Engineers Responsibilty
Engineers Responsibilty
(OP)
So I work as an engineer for a truss company and have been getting more and more requests from other structural engineers about truss designs we performed 10+ years ago. They want this information because they will be installing solar panels on the roof and want info to help them figure out if the roof is suffiecient for the new loads. I have only been here 5 years so all of these requests are for jobs I had no part in designing. Plus, are they also asking the Engineer of record for the structural and foundation designs?
My question is what responsibilty do I have to provide this information? We only have hard copies of some of these jobs and they are in storage and we could spend at least a few hours to find the requested info. Can I or should I charge them for this time (not at my full rate of course)? Do we actually have to provide this info or is it just a courtesy to the other engineer? What would they do if they couldn't get this info.
I am sure were not the only ones getting these requests so how are other companies handeling this?
Thanks for the help in advance...
My question is what responsibilty do I have to provide this information? We only have hard copies of some of these jobs and they are in storage and we could spend at least a few hours to find the requested info. Can I or should I charge them for this time (not at my full rate of course)? Do we actually have to provide this info or is it just a courtesy to the other engineer? What would they do if they couldn't get this info.
I am sure were not the only ones getting these requests so how are other companies handeling this?
Thanks for the help in advance...






RE: Engineers Responsibilty
RE: Engineers Responsibilty
They should be willing to pay for the information, since it will save them the trouble of analyzing the entire roof framing.
RE: Engineers Responsibilty
If you put yourself in their shoes, you will realize that your company has a moral obligation to provide the design data. Of course, your company should charge for their time and expense (yes, you could even include some markup as this data is valuable to some end user) and the requestor should pay for it.
The only thing I would like to add is, your company must add disclaimers in their covering letter stating that they have no knowledge of any revisions due to construction changes or modifications. In addition, they cannot be held liable for any consequences due to the requestor's interpretation and use of this data.
RE: Engineers Responsibilty
RE: Engineers Responsibilty
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
Motto: KISS
Motivation: Don't ask
RE: Engineers Responsibilty
It would increase your companies status among other design professionals if you could manage to keep track of your projects and have them available for future work.
RE: Engineers Responsibilty
RE: Engineers Responsibilty
It is a professional courtesy to provide it but it is reasonable to charge an 'archive fee' to cover reasonable costs to retrieve it.
RE: Engineers Responsibilty
Garth Dreger PE
AZ Phoenix area