Powerless MEP Engineers
Powerless MEP Engineers
(OP)
Has it come to your attention that we MEP Engineers are the slaves of the construction industry?
The ones with the least power.
Take an example, one cannot built a home without a structural engineer stamp. One cannot built a house without an architect or without a civil engineer stamp.
Yet, any one can build a house without having a Mechanical Engineer or Electrical Engineer stamp plans. Contractors can pull a building permit without a PE stamp.
AND to top it all, we as Mechanical engineers for example cannot install or contract out any installation of HVAC or plumbing work without a license. We cannot even buy an air conditioner that we specify for our own home unless we go through a contractor who will pull the permit without the PE stamp.
I tell you, every industry has a true tough society that lobbies for its members. What do we have? "for-profit" ASHRAE? ASHRAE actually makes life tougher and tougher with all its ASHRAE 90.1, 62, 15 that we need to learn with all the updates without being paid a nickel extra for it.
We need to lobby to pass laws that prohibit anyone from obtaining a permit for anything unless stamped by a PE, just like any other trade.
Try to practice medecine or law without the proper accreditation and you'll see.
What's your take?
The ones with the least power.
Take an example, one cannot built a home without a structural engineer stamp. One cannot built a house without an architect or without a civil engineer stamp.
Yet, any one can build a house without having a Mechanical Engineer or Electrical Engineer stamp plans. Contractors can pull a building permit without a PE stamp.
AND to top it all, we as Mechanical engineers for example cannot install or contract out any installation of HVAC or plumbing work without a license. We cannot even buy an air conditioner that we specify for our own home unless we go through a contractor who will pull the permit without the PE stamp.
I tell you, every industry has a true tough society that lobbies for its members. What do we have? "for-profit" ASHRAE? ASHRAE actually makes life tougher and tougher with all its ASHRAE 90.1, 62, 15 that we need to learn with all the updates without being paid a nickel extra for it.
We need to lobby to pass laws that prohibit anyone from obtaining a permit for anything unless stamped by a PE, just like any other trade.
Try to practice medecine or law without the proper accreditation and you'll see.
What's your take?





RE: Powerless MEP Engineers
Cheers
Greg Locock
SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Powerless MEP Engineers
Professional engineers responsibility is to the public, and when installing equipment for residential, the risk is not in design, but in bad installation. I've not heard that you can't buy an air conditioner without a permit, that seems a little extreme, aren't you free to do work on your own home?
RE: Powerless MEP Engineers
So - like I tell my co-workers - "You want a little cheese with that whine???"
I do!!
BTW - I do AGREE w/ you!!
RE: Powerless MEP Engineers
RE: Powerless MEP Engineers
I've seen multiple beams, no deeper than 12", with contractor cutting 8x8 holes in them to run his flexible ductwork. Contractors cut beams all the time and they pass inspections (inspectors are old contractors).
I've seen electrical contractors making holes in beams with a hammer instead of drilling through, and cracking the entire beam in the process.
I've seen a plumber cutting a beam in half because it was in the way of his sanitary line.
When a contractor does not have space, he does not care about coordination, he just takes his space (i.e cut beams and go through).
Architects rendering plans leaving it to the contractor to coordinate in criminal.
I've seen grand entrances with giant 30x30 return grilles right in front of you as you walk in the house, ugly as hell.
You don't need plans they say.
RE: Powerless MEP Engineers
Not sure about other countries but I'd be interested to hear.
RE: Powerless MEP Engineers
My wife is a doctor, who is considered to be underperforming if she sees fewer than 4 patients per hour, and will never make the big bucks if she doesn't crank through 6 patients per hour. Note that this requires a minimum of working through lunch plus at least one extra hour after hours to do the charts. Her boss puts in at least 3 hrs overtime a day doing charts.
What's so glam about that? She's on here feet 7 hours minimum a day; when she sits, she's doing the charts.
TTFN
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RE: Powerless MEP Engineers
6 patients an hour? you hardly have time to ask the questions about the patient's pain in 10 minutes, let alone diagnose, I do not dare talk about treatment. That's a sausage factory man, not a doctor's office.
I do miss the point of your post IRstuff. I guess my foreign brain is getting confused again with the American language.
RE: Powerless MEP Engineers
As a engineer, you get to sit down to do your work, maybe get a cold or flu because someone's sick, but you're not intentionally interacting with sick people, at 6 per hour.
TTFN
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RE: Powerless MEP Engineers
Cheers
Greg Locock
SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Powerless MEP Engineers
It's already worse than what I have to do, and I don't even have a union
TTFN
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RE: Powerless MEP Engineers
I think most contractors would prefer a completed set of plans from which to bid, schedule, and build, but the owner handed him the print as it was to get the job rolling. Unless more construction lawsuits develop from incomplete plans resulting in delayed schedule or non-payment or not adhering to specifications, then things will continue with the engineer becoming more obsolete in construction.
RE: Powerless MEP Engineers
In Ohio, a mechanical contractor who holds out services to the public for anything except 1-, 2-, and 3-family residences must be licensed. A homeowner doing work on his own home does not require a license.
Permits are issued to a property owner and a lot of people are under the impression that contractors pull permits. Contractors are only acting as the owner's agent.
In Ohio, there is legislation being discussed to certify and license home inspectors, and the engineers are opposed to this without an engineer's exemption.
Cry22, I am not sure where you are at but everything you stated is not the case in Ohio. But I agree that the professional societies try to protect its memberships. The structural engineers are trying to prevent mechanical engineers, as an example, from sealing structural designs, but few states have licensing laws supporting this. Interior designer licensing is opposed by architects and engineers unless thier scope is severly limited, and civil engineers try to prevent landscape architect's from sealing development plans. And let us not forget how architect's seal a full (structural, civil, and MEP's) set of drawings with engineers opposing this while architect's have issue with engineers design buildings.
This is why I am a member of NSPE and ASCE and I support their involvement in the lawmaking process. I wrote my congressional representatives in 2003 when Ohio was trying to adopt a statewide residential building code. An urban county could literally have 25 jurisdictions with 25 different codes - many vastly different (from the 1987 National Building Code to the 2000 International Residential Code) with many amendments. Imagine being a production builder trying to design a house model with that many variables.
We have to stay involved and protect turf because the elected officials, right or wrong, have to listen to everyone to hopefully make the right decisions.
(exhausted after that all that time on the soapbox)
Don Phillips
http://worthingtonengineering.com