Rebar Spacing Issue 3

[Greatone76]

I have a situation were it has come to light on the job I'm doing inspection work for that the contractor placed (3) #5 rebar all in one plane at the bottom of a standard 8" stem wall with only a max of 5/8" spacing. Per ACI-318 the requirement is a minimum spacing of 1". I'm not the engineer for this project, I'm an owner's rep, but it appears that the CM is going to have the design engineer sign off on the situation. Since ACI-318 is the building code is it right to allow a sign off of code requirements. Am I wrong to be completely opposed to a sign off in this situation. I'm of the understanding that the concrete will separate aggregate and cream and not bond well to the rebar and could create voids ann/or a weak spot in the concrete in this area, so I would think this would be a critical issue. Please give me any advise or perspective on this issue.

 

[KootK]

I, for one, would love to hear SlideRule's recommendations. If it wouldn't represent a breach of confidentiality, please consider having the discussion here.

The greatest trick that bond stress ever pulled was convincing the world it didn't exist.

 

[CELinOttawa]

Ditto Kootk! The floor is your's SR!

 

[SlideRuleEra]

GO76 - Don't worry, I'm not talking about private messages... instead, right here as KootK and CELinOttawa indicated. I don't mind being critiqued myself. After seeing a post from you, I'll want some time to compose a well thought out response (say a couple of hours, or so). I'm in the US eastern time zone, hopefully there is not significant difference where you are. Its a little late today to start. I'll make my initial recommendations in the morning (Saturday). Weekends here on ET are a good time to begin, usually site usage is down.

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[SlideRuleEra]

GO76 - You may not have noticed, but I just demonstrated the first rule of being an Owner's Representative (OR)

Don't Get In A Hurry.

"Expediting", "Job Emergencies", "RFI's" etc. are for the Engineer (EOR), Construction Manager (CM), and the Contractor. The OR's responsibility is to keep up with the job's "big picture" and to get involved only when absolutely essential, and ideally never. There is one exception to this, we'll get to that later. Jumping into solving day-to-day situations is a sure-fire way for the jobsite personnel to keep you distracted from effectively doing your "real" job. On your project, this whole situation is way out of control.

You have got to convince your management to provide you with their full confidence and support. The way to do this is to provide timely, accurate, written explanations of what you are observing. The trick is to voluntarily give this same report to appropriate project personnel at the same time. You do not want a reputation as a "spy". I expect that your management are intelligent individuals who are skilled in areas like sales, manufacturing, transportation, accounting, finance, etc... but not engineering / construction. It is up to you to use your engineering education and experience to "translate" the technical and construction management situations (good and bad) that you encounter. The translation has to be to terms that are accurate yet composed using excellent grammar and spelling in terms that will be meaningful to non-engineers. We will get back to how to gather, prepare and present this information. After you obtain management's confidence you need to demonstrate the usefulness of you having what we used to call "full disapproval authority" (Really, I am not making this stuff up.) As issues come up that will (or should) significantly affect the contract price, you should be informed in advance. If you don't agree with the change or the proposed price you should be able to immediately freeze the change process until you can brief your management. Notice that this is for disapproval only, you can NOT approve any change - that is your management's decision. It is also an excellent excuse to keep project personnel from putting undue pressure on you to allow the change.

Now, let's address your latest posting:

I have been able to convey the big picture of the problem to the level above me and they are attempting to get resolution in the levels above them, but as we wait...

No. Why are you waiting? Continue to do the job of obtaining information (which will not be good) and making it available to your management. You have got to impress management that "time is of the essence".

...we are left to debate the individual issues.

No. The word "we" does not include you. This is for the CM, EOR and Contractor. Your job is to see if they can effectively resolve these issues. If they can not, then there is more evidence of a dysfunctional project.

That's enough for now. Take your time, read through it and see if you can agree. If not, we can discuss our differences. If you do accept it, we will move on.
SRE

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[darthsoilsguy2]

@steelpe
i wasn't taking issue with what you said, or you for saying it. There will always be the question you voiced at the beginning of these issues, and it is best that Inspectors are ready to have those kind of conversations. The 'inspector showed up, didn't say anything, and reported badness after it was too late' is a common narrative , but i would argue the vast majority of the time it is not because the inspector made a conscious decision to Not Inform the contractor when they became aware of it. We actually agree on the fundamental level "If someone sees something wrong, are they not to notify someone to make a correction?".... i'm just reinforcing to inspectors who would read this thread, that this sometimes inconveniently occurs after materials are down and you still must notify.

@greatone76
sorry to imply you didn't understand the loadings... most people that do rebar inspections for the Owner i've come across aren't SE's, and the inspection business usually elbows individual development of structural design to the side. all IMHO and in regions i've worked. on a different point... just wanted to throw out there that it is not unusual in our industry for something to be *acceptable* when it is as-built, but not acceptable to build it again that way. it's not logical, but it's not unusual in the normal jobs where the EOR is separated from the CM. on the other side of the coin, the worse job i've ever worked was a CMAR design/build with a spineless EOR (which turned into 5 different EORs quitting over the construction phase)... so just hearing CMAR makes my stomach turn and puts me on DEFCON3.

 

[Greatone76]

@darth
No issues. I'm in a really odd situation doing what I'm doing and having the knowledge and education I have. It puts me in some awkward situations.

@slide
I'm onboard with everything you are saying. The piece that is different and killing this project is that there is multi-layer management I'm reporting to. I have effectively communicated the dysfunction of the project to the people I report to, but the big picture fix project power is above that layer I have convienced of the problem and that next layer is being very slow to do anything. I have continued to provide the evidence that this is a dysfunction project. It appears at this point that the next layer up is in the position of not doing anything which leaves myself and the bottom layer I report to debate the corrective action proposals and sign offs from the CM and thier designer. For example we recieved calculations for capacities from a code table for a certian capcaity, but the loads in the calcs are for a completely different situation. And they are trying to pass this calc off as proof they don't need something that was not installed by the contractor. I've run the calcs using the load on the plan and fasteners submitted and conclude they need what they didn't install. So we are seeing evidence that the CM is willing to provide bad engineering information as a sign off. And we are seeing that the EOR appears not to have done the original due dilligence and is not doing thier due dilligence on the signoffs. Which leaves us to debate if any of the things we are getting signoffs on are legitimate. Going back to my original question about this half an issue with rebar spacing being something reasonable to get a signoff on. I would not in general sign off on this type issue, but I'm looking for some perspective to know if advising up the chain if this would be an acceptable issue to dig our heels in or something to just let go.

 

[jayrod12]

If in this specific case, the rebar placement, is the only thing you are requesting opinions on then as Darth mentioned, the as-built condition is likely acceptable in most engineers' minds, however it is something that should be code-compliant on subsequent builds. Just because it was done wrong once and deemed acceptable does not exclude it from being done correctly the next.

For the project as a whole, I think there has to be a point at which you dig in your heels, however in order to back up that stance you need the documentation of the issues and your attempts to remedy them (that includes just passing the news up the ladder,). If as you've mentioned the management layer 2 above you seems to be dragging their feet then at some point (this point will differ largely between people) you need to skip a rung or two on the ladder, voice your concerns (include your back-up documentation showing you did everything in your power before jumping rungs).

If life-safety is an issue, the last stop would be the building authority in my mind.

 

[SlideRuleEra]

Greatone76 - Ok, you have convinced me that you are in the middle of a situation way too big for you to turn around by yourself. There is no point, at this time, my continuing with Owner's Representative tips. However, what you describe is hauntingly similar to what happened in our company some years back. I'll give an outline of that story and one of the outcomes that may apply to you.

Another (non-technical) branch of our company was given the job of managing design / construction of a major office building for use by the company. Everyone in our office was puzzled why we were intentionally left out. Over the next year or so, the work progressed. Very little information was being released to company employees on progress. Just by looking out our office windows it was obvious that many problems were occurring, but work was proceeding regardless.

Finally, construction abruptly hauled with structural work about 90% complete,and job site was effectively abandoned. At this point, our office was quietly brought into the project. Turns out there was widespread negligence by the CM / EOR, gross negligence by the Contractor, and criminal graft and corruption on the part on one individual in our company's executive management. While lawyers worked on financial & criminal matters, our office was responsible to determine if the structure could be salvaged and if so, proceed to do so. It could, but with an unearthly amount of demolition, rework and repairs.

My point on telling this story is that one, and only one, organization originally involved came out of the years of legal proceeding with a clean record. From the beginning of construction, the contract inspectors had observed the substandard work and had explicitly pointed it out on every report they made. Because of their low status on the project, they never took any drastic action outside of reporting their findings.

Based on this, I suggest that you not stand in the way of any individual defect you find... however, keep delivering written accurate information and your professional opinion on what you observe.

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[TehMightyEngineer]

Interesting anecdote about the only person to come out of that without reprimand (or worse I gather). I'll definitely take your advice to heart.

This also makes me glad to often work on smaller projects.

Maine Professional and Structural Engineer.
(Just passed the 16-hour SE exam, woohoo!)