Stamping plans for welded Ibeam building?

[Bradley5]

We are looking to construct a building for ourselves and was leaning towards a PEMB building but delays from manufacturers are creating some issues. We are in talks with a company that basically uses off-the-shelf beams, cut and weld onsite. I'm simply baffled how they do this with no engineered plans at all!? We are, however, somewhat considering these guys in our project but we would have to properly design and stamp plans. We have never evaluated such construction but do engineered plans for wood post frame, wood conventional, and PEMB foundations.

I'd be curious if anyone here has evaluated such a building?

 

[JAE]

Depending on your location, your building department/AHJ should require any occupied building to be designed under the direct supervision of a licensed engineer.

The company that provides a building frame based upon "off the shelf" beams, can work, provided there's an engineer of record designing them as well as the complete structure (foundations, braces, etc.).

You also may need an architect for the design of the layout and to ensure code compliance with regards to occupancy, size limits, fire protection, egress requirements, etc.

If you are doing this within an industrial site, you may be free to do as you please under some type of industrial exemption.

If you are an agricultural enterprise, and out in a country beyond any municipal building department, you may also be free to do what you want - but check with your county or local code officials, if there are any.

 

[Bradley5]

Thanks. If we go this route, we would end up being the engineer of record. However, though we can run load calcs, there are many different ways to build such a building and we have no experience in such animals. I guess we might want to sniff around for any sealed plans for comparable buildings to get an idea what the "norm" might look like. I think what gets me is we have run into a few of these builders that seems to just guess on material selections! All while saying it is 'over built'....

You are correct that our AHJ 100% will require sealed plans, but we would want any building to be properly engineered regardless.

 

[jhnblgr]

You will want to use PEMB manufacturer that provides stamped drawings, if you try to design it yourself you will likely end up with a much heavier and expensive building. They use in-house software to optimize their designs.

 

[JAE]

A cut and weld onsite steel frame is do-able but I'd think you'd want to have a pre-design and pre-construction meeting with the company offering their shelf-picked steel.

And if it was me as EOR I'd probably need to propose some additional services for on-site inspections (over and above simply observations) to verify what actually gets built - along with lots of weld inspections by a material testing company. I would presume we're talking field fillet welds so perhaps it's only visual inspections but until you see some in-place examples of the welder's abilities I'd want to verify what the owner it getting.

 

[Bradley5]

A cut and weld onsite steel frame is do-able but I'd think you'd want to have a pre-design and pre-construction meeting with the company offering their shelf-picked steel.

And if it was me as EOR I'd probably need to propose some additional services for on-site inspections (over and above simply observations) to verify what actually gets built - along with lots of weld inspections by a material testing company. I would presume we're talking field fillet welds so perhaps it's only visual inspections but until you see some in-place examples of the welder's abilities I'd want to verify what the owner it getting.

Agreed! The vendor of the steel is a large and reputable company. I think the way we might approach this is evaluate plans as the builder wishes to build it and run load calcs against it to refine and validate it. Probably adding some required structural improvement elements. I do notice they don't appear to be adding supplemental shear protection. We would want that.

As for the welding, they are certainly certified welders and though because this is our own building we would be onsite to monitor and inspect the entire job, we would probably seek an outside weld inspector and probably do a pre-plan procedure assessment so all expectations are known.

I am not yet sure how they attach the purlins/girts. Not sure I am cool with just welding them on directly rather than adding support tabs.

 

[Eng16080]

We are in talks with a company that basically uses off-the-shelf beams, cut and weld onsite. I'm simply baffled how they do this with no engineered plans at all!?

I don't have any experience with this specific industry but I'm also baffled by this. Seems sketchy to say the least.

I think what gets me is we have run into a few of these builders that seems to just guess on material selections! All while saying it is 'over built'....

Again, sketchy!

I guess we might want to sniff around for any sealed plans for comparable buildings to get an idea what the "norm" might look like.

Maybe it's crazy, but shouldn't you just be able to ask them how they plan to build it? Or I suppose, based on the comments above, they don't actually know?!?!

Agreed! The vendor of the steel is a large and reputable company.

It doesn't seem like it based on your other comments.

My apology if this post comes off as negative and not helpful. My suggestion is to be very careful here. This sounds like a potential mess. I'm not a big fan of conventional PEMBs either, but that seems like a far better option.

 

[Bradley5]

When I mentioned the steel vendor, they are a separate entity. Only a building material and steel supply house. We've actually bought from them in the past.

As for the builder, yes, I mentioned that I may just let him put together a proposal, then evaluate the design to see if it even holds water first. If we chose to walk this path, we would probably produce only assembly drawings to the builder, and only provide our sealed documents to the county. We would not provide the design criteria or similar to the builder. This is only to prevent them from getting big britches because some builders like to throw around the "engineered" wording.

If they are good fabricators and welders that just need guidance and oversight, we can step in, but only if this makes financial sense, or otherwise some other incentive. One that I mentioned was speed. Many PEMB companies are 12-16weeks out!

As for this build style, I am finding more and more people doing this. Most of them are just welder/fabricators.

 

[JAE]

If we chose to walk this path, we would probably produce only assembly drawings to the builder, and only provide our sealed documents to the county. We would not provide the design criteria or similar to the builder.

I'm not sure I follow you here.
If you produce plans, details and specifications and sign/seal them as an engineer - then why wouldn't you broadcast them to all involved parties?

If you hold back some of the information (yes even loading criteria) then you give them an "out" where they can later state that you didn't inform them of this or that - when something goes wrong.

Are you the engineer or is the builder providing the engineering? I'm not sure from your posts. You initially said they build it "with no engineered plans at all" and then later describe you producing "assembly" drawings - whatever that means.

You should be following The AISC code of standard practice as much as you can. Having the builder just INVENT a structure while not an engineer is sketchy as ENG16080 stated above.

 

[JStephen]

That just sounds like an odd situation all the way around.
My advice: Don't design it yourself, find somebody that does a lot of this, and it ought to be 10 times more efficient and avoid all kinds of little detailing/design issues that you'd never think about otherwise.
One question to run by your proposed fabricator/erector is on weld qualification and welder certifications.
Don't forget to budget for weld inspection, etc.
It might be informative to look at some of their past work.

 

[dflva]

Many PEMB companies are 12-16weeks out!

I like your can-do approach, but when the finger pointing starts with this convoluted scheme I suspect your building will be every bit of 12-16 weeks out.

 

[XR250]

We are looking to construct a building for ourselves and was leaning towards a PEMB building but delays from manufacturers are creating some issues. We are in talks with a company that basically uses off-the-shelf beams, cut and weld onsite. I'm simply baffled how they do this with no engineered plans at all!? We are, however, somewhat considering these guys in our project but we would have to properly design and stamp plans. We have never evaluated such construction but do engineered plans for wood post frame, wood conventional, and PEMB foundations.

I'd be curious if anyone here has evaluated such a building?

Why is this any different than designing a standard steel framed building- other than welded versus bolted connections? Most of my small steel framed jobs are done like this.

 

[gte447f]

Why is this any different than designing a standard steel framed building- other than welded versus bolted connections? Most of my small steel framed jobs are done like this.

Agreed. Weld onsite just equals a conventional fully welded moment frame to me.

On the other hand, cut onsite probably equals a guy with a torch ruining things.

Ultimately, to the OP, you should avoid anyone claiming to be able to build buildings "with no engineered plans at all."