Projects in other Cities, states or provinces than your own

[Said the Sky]

For the Structural Engineers out there,

when you do projects that are out of town and in another province how do you do your site reviews to ensure compliance to your drawings? Reason I ask is because I know an outfit here in Canada thats doing projects all around Canada and there is no way they are doing site reviews for any of these projects especially because the jobs generally are small residential jobs but many of them are large homes with full design of walls, foundation, beams etc. Most likely they are reviewing these through pictures only but you can only see so much. Is this considered proper due diligence?

 

[jhnblgr]

What is it you expect to see from a site visit prior to any excavation? Short of doing soil borings or test pits walking the site would not yield much information beyond blatant fill material or swampy ground. Best off looking at historical aerial images and wetland or soil maps to see what you might encounter. At least from a structural standpoint. For a site development standpoint this is where you send land surveyors out for boundary lines, set backs, deed restrictions, topographical survey.

 

[Said the Sky]

What is it you expect to see from a site visit prior to any excavation? Short of doing soil borings or test pits walking the site would not yield much information beyond blatant fill material or swampy ground. Best off looking at historical aerial images and wetland or soil maps to see what you might encounter. At least from a structural standpoint. For a site development standpoint this is where you send land surveyors out for boundary lines, set backs, deed restrictions, topographical survey.

I guess my question is how do engineers ensure compliance with their structural drawings for a project they designed for a location too far away for in person inspections? I highly doubt this outfit is flying across Canada to do even one site inspection on a residential home design.

 

[jhnblgr]

Typically building departments send inspectors out to ensure compliance, unless the engineer is retained by the homeowner separately. Obviously countries differ on this I’m sure. Most home owners are too cheap to spring for paying an engineer to do site visits.

 

[phamENG]

@Said the Sky , it varies. In some cases, they simply don't. In other cases, they'll sub it to a local firm. My experience is in the US, so not sure how much of this is going to be applicable to you.

Generally, we have three types of inspections:

1) Building official/Permit office inspections - handled by the local building official's office and required to issue the Certificate of Occupancy (CO) at the end of construction.
2) Special Inspections - not required for most residential work, but is required on commercial construction. These are defined by the EOR, but can be accomplished by other so long as they are qualified. These are required to issue the CO at the end of construction. Here, it's in the form of a "Final Statement of Special Inspections" where the Special Inspector of Record indicates that all inspections have been completed and errors/deficiencies have been corrected.
3) General Observations - these aren't required by anyone unless contractually agreed upon between the engineer and the owner. The engineer may do them simply because they want to keep tabs on things and make sure no issues arise. But nobody is making sure they happen and if they don't happen, the CO will not be held up.

So...there's no hard an fast requirement here for the EOR to actually put their foot on site. There are a handful of localities that try to push something from the EOR, but there's usually enough push back to quash that. If it needs inspections, they should require special inspections. And a requirement to force the EOR to certify construction when they haven't been paid to be on site every day, all day running QC is a bit preposterous.

 

[skeletron]

If this is in BC (Canada), than it really ought to be boots-on-the-ground or at least delegated to someone locally to complete the on site review under your direct supervision. That is basically what you are signing up for when you provide the Schedule B with your drawings. It is a periodic review, so perhaps you go there for the footings, contractor sends photos throughout, and then you show up at the final framing but at some point you need to make an appearance and check the construction versus the drawings before everything is covered up. The practicality of photos and FaceTime sure makes it tempting to never leave the office, but I strongly disagree with this practice.

(SPECULATIVE BASED ON OBSERVATIONAL EXPERIENCE)
I would agree that there are some firms with a lot of pots on the stove in various provinces and that these firms are very likely not providing boots-on-the-ground field review services solely due to cost (specifically in BC or up north in YK, NWT, NT). In many cases, I also believe these firms are using the CUYA excuse of remote inspections via pictures, FaceTime, etc. with the contractor and claiming an established relationship with that entity. EGBC is pretty clear on what is required and what constitutes a field review; my understanding is that virtual inspections may not be fully compliant. I anticipate firms are likely squeaking under the radar with low risk projects (residential, remote locations, repetitive designs, etc.), but I believe it is an unnecessary risk to their own practice.

I don't know why firms acquiesce to clients that convince them to remove the field review component off the fee. It's probably the easiest way to make money as an engineer and the most straightforward way to limit your risk.

EDIT: To answer your question "how do you do site reviews out of town?" ... I tell clients upfront that there are ## expected field reviews and the expected cost is $### per attendance and that I need ##hrs advance notice to schedule it. If they agree with those terms, I keep tabs on progress and attend site when I need to. For remote sites (for example Vancouver Island, Northern BC, Yukon, or Haida Gwai projects), my site fee includes the fly-in-fly-out cost or other such travel expenses. Yeah...the fee can jump pretty quick and I would say that most clients balk at it even if they are in a pinch.