Partial Mall Collapse 7

[BAretired]

BliMan, I am having a difficult time figuring out all your acronyms. Would it be asking too much for you to take the trouble to type out what exactly you mean?


BA

 

[Ingenuity]

I got lost in the acronyms too.

What are "gypos"?

I think I decoded these:

OMG = oh my god
CO - change order
CM = construction management
D-B = design-build
GC = general contractor

 

[hokie66]

My translation of "gypo" would be "one who gyps". BliMan's experience may be extreme, but I think we have all seen enough shoddy work to know that the construction industry, including the design side, has a lot of problems.

 

[jgailla]

My experience with good GCs (general contractors) is that they are more concerned with providing a good final product than the design teams.
There are many exceptions, but a lot of A-E (architecture-engineering) firms are more concerned with the monthly (not even yearly) profit than doing the design correctly. Many have the attitude that "the contractor can figure it out."
At my last company, there was a known issue with the drainage plans. Instead of fixing it on the design budget, they ignored it until construction so it could be fixed as part of the construction management budget. It cost the client over a million dollars in change orders. I have no idea how much of the money was recouped from the design firm, since I had left the company by then.

 

[shobroco]

Having worn a few hats in the past 30 years, including GC, DB, and consultant (I didn't see a catchy acronym for that one) I think that like most things in life, it really always boils down to the individuals you are working with, not the acronym. There are good & bad builders, (design or bid), and there are good & bad designers & detailers. There are also always the extenuating circumstances: did the guy with the chequebook not understand construction & cut someone else off at the knees somewhere in the process? We don't know the details & likely never will so we just have to try & be sure we're not the ones everyone is talking about next year.

 

[ajk1]

My experience over the last 48 years is that the worst of the structural engineering profession has got worse. Dumbed down by the use of computers. It used to be only the best survived as good and adept designers. Now anyone can be a structural engineer it seems, if he can wield a computer, irrespective of how well he understandss what comes out of the computer, whether he knows how to do the calculation manully or whether he recognizes when the answer is wrong. Of course there are still good structural engineers around.

We used to have a company president who refused to allow the use of abbriviations on the drawings. He never succeeded at that, but it was a good sentiment. How much time have people spent trying to decipher abbreviations, and how much time was really saved by not writing the full word?

By the way, not all of Bliman's words are really acronyms...I think many of them are abbreviations. Abbreviations are not the same as acronyms. I think that acronyms are generally pronounceable and each letter stands for a word. For example, NATO is an acronym; CO is an abbreviation.

 

[dik]

It likely has to do with competition within the profession... we are doing more and more for less and less... something has to give.

Dik

 

[JAE]

One structural hit us for $500,000 in fees

Sounds like someone didn't require the structural engineer to define a scope and fee in a contract. So who's to blame for that?

I wish I could "hit" someone with a $500k fee but that isn't reality in my neck of the woods.

 

[JAE]

Several Elliot Lake residents the Globe contacted, including mall employees, spoke about the mall’s persistently leaky ceilings and said they felt the building was dangerous long before Saturday’s collapse.

A few others describe years of water leakage.

 

[hokie66]

ajk1,
Perhaps this discussion should be in the language forum, but the definition of acronym has evolved so that there is not universal agreement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym_and_initialism

 

[dik]

It gets more interesting, "A former manager of the Elliot Lake, Ont., mall says the owner was warned as far back as 2008 that if he didn’t make repairs to the mall roof it could collapse.

Brian England says he was with Bob Nazarian, the 66-year-old Richmond Hill businessman who owns the mall, when Nazarian was told of the consequences of not doing repair work to the mall’s roof.

“The architect plain and simply told Mr. Nazarian that if he didn’t proceed with these repairs,” said England, “that we could find that his structure was at the point of deterioration that it possibly could collapse."

Negligent Homicide, anyone?

 

[JAE]

Sounds like it.

And does not sound like an engineer failed. But I agree with other posts above - don't speculate too much. Wait for the investigation/reports.

 

[hokie66]

I would agree that we must wait...if reports are forthcoming. Most times, they are not. They get tied up in litigation and aren't released, thus preventing lessons from being learned. I think I will just continue to speculate, provided at least part of a story is out there. In this case, not much information about the structure seems to be available.

 

[msquared48]

JAE:

In 1980, the fee for Columbia Center in Seattle was 900K - a 76 story high rise. Bound to be a touch more today. Just thought you'd like to know...

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[hokie66]

This was an old building. Plenty of warning that things were wrong. Nobody did anything. A sad story of how a piece of faulty infrastructure can have a devastating effect on a small community.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/112923-elliot-lake-a-cautionary-tale-for-small-towns

 

[rowingengineer]

Sorry Hokie but that story while it told a tale or two, was very poorly researched and was filled with more hear say than my gamma' morning tea's at the local lifeline.

my favorite part is,

"Major national chains, such as Zellers, apparently ignored the warning signs. So did the federal government, which had a Service Canada office there, as did the local MP and the local member of the provincial legislature.

Significantly, one of the mall’s anchor tenants, the Bank of Nova Scotia, moved out a few months ago. Previously the bank had ripped out the drywall because of mould and was down to concrete floors and walls.

Yet no one made the tough call to shut down the mall. Inspectors from the Ministry of Labour checked out the mall on a regular basis — six times in the past three years — but nothing happened."

followed by

"The blame game is pointless."

While I may be the only engineer left with any faith in our profession (Yes I believe that 99% of building designed by an engineer are not going to fall on my head), I can see no reason why lay people such as the National chains, Local MP and Inspections from the ministry of labour, would even think twice that a leaking roof could lead to a collapse of the building or why they should.

Yep hind-site says otherwise, but lets get our heads out of the clouds. truth is that the owner and any professionals engaged to review the building are the only people that should have reviewed the damage, all others are not in anyway responsible.

http://www.nceng.com.au/

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."

 

[Teguci]

Yup, whenever I come across a leak in a building I think "structural collapse!"

Now the people in white coats take care of me.

 

[hokie66]

RE,
Sorry, but I thought the article was appropriate and well written. Your opinion is noted.

I don't think it is known if water intrusion contributed to the collapse, but water is the greatest enemy of buildings.

 

[BAretired]

Corrosion of the prestressing strand perhaps?

BA

 

[dik]

The concrete surrounding the bonded pre-tensioned strand is nearly always in compression and located on the bottom surface of the slabs, so, I would think that stand corrosion is not likely a problem. With the water conditions, it is possible, however, to freeze water in the cores.

The failure appeared to be at a support.

Dik