantastic... I love it.

This is the kind of mistake everyone can laugh at because there is really no damage here!  a fantastic place for a shrub as was said earlier.

if in doubt... ASK


RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

I agree with jmiec.  Looks like the contractor is trying to make a point, although I don't think the drawing is that confusing.  I would assume that there was a section through the stairs that would clarify the number of risers.     

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Call me a sceptic but I don't yet believe it hasn't been photoshopped.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

The photo has definitely not been tampered with.  Did you mean the drawing?

BigInchworm-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

I had a similar situation.  On my typical section of the footing I had a tag with a solid circle at the end with the note "32"x12" ftg with 4-#4 bars continous" the tags circle was at the high side of the footing.  The builder placed the 4 bars of reinforcing steel at 3" off the ground.  The building inspector made him move one bar to the top of the footing where the tag circle was shown.
Even after I pointed out his mistake, the inspector required the bar at the top.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Just goes to show that the old saying, "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.", applies to drawings.

BigInchworm-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

The only point that the contractor made is that he is an idiot.  Yes, the drawing is not that great.  Okay, it's even bad but if the contractor thought you wanted this, why didn't he asked what the dimensions are supposed to be?  Did he scale it?  One of the first things I was taught after I came out of my mother's womb is never scale a drawing.  Now I see why.

As for the comment about there is no arrow.  I rarely see arrows on this kind of detail symbol.

I've beat up the contractor, now let's talk about the drafter for a second.  I get sick and tired of trying to explain to drafters how stupid people can be and why you have to bend over backwards to make drawings clear.  I work with a guy who has been doing this for 30 years and he still doesn't get it.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Dozer,  

The longer the drafter is in the business the less he/she is willing to change.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

The topic of drafters has come up in this thread.

Are there many drafters employeed out there? When I started in this business there were 2 "draftsmen" for every engineer. With the use of CAD over the last 10 years the drafter, at least in the NE USA, has gone the way of the dinosaur. Engineers seem to be doing alot of their work on CAD themselves.

I was told that back in the 50-60's it was expected that an engineer spend a couple of years on the "boards" before they were allowed to design. This had changed when I started in the 70's.

What is the experience of this forum with present day drafters? How many engineers do their own or partial CAD?

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Isn't it funny how the most idiotic items are the ones that are never queried before proceeding?

Maybe a note on the drawings is in order:
"Call BEFORE making any decisions."

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

The standards for and how to produce drawings have been developed over a couple of hundred years now, and if used properly, result in unambiguous concepts suitable for construction without making any phone calls.  In those few  situations that can still remain ambiguous regardless of the number of views included, the use of explicatory notes to clarify the idea is in order.

What is amazing to me today are the immense numbers of "draftsmen" that cannot even arrange plan, profile and elevation views in the proper locations on a piece of drawing paper, never mind pay attention to line weights.    When you eventually find one that can, treat them with all the respect they deserve.... nothing short of what you would give Michealangelo Buonarroti.

BigInchworm-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

The draftsmen who are left are the ones who had to be careful about making mistakes on manually prepared drawings.  A few times repeating their work on linen or mylar taught them to think.  Drawings now are prepared largely by computer operators (including some engineers), and the drawings look very neat, but often are gibberish.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

How do you post a picture?

SrG.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Like many of you folks, I've been fighting this sort of thing my whole career.  One fellow summed it all up in a nice quip, "Don't bother making the drawings idiot proof.  They'll always come up with a better idiot."

Thanks for the post.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Funny picture... I showed this to an architect in our office, and he said he had something similar happen when his column line labels all fell onto the center of a sidewalk just outside the building.  Every 20' the contractor ended up forming a circle which was raised 2" above the sidewalk (no numbers or letters though).

Its scary to think of all the unintended information that can be extrapolated out of a set of plans.  Where the contractor should be asking questions like "what are the dimensions of this funky cutout in the stair?" or "what are these circles in the sidewalk and how high should they protrude above the surface?" they just forge ahead with incorrect assumptions.  

I've noticed that the "good" contractors, engineers, drafters, etc. are the ones that ask lots of questions. Agree?

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

(OP)
hahahah... ok. .that one is photoshopped for sure.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Which brings us back to the question of whether the original photo is for real or not.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Similar sort of thing, a revision cloud.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
pimp

"The world keeps turning, it keeps me in my place; where I stand is only three miles from space"
Spiritualized

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

More nice work with Photoshop.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Hi,
I am practising in Sri Lanka. I have seen this revision cloud like opening one occation. You get this profile when making openings in concrete slabs / walls with diamond coring rigs.

Clefcon

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

I am not surprised at all that the contractor poured the stair cut out with out asking for dimensions. Why?

1.  The Architect never responded to his RFI, asking for clarification.

2.  The contractor showed the cut out on his shop drawings with dimensions asking the Architect to verify the dimension. The Architect failed to comment on any of the shop drawing verification requests, so the contractor proceeded on the basis that the drawings were approved with no exceptions taken.  No exceptions means the review agreed with all the elevations and dimensions that the contractor requested be verified.

3.  The Architect's response to the RFI was to see the structural drawings.  The structural drawings refer the contractor back to the architectural drawings and also show no dimensions.

4.  The architectural plans shows one cut out with 4 steps.  The structural shows the stairs twice as wide with two cut outs and 8 steps.

I graduated in 1978 and have seen the quality of architectural and structural plans decline signifcantly since then.

I have seen structural plans where the  interior beams frame into cmu walls above the roof outside of the building  envelope.  Ridge beams that were supported by the roof rafters.  Details that can't be constructed because the members framing in are sloped and skewed and run into each other unlike the detail that shows everthing flat and at a 90 degree angle.  

I am tempted, some times, to give out annual purple shaft awards to ten architectural or engineering firms who put out the worst plans.  Such a practice would be bad for business.

However I should give out annual golden sliderule awards to the firms that put out quality plans.  Even today their our many firms that still put out excellent plans.  

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

RARSWC

Agree.  That's what I had in mind when I replied "Looks like the Contractor was trying to make a point."

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Quote:

You get this profile when making openings in concrete slabs / walls with diamond coring rigs.

Here is an interesting example of that:

http://www.concut.com/ps_halifax.htm

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

(OP)
I dont get it.. who could you not have rebars in the elevated slab?  Photoshoped for sure?

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

quit lying, lol....that wasn't poured like that.


or was it?

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

I have this pic on the bulletin board so all the techs at my office are familiar with it.  One of the techs called me from a job site and said that the contractor had the same picture on his bulletin board.  The contractor however had very different caption:

"Just because it's on the drawings doesn't make it right!"

What the ?!

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

WTF!!!

Why does it sound like most posts are attempting to blame the Architect/Engineer/Draftsman?

Doesn't anyone know that the majority of the states in USA require General Contractor's to pass a written exam and have a certain level of experience prior to becoming certified!

I am licensed as a General Contractor and soon I will be taking the PE exam.  When I took the exam for my GC license there were 5+(over 10%) questions on Florida Building Code requirements for stair riser/tread dimensions and a 5" riser is not allowed.  PERIOD!

Regardless, I agree that drawing standards are important but there are no standardized requirements in my state so it falls on individual engineers/architects and those standards will vary from company to company.

In addition RARSWC has a point but the Architect should have answered the RFI, structural engineers ARE NOT Architects, dimensions of risers/treads is not on the PE Exam!

The principal of my company thinks that we as engineers need to dumb down our drawings to the point that a 2 year old child could build a skyscraper, I DISAGREE how about requiring GC's have just a little bit of common sense?

Either way some of the funniest crap I have ever seen, it's a shame the name of the builder isn't posted I hope he doesn't work in my part of town...

2thumbsup

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

I think you can have a 5" riser - I only recall maximum riser height of 7.75" in the IBC (and FBC is suppoed to be based on IBC).  You are required to have a 5' landing on each side of an door, however.

Don Phillips
http://worthingtonengineering.com

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Quote (BigInch):

Since when have detail callouts been allowed to be stuck on the object to be constructed?  The callout is also missing the arrowhead and I assume the heavy broken line is a hidden pedestal below.

I think you are seeing this wrong.  There is not supposed to be any arrow, the detail cut isn't stuck on the object, and there is no pedestal.  The heavy line and detail callout is for a plan blowup detail of the edge of the door.  
To me, this is mostly readable.  True, the callout could have been pulled off to the other side, but we don't know that, we can't see the entire plan.  This may have been the only spot available to locate the callout.  It could have been moved up so it didn't look like a riser, but this is definitely the contractors mistake. I'm suprised he didn't question this odd looking stair!

I work on plenty of plans where space is an issue.  As much as I hate having bad looking drawings, there is usually not much you can do about it, and you just have to fit things in.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

Contractor licensing programs may test someone at the contractor, but don't normally test every foreman or worker there.

But the big question that has been bypassed is whether even the original picture is a factual portrayal of what went on.  In doing some searching for this a while back, I found scads of references to the same picture, or versions with additional digital modifications, but never any hint of the actual circumstance behind this shot.  It's obvious that the picture has been further modified digitally, it's obvious that similar pictures have been created digitally, and anyone reading Snopes knows it's not uncommon to have "real" pictures circulated with misleading descriptions.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

half the workforce on construction sites here are illegals (not just assuming--1st hand knowledge). and they do not know how to read or speak english so who the heck is looking at the drawings? sometimes, it's the one that speaks english who also happens to be the foreman. more often than not, they're not looking at the drawings...they follow the direction of the foreman so it's very easy for things to completely be missed since they're just working from the neck down. as far as the picture goes, it may very well be enhanced, but i'm absolutely sure that silly things like that happen all the time--sometimes because of poorly thought out plans but more often than not as a direct result of the quality of the contractor. either way, the contractor should be throwing up red flags to the project team--that is part of their job (plus it helps their relationship with the rest of the team if they don't intentially put stuff in that will not work--sure makes pay adjustments flow easier when you're on the same team as the people that are paying your check). that's my thought for what it's worth.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

But note the issue in the photo comes from slavishly following the drawings (or someone's understanding of them), not from ignoring the drawings.

RE: This is why you need good drawings (or contractor w/ common sense)

I agree with all of you ! We have a professional issue here! I train structural engineers how to do calculations with a little bit of quality thrown in. It blows my mind that most of them now appear to lack all confidence in checking their own drawings, but if you can't do it, you can't do it. We are losing our craft.

The last ten years has seen a decline in engineering standards. In the petrochemical business, the rise of the designers usurped the roles of lead engineers in the previous era (pre-computers) because we are 'copying' something that was done before....... Now designers stand alongside engineers eclipsed by the rise of the modellers. The modellers are defining and designing the jobs, and god help us! Drawings cut from the model are deplorable in standard, sackable offences! Expect more confusion.

www.motagg.com

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