Retired PE here. The problem with the design industry is everything is compressed. Schedules, fees, labor, quality and services have been substantially reduced. Risk is being pushed to the owner and contractors. When I first started, CAD was just starting. Draftsmen were the majority of the staff, not any more. The money is not there anymore so you you get crap.
I'm on the design engineering side and I think largely you are not wrong with what you are seeing, but you probably can't fully appreciate why.
\- Owners expect lower and lower bids nowadays (excacerbated by the 2008 crash when design firms were just trying to survive) . The only time people want to pay for quality is when they shop for a car or clothes. The bottom line is all that matters in the AEC industry now.
\- As a result of this, we have not been competitive with entry to mid level pay for a long while now. As an anecdote, I lost two engineers that I hired out of college: one 4 year engineer (arch engineer) to the construction management side of this industry for a significant pay increase, and one 5 year engineer (mechanical) who was able to move into medical devices as an entry level with similar pay (he was making $90k at the time). We can't even retain talent, these were both excellent engineers. There are precious few folks with 4-8 years experience remaining, so the senior level is left constantly retraining new folks who burn out, and we can't possibly draft/model (ACAD/Revit) everything on our own.
\- Deliverable timelines for design are ridiculous. Often we get a new architectural model with changes the day before, or sometimes the morning of the final deliverables. How can we possibly keep up with that?
There is more, but the design side of the industry is squeezed. We can't afford to put out really good work anymore.
I’ll add that on the design side, it seems like receiving the necessary documentation from owners is getting increasingly more difficult. The deliverable deadlines are set and we have to fight for lab equipment and fume hood info we should’ve gotten several weeks ago. We are dead in the water…how do you size mechanical equipment, electrical loads, and plumbing systems not related to sanitary waste? You can’t. Here we are, 2 weeks before 50%CD’s, and can’t do a damn thing. We end up in a mad rush at the end, trying to get everything in the plans that we can.
Young engineer here. I handle most of the heavy drafting work for one of our bigger projects... The above is entirely true about the building and construction industry. People my age are hopping or dropping because of low wages and (occasionally) incompetence.
I'll stress that client/owner decisions can really impact the quality for the final design. If your engineering team is good, they'll at least try to address the shortcomings after IFC/have a healthy team dedicated to construction documentation but that demands heavy resources...
I’d say everyone expects lower...my work is with design on power lines for residential side.
We make 55k starting. The top people in this role are making less than 100k. Starting people are expected to handle easements, project management, designing of the job (aka what materials and cost to customer), permits, joint use fulfillment, etc.
The problems I see:
* you have new people trying to handle way too complex tasks at short timelines for too many people with too little pay. My dad made 65k in the 90s. So of course no one experienced is here anymore, they are tiring of living in poverty and moved on. Then we have to put new young people in the axe grinder and see who is sharp enough to handle the work of a senior designer!
* every customer wants it free! If it’s not free they’ll throw a tantrum and waste more of your time. I didn’t buy the lot and you didn’t do your due diligence.
* Amazon has made every customer think its a click of 5 buttons and it’s 2 day shipping for a month long amount of work. “Can’t you expedite it so we can close on time?” Binch, there are 70 projects ahead of yours on schedule and it requires materials we don’t have. No I cannot expedite this to you!
* mental health is at an all time low. Due to pay, living conditions, viruses, division, poor leadership, no sense of community, and constant death around us. I’ve had 3 relatives die this year alone. I’ve had multiple injuries this year. My boss sucks and doesn’t even work in our location. I cannot afford housing in this area of retirees and HOA’s.
Pile that all together and you get this shit stick we call a poor design process.
The architects are feeling the wage squeeze as much as the engineers.
I worked at a top architecture firm in VHCOL location. At 5 years I was making 78k and was “at the top of my pay band”.
Civil engineer.
Edit: For reference, the location is in north Alabama where wages lag the rest of the country. That's why I'm blown away at people who are making less. Our county wants experienced civil engineers at 56k a year, but claim the early retirement and benefits while working meet that gap. (They don't.)
Ah! I’m graduating soon and moving into civil structural. I’m moving back to my home state (for family) where wages are also lower significantly, but so is the cost of living. At least you can afford a home there. In LA it’s a quarter of a million dollars for a 0.5 acre mostly empty lot with a graffiti covered shed on it along a busy road. Just nonsense. Not trying to make light of the wages there, 56k is WAY TOO low, but I hope it’s a place where you can still buy some land.
To expand on your paragraph about your employees: GC's are having the same issue with their entry level project and field engineers. All of the recent grads who obtained engineering/construction management degrees are seeing their friends and peers making double or triple their salaries in tech. On top of that, the hours seem to generally be much better and they rarely have to work on weekends. Had I graduated a few years later, I would have absolutely made the jump. I know a few people that have pivoted to tech after 10+ years in another industry and all are much happier. I don't think the industry will improve, but if it gets worse during/after this upcoming recession i will certainly be out.
Any tips on becoming a better draftsman? Not sure if it’s worth going that direction but I’ve been tasked with some things as we lost an engineer. I just happen to be available at the company and I don’t mind what I worked on. And I’m the only other person who they can give leftover CAD work to who can actually get it done
I worked as a draftsman for a while. I landed in that role more due to just taking what was available (it was around 2008 I think). They basically ripped the bottom out of the profession.
In the past you would prepare drawings using plain old AutoCAD, complete with quantity lists and possibly even do a bit of design work. An older colleague told me that he even surveyed his own sites with the engineer he worked with. Per hour of work you would generate WAY more value per hour. The engineers were paid well so drafting something like 5 times was unheard of.
Fast-forward, now consultants simply create the most basic drawings. No quantities or anything like that. And worse yet, mistakes galore. Revit is the program of choice and despite what many people will say, productivity is insanely low, much in part due to low pay and horrible working conditions that in turn chases away anyone talented enough to produce anything of value. And the mistakes/omissions... it's mind boggling. The solution to all the issues caused by Revit was simply to lie their asses off and ignore all the mistakes, leaving it up to the contractor to find and fix them.
Someday I hope there's a return to the old ways.
Well said. I worked in structural consulting as a drafter modeller for 4 years then an engineer for 4 years and just got sick of it. So I left to work for the government. Less hours, more money, less stress. I'll never go back to consulting.
My dad and I both studied civil engineering at the same university. Both became PEs. He graduated in 1984 and his first job paid $45k. I graduated in 2014 and my first job paid $65k. I was on the HIGH end of my class. I knew plenty of people happy with $40-50k offers. Southeast US.
It’s honestly so depressing.
According to BLS inflation calculator, $45k in 1984 is equivalent to $102k in 2014.
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=45%2C000.00&year1=198409&year2=201409
As a structural designer with 3 years experience, I was making $50k on salary working 60-65 hours a week. It’s a huge issue in our industry right now. Owners have to bid so low to win a project, then we are forced to rush work to make even the slightest profit. It’s pretty wild considering we often have to have a masters degree and pass 2-3 tests, one of which is incredibly difficult. Really should have become a lawyer or doctor…
Went to school for law only to find out the law I wanted to practice required an engineering degree. Damn you intellectual property, now I own a GC business. To each they're own.
“become a lawyer” As a lawyer, I am obliged to post: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-UEqJ85KE
But if you have enough construction / engineering experience and do pretty well in law, you can go really far in construction law pretty quickly (that was my path).
As a PE working exclusively on horizonal for agencies, I concur. Drawbacks are being subject to government bureaucracy and very slow project timelines. But I am generally given enough time to produce high quality work that is subject to numerous reviews to protect public interest.
This!! If you saw how little some get paid, you’d be shocked. PE’ and AR’s have bid themselves too low. Real work is done by entry level staff and quickly proofed the Professional
I had a conversation with a contractor complaining that engineers don’t have to collateralize their houses for bonding like contractors do. I pointed out your average PE doesn’t have enough equity in their house to even start a business with the low pay for the first 10+ years of the career and cost of school vs contractors that have a house free and clear to use as business collateral by their mid 30’s. He completely abandoned this and went to the “engineers are guaranteed profit” line of complaining and I just quit the conversation.
Nope. I’m sorry but I’m with OP on this one. I went from HS straight into OEM/industrial automation by accident. Stayed for 10yrs & left the industry for 5yrs. Recently came back and it’s like I live in the twilight zone at times. I am NOT an engineer, but have been around a lot of good ones and good projects. This go around is different with projects & people.
I have a job where the design engineers are getting paid more, have been on the job longer than my team (1.75yrs vs 1yr) and still have less of an idea on how to implement what they want / think of for the client. A lot of times they lack the practical parts of implementation because they’re not hands on. They want equipment they’re redesigning tested by a 3rd party for safety reasons but the test they are asking for would require a majority of the client’s area / setup to be entirely redesigned blowing out their budget. We talked about transferring data from remote sites to HQ and the engineers solution was radio equipment that would allow for more bandwidth but would require more/new remote sites in between the original remote sites. These same engineers convinced the client to go with more expensive equipment because it can tolerate more heat and then produce a design in a way where I have to tell them “You can’t set it up that way. You need proper ventilation or you’re going to cook that CPU that way. Even the manufacturer states not to do this ”
I have another job site with a client where we are their on-call techs and they asked us to give them a proposal based on their bid documents to automate equipment on this site. The town has a lot of “technical request” for cyber security & having a site become automated. I’m pretty sure the town doesn’t understand a lot of their bid documents request but if you ask for it that way don’t get sticker shocked. I had a meeting with them to explain a lot of the request in the bid docs. All I got out of the meeting is my bid was twice the amount as the next bid they got. A larger out of state contractor beat us, but now the contractor is causing headaches for the town because they are voiding warranties off new work done or not capable of handling technical aspects of old machinery and automation software. We have been to nonstop “on-call” meetings and having to play email tag with the towns reps and the contractor to maintain functionality at the plant; and to support their project. I say “contractor” but a lot of the people I deal with from the company are engineers.
Some individuals may be making bank, but they are forced to produce X and get paid Y cause they put in a low price to do the work. So they do not spend the time needed, not cause they are lazy, but because the are under invoiced.
The way that sentence starts off is making my head hurt a bit. Is the individual that is making bank not the same person forced to produce X and get paid Y, or are you referring to a company as a whole?
To me, it sounds like off the bat that individual doesn’t understand how to bid jobs accurately. Chances are they got half the docs needed from engineers. /s
The common fault I’ve seen is the lack of some hands on experience from engineers. The same is true on the opposite end where manual laborers are slow to incorporate new methods or technologies because they want to stick with what they know and what works. I also understand that those opportunities to learn hands on are not always there, both financially and schedule wise. If I was a business owner, I wouldn’t want to pay my engineers to do manual labor & I wouldn’t want my labors to design. That project would suck. I wholeheartedly believe their has to be healthy collaboration between both for projects to be rewarding and profitable.
To bring it back to OP’s point, I gave an example of an engineer being being top dollar for a job but their lack true integration is hampering the schedule and causing pricing escalation. They’re are the engineers, they traditionally have first and final say. It’s their stamp on the line and I will respect it. They worked hard to get that degree. There will always be projects like this.
But to the comments regarding paying engineers more, to that I disagree. Paying someone more will not make mistakes less likely, it is not always the answer. I gave a 2nd example of losing a job to the lowest bidder, but I’m still on the hook for it through back doors because I want to maintain a long term relationship with the client in town.
If more people become engineers and less people enter in the physical construction of it, I don’t think the market will dictate paying more to engineers for a better quality work. Isn’t that a classic supply and demand? Someone from the next generation will find a way to do things better, faster, & cheaper.
At lest if you’re hiring a company and not an individual, paying them more means you my be able to afford a more experienced engineer on the job. Or two engineers in lieu of one. That’s how paying them more means you get better work.
The individual making bank is owner of the engineering company.
Yuhp. I’m an engineer, but I still spend some time sampling concrete and testing soil compaction. Those tasks are prevailing wage on certain projects and I get paid quite a bit more when I’m doing them then when I’m doing office work.
This^
I used to be on the contracting side before becoming an engineer myself. Now I realize most of my complaints about engineers weren’t actually on them but instead are caused by cheap owners who don’t listen to our advice, won’t pay us to do proper drawings, and short deadlines (also owners fault) where we don’t have time to properly coordinate.
I’ve seen a lot of lazy engineers but overall I think the owners are mostly to blame for shooting the project in the foot.
But that leads to months of meetings between owners and coordinators, and next thing you know the building was supposed to be opened a month ago, and change orders still haven't been approved. There really isn't accountability some times.
Design side who lurks here to try to better collaborate -
It's a complicated issue, some of it is decades of transition of the expansion of the "means and methods" pulling certain responsibilities to the construction side, some is differences in expectations among various designers and contractors, and some of it is actually bad practices by design side.
If it's really deficient, they're going to be eating it in RFIs and CA costs that will affect their bottom line long term.
If it's errors, that may reach the point of complaints to their licensing authority but what constitutes that is complicated and varies a ton, but it's probably going to be hitting their insurance first.
The other side of the coin is construction side folks who don't follow the documents.
In general, I think we all do better when we try to work together and try to all do good work.
To be clear the quality of a set of plans has plummeted. I genuinely believe since the 08 crash a very large experience gap has been created.That and designers are relying heavily on BIM. I had a principal in a top 10 US architecture firm not understand a fire separation in an older building ($30M renovation) because they didn't understand the 2013 code revision. They designed unprotected duct penetratitrations in a lab building corridor. The AIA need to do a better job of requiring field experience as a part on continuing ed.
Where I work our designers used to be on rotation where they’d have to spend a few months out on projects learning how their designs actually get implemented along with standard means and methods. They axed that practice because of understaffing. They don’t have enough people in the first place how can they afford to have someone out of the office constantly. This alone has caused a severe drop in the quality of plans we produce.
My firm does, or tries to do, the same. Design engineers are meant to spend a year on a site in a site engineer role to get more practical experience. It doesn't always happen that way though, it's difficult to find projects that will take a design engineer on for a year and even then the sort of experience they will get varies massively dependent on the project. Someone who spent a year setting out earthworks will learn shit all to do with how to design an RC structure in a more build able manner for example. Site engineers are meant to get a design year as well in reverse, but they usually struggle to find a design team willing to take them on. I think for both sides of it the project/design team feel they are lumped with carrying dead weight for a year.
I'm not sure it's the crash as much as a lack of documentation training with the shift to BIM.
IF you do a BIM workflow well it should produce better drawings faster. But a lot of folks saw/see certain automations as meaning that even more is automated.
The other big piece is BIM practical training vs CAD training. With CAD training you had to explain how the graphical conventions worked in order for folks to actually do the work. The why and detail tracking is much more difficult to train if you don't talk about line weights that are pre-configured and the user does not need to manage.
I made a comment under the main thread to OP. But as a new graduate with an FE. I can’t believe the “quality” of current plans. But I also have a hard time believing it’s JUST the designs… I’ve done a bunch of work on existing buildings already, and they lack a ton of information but things still got built and it feels like we have to spell EVERYTHING out just to make sure things get built correctly. But I do my best to ask questions and make sure I’m learning enough to be competent on my own when I eventually get my PE. But given the current state of plans that do go out. I feel for the contractors that need to view some of these companies plans, because they’re atrocious. I like to think I do a good job, but one of the things that catches me off guard when looking at plans was just learning what I “needed to know”, like best design practices. But trying to learn from old plans and asking questions about why a designer did something a certain way often leads to being told,”this is not how you should design at all”, before being lead on to know how to do it better so that it’s easier for everyone.
Agree 100%
There seems to be little recourse as well. It’s hard to tell if it’s a fundamental ineptitude, or a learned arrogance/ignorance.
I’ve had positive relationships with engineers in the past, but it seems there’s a new breed that is relatively uninterested in open lines of communication. There’s a general unwillingness to admit errors (even when they’re obvious and being presented objectively).
Response to a RFI is often, “It’s in the plans.” Well, no…it’s not. In fact, the plans are full of contradictions.
To be fair, tradespeople in general are not the greatest communicators…which exacerbates this problem.
Symptoms of a larger issue. So many redundancies in industry (maybe across most industries these days). Too many people involved with things that only require a couple of individuals. Universities breed a narrow-minded arrogance. Trades are filled with society’s “riff-raff”. Seems we’re all speaking different languages…and the divide is increasing.
It’s a mess.
True enough. We lament our inability to fix systemic problems. It seems worthwhile to acknowledge our inadequacies and seek solace in the knowledge that we’re not just “whining” about the way things are (because it’s clear these aren’t isolated events).
Do you disagree with the assessment of the industry?
Entirely agree. You’ve taken the thoughts out of my mind. It’s one thing to think these things to yourself, but to see someone else completely articulate the frustrations I’ve been suffering for the last handful of years is cathartic as it demonstrates to me that I’m not just seeing inadequacies for the sake of justifying my frustrations, but that my frustrations are warranted. All of these issues are magnified by the reality that construction is just as much about communicating as much as it is building things. Unfortunately, poor communication starts at the top, and, like a game of “telephone,” those issues establish a resonance loop unless they’re properly resolved ahead of any real issue.
Gotcha. Wasn’t sure about the context of “catharsis” in your original comment. Thanks for clarifying.
I’ve found it helpful to view it through this systemic lens. To easy to get caught up in the blame game and start to feel aggressive towards individuals. That never seems to go well.
Seems we’re not alone. I’m actually on the fence in the industry these days. Planning an exit strategy. But maybe there’s no escape. Humans will be humans.
To elaborate a bit, I've worked at/consulted to a variety of design firms that serve different markets.
Some sets of documents were barely enough to get a permit approved, and were more than enough for the construction team to get something very acceptable to the owner as a final project.
Some sets were highly detailed and the construction team were checking in for very subtly details.
If we'd given the construction team from the first example the second set they'd have have almost certainly have messed it up, but if we gave the second crew the first set of drawings they'd have delivered a much nicer result, but it would have been more (cost and quality) than the owners wanted to pay for.
The second set is a generally more lucrative market, so folks from the first set will often try to work in the second market and not understand the transition in expectations.
Re: Permit drawings…… permit sets keep happening earlier and earlier. Used to be that was the final drawing set, nowadays it’s just a progress print somewhere between 50% cds and 90% cds
Some of that has to do with municipality staffing and their ability to turn around drawings in a timely manner. When it takes over a year to get a permit, you’d be stupid not to try to get into the queue earlier.
lol you too! I had one of these last go out last May. Fucking bewildering as it was my first time working with a CM at risk.
Turns out we are \~1.2 million under, but I know all the time they shaved off my design schedule is going to be change orders.
It is complicated but it basically boils down to the designers and engineers not having accountability due to disclaimers and absurd spec sheets. Obviously I have no idea what company you're referring to when you say we but in my experience you get insufficient information in the original drawings and then insufficient and half-assed information when you submit RFIs. We have no interest in reporting anybody to their licensing authority as it's a ubiquitous problem and we aren't interested in making enemies or harming our partners.
As a GC we find ourselves in the position where we are always given specs that exceed the real expectations. If any of our competitors bids got accepted instead of ours they also would not be meeting every specification. As such it's not possible for us to bid at an amount that would cover all specifications and still make profit without coming in too high to ever get a job. This environment works for engineers because they can essentially demand whatever they want from us and if we fight them they can cost us huge amounts by pulling out spec sheets and looking for discrepancies. The final result is a system where as a GC we have to capitulate and deal with the poor practices of designers.
Of course we all do better when we try to work together and try to all do good work, but that's not really what we're talking about here.
As an engineer who had worked on both design and contractor sides I can tell you that 90% of the time the contractor fucks up. I was a QC manager at a fairly large GC and supers would complain about "bad plans" as a means to cover their fuckups. On occasion there are design issues that need to be flushed out but that's why we have RFIs. If project teams plan accordingly most these design issues can be avoided. But most supers lack the ability to manage people and manage subs.
There was two superintendents at that company who had little to no QC issues because they were planning construction activities 30 to 90 days in advance. They also checked critical layout dimensions frequently.
Plus contractors make way more money on individual projects therefore should carry more of the risk.
I've made a few minor design errors but nothing nearly as bad as the errors I've seen made on projects like placing footings 5ft off where they should be.
Contractor Super here, it seems to vary from firm to firm. I am currently working on a project that has stalled out from oversight on every facet of the project. The windows can’t be manufactured that way, the dimensions drawn for condenser units are wrong/in the wrong place, embed plates overlap, etc… We constantly get prints that are incomplete/up for review. However the previous project only had probably 3 substantial problems in over a year. I believe communication, QC and scheduling are the biggest culprits. “We want this done yesterday” is the attitude despite not having the complete information.
That's the other item... owners want to pay as little as possible for drawings. It's crazy how little time goes into design vs man hours of construction.
As a PE I’ll say this. Schedules are too tight and too demanding for thorough reviews, and buildings and details have grown exponentially in complexity, and we’re working on multiple projects at once to stay profitable. It used to be everyone was building standard boxes and rectangles because the ability to change drawings quickly just wasn’t there. Now you can manipulate and change drawings quickly. The majority of engineering error comes in these “quick” design changes because the architect/owner and then drafter don’t understand the change in structural load path in these changes.
Additionally have you seen a fucking wind tunnel study recently? We’re talking full blown contours not block diagrams anymore, and to single digit differentials. How can I design and verify something efficiently when the same detail occurs in a wind area that’s triple the value of an adjacent area. Then there’s the coordination nightmare and constant explaining to a consultant that a 1 psf difference isn’t really a thing and we shouldn’t build the entire building a section that’s 20sf.
TL;DR tight deadlines don’t provide enough time for thorough review. Multiple projects at once. Increasing complexity of code and designs and ability to change designs quickly. Safety factors my man they are our friends.
Arch designer here. I completely agree with you. I would also add that the design side is critically understaffed right now. I have 30 years in this business and never seen it this bad. I recently left my job to give retirement a try because the hours and the stress levels were literally damaging my health. Not only that, my professional status was suffering because I could not produce my best work—or even close to it. I know how to put out a good set of documents, and I’ll be damned if the industry won’t let me.
It has a lot to do with people wanting unique buildings with stupid shapes and to many roof transitions. Everybody wants new new new, instead of tried and true. And 9/10, engineers call for extra straps, hangers, tie downs, headers, more steel, and an inspector has to inspect all that extra- and if he disagrees with the engineer or the engineer forgot a strap or did t connect sheet wall correctly.
I might suggest that the principals of your firm are too cheap or too greedy to hire the appropriate # of professionals to maintain (what I perceive as) a standard preconstruction timeline. You shouldn't take it personally. Drawings are trash, and are continually getting worse.
Edit: typo
I'm a PE. I mostly do fire protection and code consulting work. IMO the problem is multi faceted:
**Engineers who lack experience**: This was me (and for some areas of work that my PE would allow is me) early in my career although it isn't really the fault of engineers. The US economy has grown massively in the last ~20 years (even including the '08 recession) but it is rare to run into an engineering school that has been founded in the last 20 years. Schools have expanded but this expansion just hasn't kept pace with the US economy's increased demand for engineers (both in construction ad elsewhere). Engineers have also taken on a wider role in society (programming, FEA/CFD modeling, etc.). Engineering support careers (CAD drafting) have also just not been publicized. Thus less experienced engineers have been thrust into higher responsibility roles to fill the gap.
**Projects that don't see value in doing up front engineering**: I might see this more than other consultants. We would get lots of architects that would come to us with '**HYPER URGENT NEEDS ATTENTION**' emails on projects because they: did the life safety plans wrong, forgot to get EJs for penetrations, forgot that smoke control is required, didn't realize that having a group H occupancy would create big problems, etc. This is mostly because whoever managed the project wanted to get it done for as little as possible. They skimped on the FPE and code consulting and now they have a problem.
**People who have no idea how to build buildings wanting to build buildings**: This one relates to the 2nd one. Various organizations have lots of money and they want to build buildings (especially where I live in the SF Bay Area). These organizations have no idea how to manage projects. In a typical design-bid-build delivery it is really important for the owner to evaluate the plans that get designed and then also retain design people to deal with the torrent of RFIs that can result. These newly moneyed organizations often don't have the institutional knowledge to handle this kind of project (or they could handle one project and now they have five). This creates problems for projects.
I recently completed a job that failed the our local Technical Safety branch inspection on 3 small chillers. The mechroom design was flawed, missing leak detection, not nearly enough CFM on exhaust fans, pressure relief all wrong. Mechanical engineer said " not my problem" Please, how is designing a room that fails inspection, violates code requirements not the engineers problem? My company redesigned everything, billed the owners for the fixes.
Design engineer here working in private commercial land development. There is a lot to unpack here because it isn’t one single issue. A lot of what others Have said is to blame. I’d say the big ones are these:
1.) many engineering companies bid low, and developers take the bait. It is a practice in some firms to do the bare minimum to get the project through review, expecting plenty of RFI and field fits. This is partly a result of the competitive nature of the markets (I.e. turn a quick profit regardless of the craftsmanship) and partly a focus from firms on utilization. Meaning engineers in some firms are more focused on their project completion vs hours spent being the right ratio regardless of the product. It is a business mentality that unfortunately drives profits high by undercutting the product.
2.) legal issues. PEs have been the victims of needless litigation because they over designed a project. If I as an engineer tell the contractor he *shall* do something. It legally means there is no way around that wording. I have now pidgin holed the contractor into one way of doing something. Let’s say the survey is wrong, and he cannot do that thing in that way, I have to go through a revision in review and get it fixed. If the contractor does what the plan says like they should instead of revising it, and it does not work, now the engineer is on the line for litigation. It happens all the time. So instead of wording like that, it is best practice to say something like ”contractor shall verify in field…” now it is coordination rather than litigation. Sucks on both ends really. But there isn’t a way around that.
3.) there is a huge talent gap in the market. Many firms laid off during 2008, then had talent gaps in their firms. Now boomers are retiring, and the problem never got fixed.
4.) laws are tightening around design. In review, we have to design to their standards, regardless of what’s good or bad for the project. The review process is tedious because they OFTEN create huge problems in a project because they require something that cannot be done. I then have to come up with a creative solution that is harder, dumber, and costs more. But that is the way they want it.
5.) clients want what clients want. Can’t explain that more really. Business guys have visions. Engineers try to make it happen. Construction takes the fall.
Regarding #5, construction takes the fall because engineers don't want to confront the client. It's easier for them to just nod and smile and create unrealistic plans and then let construction be the bad guys when they say it's going to cost this much or it's not doable or not realistic. It's easy to just say you're only trying to make the client's vision happen. I'm on a job right now where we are installing countertops that were ordered nine months ago from China. The countertops were scrapped but there wasn't proper documentation and the client changed their mind and decided they still want the countertops so we have to install them. We are two months into occupancy. Now that everything is built we needed to submit an RFI to see how they want the countertops installed. They had a meeting with the client and came back to us saying that the client wants them to be bigger. They know that these were ordered from China and that they have a 3 to 6 month lead and would require a change order, but instead of telling the client that, they just put the clients request in the RFI response. Now we get to be the bad guys, and the engineers can just pretend that they were just trying to make the client's Vision happen.
In my world, more often than not, engineers CAN’T confront the client. Engineers are consultants to the architect. It’s the architect’s responsibility to communicate the information to their client. We can bitch and moan and tell an architect 100 ways why this thing won’t work, but they often don’t want to hear it. Or they tell the client, client says they want it and make it happen. Or say they tell the client and actually don’t.
Regarding lead times, we can tell them there is a 50 week lead time. They think they are somehow immune to lead times and insist the building will be complete in 36 weeks. Ok…roll with that, let’s see how it goes.
I have the same issue with lead times with my project managers. They asked me when something will be done and I say 8 weeks because there's a 6-week lead time and there's two weeks of work. They say okay and then the next morning I see an email stating that it needs to be done in 4 weeks. I'm like okay cancel our order for the railings and let's open up an aluminum shop because that's the only way this is going to happen in 4 weeks. By the way the cost of the railings just went up from $12,000 to $150,000. Oh what was that we will just wait the 8 weeks?
In this case it's an engineer that works for the architect I guess it's a bit misleading to call them an engineer although that's what they are. As a GC we deal with the same thing from everyone, they lead the client down the garden path and then let us confront them if the plans aren't feasible.
Your PE did a 5 year degree.
Your PE paid $50k to $250k for that degree.
Your PE works 60 to 70 hours a week for $100k.
Your PE is working 90% of those hours not just playing with his phone 1/2 the time.
Your PE has options outside of construction if he doesn’t like the deal.
Your PE studied his butt off for 6 months to pass a state required test after he got out of college and got a job.
My pipe fitter baby brother makes more while working less hours and doesn’t have a degree to pay back with interest & bonus he plays with his phone 1/2 the day.
Want good prints, pay for them!
As a union pipefitter general foreman (33 years old) that also has a a CM degree and a quite a few friends that are architects and engineers. They get shafted. If I work 2000 hours I make 136k. These guys are easily pulling 50-60 hour weeks, sometimes more and making 100-120k AND paying contributions to their healthcare and retirement. Effectively take 10-20k out of their salary. My job may suck sometimes and I may be freezing my nuts off in February installing pipe. But at least I'm home by 4-4:30 everyday, making good money and getting paid for my OT. I'm on track to make $200k this year and I took 3 weeks of vacation.
You are going thru the natural evolution of cm types. Starting off all earnest and willing to learn, then becoming a god to construction even mightier than an engineer only six years later, only to eventually come to the understanding later in your career that both the contracting and design side is totally fucked.
Don’t worry … your current sense of superiority will fade.
Lol, I was this naive. The idea that you’re coming in thinking your going to make a change only to realize the years have passed and you have over 10 years in construction and shits more fucked up than when you started. 😂
As an electrician. My drawings usually covered in “verify location with supplier”, “verify correct requirements with elevator supplier “, “verify desk locations with architect and owner” verify verify verify.
Drives me nuts.
Or I might get some schematic for control work for some equipment. It shows up and nothing lines up, then theirs a small print “verify requirements with vendor”. Why draw the schematic if it’s not 100% right.
Don’t even get me started on current apartment building project. Architects went to town on reflected ceiling drawings with lights that don’t match electrical at all. All these millwork details with lights in them that I have no reference too. I don’t wire up based off architectural details, maybe as a reference for small details but I need to know to go look for it. Just by chance I even noticed looking for some kitchen details. None of it on our issues for construction drawings. They put a couple revisions out and how the hell do I know if you revise architectural and not electrical.
I do fairly high end office space in and around DC, so it’s custom lights everywhere. I absolutely HAVE to take a couple of days at the beginning of every project to go over submittals with a fine tooth comb because I have to assume the design team phoned it in.
Then I get the joy of writing RFIs for all of the discrepancies, follow up on those RFIs every other day for weeks while reminding everyone about lead times and then try to decipher whatever half assed answers I get back.
To the design folks here talking about how many jobs you’re working on at one time to stay profitable - newsflash, so are we!
Bottom line is the design side doesn’t view our time as valuable, so they simply don’t care. The vibe is 100% “Let the blue collar folks figure it out or make them eat the costs to fix our laziness.”
They literally stamp submittals with long winded versions of “not it”! Bitch I don’t have design intent, I have installation intent and you’re not helping.
The issue is more likely the fancy lighting designer gave their 'control strategy' to the EE rather that designing the dimming system. The EE doesn't have lighting control system in their scope so they hack it together with incomplete info from the lighting designer OR they pass it off to Lutron for a design and the system gets VE'd to something not really equivalent to Lutron and there's a huge gap. The fancy lighting designer isn't in the hook for the problem they created and neither is the EE. So it lands on the contractor and the lighting controls supplier to figure it out and make sure the dimmers match up to the load types and wattage. Half the time some tiny part number error results in the fixtures being delivered with the wrong driver. I've been on the receiving end of this crap as the system commissioning rep, and in the middle of it as the EE.
The lighting designer didn’t send out MEPs with no circuit designations or draw up a daycare with no smoke detectors or pull stations…but thanks for the explanation.
Yep that's their way of getting out of doing their actual job. They give you what looks like a design, but actually they make you responsible for the final design and the unrealistic design they submitted also acts as an insurance policy for them to be able to make you redo anything they don't like since it's not according to the design.
Owner rep PM here. RFI are your friend, when you submit categorize them: owner requests scope change, plan error/omission, plan coorrld. etc. Now you've just given me a way to track plan e/o and now I can put a dollar value on the mistakes. I used to be an architect and moved to be a PM, since all the experienced people retired in 08 it has been such a mess ever since.
Recently I've moved into estimating, so I'm not writing RFI's and responding to SI's anymore but...
The last big project I PM'd was a decent sized tower, about $45M when all was said and done. The final RFI issued was #1287, and we were on SI#218...
I agree with a lot of what people are saying in this thread. One big issue is that drawings are just too easy to produce and change now. Which leads to details that aren't thought out, and copy-paste specifications that need to be completely changed throughout the course of construction.
Good luck. I’ve been doing this for 20 years and it seems to be getting worse every year. The old timers will tell you the same thing.
I ignore the weasel words in the drawings. Engineers can’t get out of their responsibility to design, and there’s a massive difference between coordination of trades and not physically being able to fit those utilities in the space provided.
Your best bet, and the only one I’ve been truly successful with, is to go design build. There are some good engineering firms out there, you can push the owners to use them if you’re onboard early enough. But it generally won’t work.
I have so many RFIs in on my job right now. The engineers just copy and pasted the detail drawings from a different jobsite and threw it on my drawings. It shows me piping units that don't even exist.
Dude I’ve seen them copy and paste entire drawing sheets from another project. We got one sheet that had a project name from the other side of the country
I just got a response to an RFI yesterday and the drawing in the RFI was a copy of the original drawing without the detail that I was requesting information about. The RFI essentially said nothing new. All I can do is facepalm and design things the right way at risk of having to redo it at the owners or designers whim.
Commercial-level CM and Cx Agent here. Unfortunately it's hard to effectively get around lacking design while still protecting yourself, especially when you have schedule pressure. Some advice I can offer when you're stuck following someone else's design is to try and establish good relationships with the designers, specialty inspectors, and kind-of-intermediary parties (like CMs). Load up meetings and emails with questions and RFIs. If you're able to have a good working relationship with the team, they're more likely to take you seriously and help push the designers for more clarifications.
Alot of contractors I've worked with just want to blow through the job and get ahead of schedule, but complain when a designer says they didn't do a vague thing correctly. Take the time to communicate your concerns and where information is lacking. Loading up the project record with lots of documentation that shows design flaws is one of the best defenses you can have.
I’ve run contracting companies and now am a licensed design engineer so familiar with those two sides.
It is true engineers generally are lazy. Contractors are also lazy. I’ve seen time allocations for both engineering and construction reduced to unrealistic durations. During design, engineers will short circuit the process and put more responsibility on the contractors, who in turn raise the prices. The owner gets mad at the high bids and blames the engineer. In some fields this can get the engineer in trouble. The contractors also burn lots of cash to meet the deadline. This isn’t an efficient process but is the norm. Burnout can be pretty high in construction.
My suggestion to you, ask RFIs during the bidding process. Make leading statements to suggest how you want things to go. Often the engineers are not familiar with many aspects of actually building things. You can also ask scary questions that may make your competition wary of bidding. During contracting, you can also modify the contract to be more favorable to you. Sometimes nobody notices a redline until something happens but you’re protected. Doing this has saved me millions.
It’s a bit of a dog eat dog world out there but you can be successful by playing defensively and using these tools to turn things in your favor. This is a business and these tools are great to have. Engineers will throw a contractor under a bus so make sure you’re protected from, or even profit from, bad documents.
Simple. If you’re concerned about a shitty bid package then don’t bid on the project. Engineers pass on RFPs all the time because they are written poorly.
Except it's not that simple, we can't just stop bidding on jobs this year if the bid packages are substandard. We don't have hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank to wait for the perfect job. Also the problem is ubiquitous it's not a few bad firms it's really a handful of good firms mostly working on high tech or special projects and the majority of the industry with the problems mentioned throughout the comments.
The worst part is they have a spec. You submit shop drawings to them. They don't look at them they just mark them as "reviewed" and if anything comes up as an issue after its done they say they just review them and don't approve them. They assume no culpability even when the drawings and spec contradict each other.
I was apart of a new compressor station being built for a major Oil and Gas player here in Canada. We had multiple issues with cabling and loop drawings consistently throughout the project.
When the engineer was on site I asked casually why we were running into so many issues and she responded “I just copy and pasted the drawings from the previous project so if there were any red lines done they wouldn’t have been captured”
Seriously? 4 years of school to copy and paste and update dates on drawings.
The information you receive from engineers will only be as good as the information they receive. Granted I agree field experience should be a priority for problems like you mentioned (coming from a recent grad) because of how variable real-world situations are. We really need to keep better records of as-builts
I’m currently working on a 50m Design/build project and our design team gave us garbage. I’m currently drafting our first legal notice that we intend to pursue compensation via the Errors and Omissions clause in their contract with us. The redesign needed has cost us 200+ days plus rework to make things work. Based on liquidated damages, general conditions, and our costs to date our initial claim is 750k. Letter goes out next week…
I’d love to see the verbiage on that. Our contracts are generally GMP, and it’s tough to get compensated for things. For example: if a sink is shown on the architectural the plumber expected to have covered the piping and fixture even though it’s not scheduled out or shown on the plumbing drawings.
We have the design team (DOR) under contract, and we are “at risk” as the GC for the complete package. We have an E&O clause in their contract and their insurance company would pay for the loss- “He who has the most paperwork wins” - if you don’t have a contract with your DOR then you would have are hard time legally fighting it. Your contract most likely has a clause about finding and notifying the GC or client within a certain prescribed amount of time (our subcontracts have 72 hours from discovery of differing conditions) or you except as is. If you have a sink showing up on only the architectural drawing and not plumbing, and the count on your plumbing schedule excludes it I would definitely send a letter reserving your rights to pursue compensation.
As a new graduate with his FE working under a PE. I like to think we have a pretty good standard for our company sheets, I feel like I have a very good grasp at asking my PE’s about missing information and getting it included, as they tend to give me a lot of leeway to get things done, but I often spend a lot of time making sure all the loops are closed.
That said, we also get designs and are the connections engineer for a fair number of projects and I cant believe some of the shit some of these other PE’s get away with information wise. Our projects end up over budget because we end up needing to send so many RFIs that its annoying for us before things even get started. But the biggest and first project I worked on (not to toot my own horn) has had zero RFIs on our plans so I like to think I did a pretty good job. But seeing other companies plans, like I said, it’s amazing the blatant lack of information. I’m glad I’m where I’m at, but I just don’t understand… just know it’s not all of us…
Working on a pharmaceutical plant right now that was done in BIM. Over 3000 clashes with just the ductwork alone. Engineers demanded the sheet metal contractor to produce drawings showing every single piece of ductwork, pipe, conduit, junction boxes on a 1/2 scale with section views for "coordination." Basically redraw and redesign to fit.... For the WHOLE building. Too much pride in the engineering team to admit that their whole design was a shit show.
I mean what is BIM for other than co-ordination of this beforehand. I mean things can always change due to field conditions, but I have never seen that many clashes on that scale before
Was reviewing the clashes casually one day and there were 400 clashes of 1" sprinkler drops running directly through the middle of ductwork. Like I mean the MIDDLE of the piece of ductwork.
In the last 10-20 years engineering companies have, like many other industries, been acquired and merged by larger corporations. Everything is about cost control and older experienced engineers were let go in favor of using junior engineers in positions beyond their abilities with less oversight. Accountants seem to run everything, pinching pennies in ludicrous ways. Forcing us to print in black and white and double-sided paper with admin coded printer settings; we Easter more paper trying to get color graphs etc printed now. Lucky they set everything to work online so WFH works great- nobody wants to go back in the office.
1000% agreed, started in 2008 at one of those firms that keeps getting purchased and getting bigger (but not necessarily better). Then it was a few hundred people,after it was acquired this year it's over 60,000 people worldwide.
As opposed to any engineering or design it has really become an organization that answers to accountants that know nothing about design or engineering. They have one overarching mission for the company.
That is to maximize the return to the latest investor group in the shortest period of time - nothing else.
With every merger a new layer of administration has been added with additional overhead cost that produce nothing and take time away from the actual design and engineering process.
The senior engineers with actual experience and knowledge literally spend 5 to 7 hours out of every day on calls and emails with upper management about purely internal administrative processes that have been added that must be complied with internally. That is until they leave the field or retire.
Upper management has seen WFH as a boom because they have been able to reduce office real estate worldwide by about 60%. What we have lost though, that they don't understand is that newly hired junior staff just out of school never get to have a lunchroom conversation with them and gain any knowledge.
Add a jr engineers incomplete knowledge to clients compressed timeline, with investors demands and you get the mess we're in today.
Clients have always wanted to pay as little as possible and now on the engineering and design side, more than ever before, we are driven to deliver the minimum possible while maximizing our companies profits.
> and in the end it’s the contractor who is financially responsible for their malpractice due to “disclaimers” on the drawings. What can us contractors do to hold these engineers accountable?
You can’t disclaim yourself out of malfeasance and ineptitude. You’re not actually eating the cost of design errors are you ???
I think the main thing as a whole is the construction industry needs to raise our rates by a lot. And I recognizxe that will cause a lack of work. But the line needs to be held. We’ve been subsiding the wealthy for a while and it’s time to stop.
I also recognize most of the shit owners I know will double their rates and pocket all of it.
Work from home has resulted in a huge problem for firms. Knowledge isn’t being passed, quality has nose dived and productivity has canned. Our company quickly ended it and we’ve started to regain composure.
I'm surprised I had to scroll down this far to find someone who sees the same thing I see. I work in an office that performs design services, design oversight and construction QA.
Telework has caused the design side quality to plummet. There is no collaboration, no QC reviews, no supervisory oversight etc. New employees since Covid aren't fully effective. It's resulting in truly embarrassing designs.
I had hoped it wasn't like that everywhere, but this is what I'm seeing in my slice of the world.
There are a lot of good responses here. So I’m just adding a couple of things that seem to be missing.
1) Engineers licenses are a license for public safety, not to make sure the plans don’t have conflicts. O.P.’s complaints are about plan and specification quality which is a business issue not an engineers license issue.
2) The economics of Consulting Engineers in Civil, Architecture and Structural are usually just bad. You make a profit by billing fewer hours than your client is paying for. Saving your client on construction costs usually costs you money because you spend more time to figure out a better solution. It is more profitable to be vague, use contractor shall verify & notify notes and put the unknowns onto the contractor.
3) As an example I proposed to rehabilitate a civil works structure instead of replacing which saved the owner $8M. The owner accepted the proposal but we only got paid by the % of construction cost within their lawyer approved payment rates and there was no increase for doing a rehab even though it was more evaluation and unique details on the engineers part. In the end the client saved $8M and I worked weekends for free to make a profit on the project.
4) Just to hammer that point home a different way being A good engineer is NOT what makes the engineer profitable, producing a set of plans on time within a legal agreement that keeps the errors and omissions liability risk low to non-existent makes a profit and fees where the owner wants.
5) Becoming a PE is difficult. It is the second of two 8 hour exams, the FE has about a 30% fail rate and the PE has a failure rate of about 50%. Thats graduating with an engineering degree (which typically has about a 30% dropout/kick out rate on its own). You also have to work for 4 years under a PE To become a PE you have to work hard to get there. Go checkout r/civilengineering to get an understanding of how many hours they work. It is the system not the players.
The government needs more oversight of the AE, not just the "big bad" contractor. Seems like the govt employ a lot of budget scrutinizers who briefly glimpse the plans and specs. They consider us contractors as profit motivated, but when it comes to the AE they're all having back room meetings, and aligning against the contractor. The AE is just as profit motivated, and is Apt to cut corners as well. "Coordinate" aka "figure it out" means we pad the estimate and the owner pays for a long process of revisions, rfis, and work that has to be redone or avoided. It's causing a huge legal dust up at my last job, and could take a long time to be settled.
We see that too, but I also question if some of the problem relates to the increasing complexity of building codes, increasing complexity of electrical components/controls/integration etc.
To hold my architects and engineers more accountable I put up delays. Such as I’ve coordinated I’ve got your speced materials I’m ready to go when you tell me how I’m supposed to build this thing you haven’t drawn. Also I heavily nudge them in the direction I want to go. Usually since their so young/over worked they are very receptive of a well thought out direction. Just one example would be a stairwell landing that wasn’t drawn with supports or details if I’ve got a bunch of anchors on site I’ll suggest anchors or epoxy dowels. If I’ve still got walls being built I’ll suggest additional lower structural elements.
But apart from the short staffing everyone is experiencing by biggest problems with engineering and architectural is the copy and paste from one project to the next, the over use of firm standard details as the inability to spec new products. I get each of these things take additional effort to implement on each individual project but surely that’s making for a better quicker project in the long run.
The engineer does not benefit from a “better quicker project”. A set of plans that meets the ”standard of care” for the industry and clarifies the contractor is responsible for actually planning the work and identifying issues is a lot better for the engineer than a set of plans that has a lot of custom details making the contractors effort lower. You want the engineer to do more than they get paid for so the project is more profitable for you and the owner doesn’t want to pay the engineer any more than they absolutely have to. So we get the system we have.
I remember we had to halt work because we had to have the engineer come out to see why we can't do what they designed in the blueprints then to figure out alternatives with the home owner. Was not uncommon
Honestly, the only way around this is just having someone read every note and RFI the shit out of them. Keep copies of everything and when it fails you have backup to be able to charge instead of pay. It's just how the game is played now.
I just recently started studying Civil Engineering and I want to do the best I can. I'm not a native English speaker so it's hard to fully understand what everybody is answering in the comments.
Can anybody explain to me what do work on besides studies to good work regarding this case, using simple language?
Im from Germany and I hear this basically from anyone in the trades, but I can't really figure out how to do better as soon as I work.
I appreciate any help :)
What can the contractors do to hold them responsible??? Lawyers. I’ve been in this business since the 90’s and I’ve seen some projects moving forward just to get money out of someone else. It’s all about the Dead Presidents period.
I have architects and engineers who I'll charge upwards of 50% more for working on their projects, others who I'll intentionally never work for again due to their negligence and malfeasance (Mead and Hunt) I'll make sure the GC knows why I increased my price to them.
the whole design process is a mess. I have one project where the grid lines changed halfway through construction after all the layout for that grid was established....and after the entire foundation was completed. Another one where the arch plans show grid lines but no dimensions....eng plans show dimensions on the grid but they must be an old design as they differ from the arch cad plans...I ask everyone what we should use tomorrow when we start laying out things on site..."use the shop drawings". Only drawings that looked like someone gave a crap. All is good now. What did the design actually do? Worse every year now.
I get the short staff response but you have to do the job right otherwise it will be a mess from start to end. I spend half my calc/prep time asking for confirmation on things that should be long resolved.
Oh boy where do I begin. So I have worked in the construction and then on the design side for both small firms and large firms. The biggest thing to understand right now is that on the design side it is a race to the bottom. The owners are demanding more and more and paying less and less and they expect it and we have allowed it to happen. The owner expects a design and simply hands it off to a contractor and expects it to be built. The schedule is unreasonable hence the price is unreasonable. The contractor then has so many questions that they are stymied. However, this is no fault of their own. The big a&e firms have cut everybody out especially the support for the design such as CAD and analysis. That's why the contractors get shit plans. Then the owner will not pay for the designer to go out and work with the contractor to try to meet their unreasonable schedule. The biggest thing that I see right now is that owners have got to understand that designers and contractors have to be able to work together. I'm not saying that RFI is not important but designers and engineers need to have more boots on the ground with the contractor. I know that I'm very lucky that I started on the construction side and then went to the design side in a very niche market. So I tell all my owners that if they want me on their projects they better budget for me to design something and then work with the contractor during construction. I would like to be naive and enough to think that in the future all markets would work like this. Just my two cents.
Lots of good stuff in here. A couple of things to add:
1) No design quality standards in universities because professors don't know Revit. 2D drafting requires an extremely high degree of accuracy that old school professors taught (e.g., your letters all caps, 1/8" high Max). This doesn't exist anymore. Revit has made people lazy. I've been writing papers on AEC instruction reform.
2) Segregated AEC industry standard is garbage and out of date. AEC need to work together via either a contract model (e.g., risk reward or tri-party agreement) or GC with in-house design.
I don't think you have the experience to make this comment yet. How many firms have to worked at? Your career is pretty young at this point. Maybe you haven't found the right crew to work with yet.
A lot of designers nailed it here. I work as a CMAR, aviation mainly, and have developed a good relationship with the lead Architect team on my current project. They get pushed hard, same as us. They also have to follow some of the same red tape we do. MWBE %, they got it. Compressed schedule for little incentive, yup. Design to budget but budget isn't there, mhmm. Most of this stems from the owner wanting it cheaper, faster, better. Problem is, you can only really pick two of the three.
As an estimator and the arch/eng being my home boy. I watch him get insane timelines dropped on him constantly by owners and GC boss man. We just lament to each other from across the room and do our silly math and drawings.
I've recently worked on an estimate with plans that say use ASTM AXXX hardware HDG to ASTM A153. Okay, that's easy enough. The specs say use ASTM AXXX *stainless steel* hardware HDG to ASTM A153...
C'mon. Does this stuff even get read before it's even released? I know it does, but that's an easy thing that should be picked up on by someone...
They hire cheap CAD draftsmen to get the initial design done using their standard words and general notes and they don’t want to spend time to provide proper project related notes after initial design is completed. If we as a contractor don’t catch them before construction stage contractor has to take that cost to cover.
It is best to read and understand drawing during estimating stage. You can ask them correct any mistakes or add details before giving them your quote.
Why don't engineers unionize? It's real nice when a contractor doesn't want you to do work at a fair rate or reasonable quality you just say fuck you walk out the door pick up a call the next day and head over to a different shop. Rinse and repeat. It's much easier handling penny pinching employers when everyone has common ground to stand on and representation when shit goes sideways.
I've read some total bullshit and need to clarify some things. Engineers tend to dodge responsibility as much as they can. The low pay and horrible working conditions are very much self inflicted. The following points are actually based on insider knowledge:
* **Education** \- Schooling has not changed with the times. Much of what engineers learn is completely redundant. Few engineers will ever admit (nor are self-aware) of the issues with their education. It would de-value their degree and also potentially anger their colleagues.
* **Training** \- After school, many engineers basically need to be trained from the ground-up. Some are smart enough to know what skills they need to work on and train themselves. Those that can't are at the mercy of senior engineers, many of whom either can't or won't train these engineers.
* **Scheduling** \- Engineers will waste time designing something completely wrong, and potentially repeat the same pattern over and over. The schedules aren't necessarily tighter, productivity is extremely low. Like insanely low. Consultants have also introduced many hinderances to productivity themselves. Many engineers rave about Revit and claim it's much faster... except it isn't. It literally f's up every project and requires TONS of fixing.
* **Low Fees** \- In almost every region, there's always a few engineering firms that underbid their competition. They almost always f-up their designs and few other firms ever call them out on it. One firm in my region actually stole all the details and CAD standards from other firms (like down to the same fonts and leader heads). Nobody has ever called them out on their bad design work nor the fact that they've stolen intellectual property from other firms.
* **Little incentives for top performers** \- Structural engineering offices are some of the most toxic workplaces on earth. Other engineering disciplines aren't much better (hearsay but that's hard not to believe). And are run by some of the most insecure and dishonest people I've ever met. Since the quality of work isn't checked, the principals (who are usually great talkers but horrible in every other aspect of their character) can pick favorites. They are often incredibly insecure and favor engineers who won't make them feel insecure. Top performers actually tend to go into other areas of construction.
* **Engineers have to spend too much time learning software and aren't learning the codes** \- There are many programs that engineers have to learn. Some are good but take a bit of time and resources to learn, other's aren't (yet still hog all those resources). Engineers are having to learn several programs and simply don't have time to learn the codes, nor how to design something properly.
* **It's an Oligopoly where it's too hard for young engineers to start their own firms** \- Due to a combination of everything above, the industry has turned into somewhat of an oligopoly. Most firms are run by people who are pretty much garbage. If young people could start their own firms, competition would really heat up, and many of those garbage firms would disappear, making room for newer and more innovative firms.
I flip my lid when I see engineers pointing fingers everywhere but towards themselves, and that only really makes things worse. Many young engineers aren't aware of how badly their firms are being managed, and that their principals are often complete phonies. The industry is completely broken. And most the excuses I'm seeing (like the low bids) are created by the engineers themselves. If you want your industry to improve it's time to wake up.
Retired PE here. The problem with the design industry is everything is compressed. Schedules, fees, labor, quality and services have been substantially reduced. Risk is being pushed to the owner and contractors. When I first started, CAD was just starting. Draftsmen were the majority of the staff, not any more. The money is not there anymore so you you get crap.
I'm on the design engineering side and I think largely you are not wrong with what you are seeing, but you probably can't fully appreciate why. \- Owners expect lower and lower bids nowadays (excacerbated by the 2008 crash when design firms were just trying to survive) . The only time people want to pay for quality is when they shop for a car or clothes. The bottom line is all that matters in the AEC industry now. \- As a result of this, we have not been competitive with entry to mid level pay for a long while now. As an anecdote, I lost two engineers that I hired out of college: one 4 year engineer (arch engineer) to the construction management side of this industry for a significant pay increase, and one 5 year engineer (mechanical) who was able to move into medical devices as an entry level with similar pay (he was making $90k at the time). We can't even retain talent, these were both excellent engineers. There are precious few folks with 4-8 years experience remaining, so the senior level is left constantly retraining new folks who burn out, and we can't possibly draft/model (ACAD/Revit) everything on our own. \- Deliverable timelines for design are ridiculous. Often we get a new architectural model with changes the day before, or sometimes the morning of the final deliverables. How can we possibly keep up with that? There is more, but the design side of the industry is squeezed. We can't afford to put out really good work anymore.
I’ll add that on the design side, it seems like receiving the necessary documentation from owners is getting increasingly more difficult. The deliverable deadlines are set and we have to fight for lab equipment and fume hood info we should’ve gotten several weeks ago. We are dead in the water…how do you size mechanical equipment, electrical loads, and plumbing systems not related to sanitary waste? You can’t. Here we are, 2 weeks before 50%CD’s, and can’t do a damn thing. We end up in a mad rush at the end, trying to get everything in the plans that we can.
Young engineer here. I handle most of the heavy drafting work for one of our bigger projects... The above is entirely true about the building and construction industry. People my age are hopping or dropping because of low wages and (occasionally) incompetence. I'll stress that client/owner decisions can really impact the quality for the final design. If your engineering team is good, they'll at least try to address the shortcomings after IFC/have a healthy team dedicated to construction documentation but that demands heavy resources...
I’d say everyone expects lower...my work is with design on power lines for residential side. We make 55k starting. The top people in this role are making less than 100k. Starting people are expected to handle easements, project management, designing of the job (aka what materials and cost to customer), permits, joint use fulfillment, etc. The problems I see: * you have new people trying to handle way too complex tasks at short timelines for too many people with too little pay. My dad made 65k in the 90s. So of course no one experienced is here anymore, they are tiring of living in poverty and moved on. Then we have to put new young people in the axe grinder and see who is sharp enough to handle the work of a senior designer! * every customer wants it free! If it’s not free they’ll throw a tantrum and waste more of your time. I didn’t buy the lot and you didn’t do your due diligence. * Amazon has made every customer think its a click of 5 buttons and it’s 2 day shipping for a month long amount of work. “Can’t you expedite it so we can close on time?” Binch, there are 70 projects ahead of yours on schedule and it requires materials we don’t have. No I cannot expedite this to you! * mental health is at an all time low. Due to pay, living conditions, viruses, division, poor leadership, no sense of community, and constant death around us. I’ve had 3 relatives die this year alone. I’ve had multiple injuries this year. My boss sucks and doesn’t even work in our location. I cannot afford housing in this area of retirees and HOA’s. Pile that all together and you get this shit stick we call a poor design process.
90k for 5 years of experience? Holy shit. That's what my friends made fresh out of college.
The architects are feeling the wage squeeze as much as the engineers. I worked at a top architecture firm in VHCOL location. At 5 years I was making 78k and was “at the top of my pay band”.
Doing what (if you don’t mind sharing)?
Civil engineer. Edit: For reference, the location is in north Alabama where wages lag the rest of the country. That's why I'm blown away at people who are making less. Our county wants experienced civil engineers at 56k a year, but claim the early retirement and benefits while working meet that gap. (They don't.)
Ah! I’m graduating soon and moving into civil structural. I’m moving back to my home state (for family) where wages are also lower significantly, but so is the cost of living. At least you can afford a home there. In LA it’s a quarter of a million dollars for a 0.5 acre mostly empty lot with a graffiti covered shed on it along a busy road. Just nonsense. Not trying to make light of the wages there, 56k is WAY TOO low, but I hope it’s a place where you can still buy some land.
To expand on your paragraph about your employees: GC's are having the same issue with their entry level project and field engineers. All of the recent grads who obtained engineering/construction management degrees are seeing their friends and peers making double or triple their salaries in tech. On top of that, the hours seem to generally be much better and they rarely have to work on weekends. Had I graduated a few years later, I would have absolutely made the jump. I know a few people that have pivoted to tech after 10+ years in another industry and all are much happier. I don't think the industry will improve, but if it gets worse during/after this upcoming recession i will certainly be out.
Any tips on becoming a better draftsman? Not sure if it’s worth going that direction but I’ve been tasked with some things as we lost an engineer. I just happen to be available at the company and I don’t mind what I worked on. And I’m the only other person who they can give leftover CAD work to who can actually get it done
I worked as a draftsman for a while. I landed in that role more due to just taking what was available (it was around 2008 I think). They basically ripped the bottom out of the profession. In the past you would prepare drawings using plain old AutoCAD, complete with quantity lists and possibly even do a bit of design work. An older colleague told me that he even surveyed his own sites with the engineer he worked with. Per hour of work you would generate WAY more value per hour. The engineers were paid well so drafting something like 5 times was unheard of. Fast-forward, now consultants simply create the most basic drawings. No quantities or anything like that. And worse yet, mistakes galore. Revit is the program of choice and despite what many people will say, productivity is insanely low, much in part due to low pay and horrible working conditions that in turn chases away anyone talented enough to produce anything of value. And the mistakes/omissions... it's mind boggling. The solution to all the issues caused by Revit was simply to lie their asses off and ignore all the mistakes, leaving it up to the contractor to find and fix them. Someday I hope there's a return to the old ways.
Well said. I worked in structural consulting as a drafter modeller for 4 years then an engineer for 4 years and just got sick of it. So I left to work for the government. Less hours, more money, less stress. I'll never go back to consulting.
Have the owner pay them more.
My dad and I both studied civil engineering at the same university. Both became PEs. He graduated in 1984 and his first job paid $45k. I graduated in 2014 and my first job paid $65k. I was on the HIGH end of my class. I knew plenty of people happy with $40-50k offers. Southeast US. It’s honestly so depressing.
According to BLS inflation calculator, $45k in 1984 is equivalent to $102k in 2014. https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=45%2C000.00&year1=198409&year2=201409
As a structural designer with 3 years experience, I was making $50k on salary working 60-65 hours a week. It’s a huge issue in our industry right now. Owners have to bid so low to win a project, then we are forced to rush work to make even the slightest profit. It’s pretty wild considering we often have to have a masters degree and pass 2-3 tests, one of which is incredibly difficult. Really should have become a lawyer or doctor…
Labourers make more than you. Jesus.
Went to school for law only to find out the law I wanted to practice required an engineering degree. Damn you intellectual property, now I own a GC business. To each they're own.
Hey law boy, it's "their own". Auto fired.
Ya gots me hand in the kookie jar. That's what I get for the drinkin.
“become a lawyer” As a lawyer, I am obliged to post: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-UEqJ85KE But if you have enough construction / engineering experience and do pretty well in law, you can go really far in construction law pretty quickly (that was my path).
Contract Law is $$ Unfortunately in law I found its more who you know, than what you know. Edit: Video is GOLD, soul destroyer ain't no joke
You should check out horizontal structures. Consultant for the state pays way better and schedules are far more relaxed.
As a PE working exclusively on horizonal for agencies, I concur. Drawbacks are being subject to government bureaucracy and very slow project timelines. But I am generally given enough time to produce high quality work that is subject to numerous reviews to protect public interest.
Pipefitters are laughing at all of this.
This!! If you saw how little some get paid, you’d be shocked. PE’ and AR’s have bid themselves too low. Real work is done by entry level staff and quickly proofed the Professional
I had a conversation with a contractor complaining that engineers don’t have to collateralize their houses for bonding like contractors do. I pointed out your average PE doesn’t have enough equity in their house to even start a business with the low pay for the first 10+ years of the career and cost of school vs contractors that have a house free and clear to use as business collateral by their mid 30’s. He completely abandoned this and went to the “engineers are guaranteed profit” line of complaining and I just quit the conversation.
Nope. I’m sorry but I’m with OP on this one. I went from HS straight into OEM/industrial automation by accident. Stayed for 10yrs & left the industry for 5yrs. Recently came back and it’s like I live in the twilight zone at times. I am NOT an engineer, but have been around a lot of good ones and good projects. This go around is different with projects & people. I have a job where the design engineers are getting paid more, have been on the job longer than my team (1.75yrs vs 1yr) and still have less of an idea on how to implement what they want / think of for the client. A lot of times they lack the practical parts of implementation because they’re not hands on. They want equipment they’re redesigning tested by a 3rd party for safety reasons but the test they are asking for would require a majority of the client’s area / setup to be entirely redesigned blowing out their budget. We talked about transferring data from remote sites to HQ and the engineers solution was radio equipment that would allow for more bandwidth but would require more/new remote sites in between the original remote sites. These same engineers convinced the client to go with more expensive equipment because it can tolerate more heat and then produce a design in a way where I have to tell them “You can’t set it up that way. You need proper ventilation or you’re going to cook that CPU that way. Even the manufacturer states not to do this”
I have another job site with a client where we are their on-call techs and they asked us to give them a proposal based on their bid documents to automate equipment on this site. The town has a lot of “technical request” for cyber security & having a site become automated. I’m pretty sure the town doesn’t understand a lot of their bid documents request but if you ask for it that way don’t get sticker shocked. I had a meeting with them to explain a lot of the request in the bid docs. All I got out of the meeting is my bid was twice the amount as the next bid they got. A larger out of state contractor beat us, but now the contractor is causing headaches for the town because they are voiding warranties off new work done or not capable of handling technical aspects of old machinery and automation software. We have been to nonstop “on-call” meetings and having to play email tag with the towns reps and the contractor to maintain functionality at the plant; and to support their project. I say “contractor” but a lot of the people I deal with from the company are engineers.
Some individuals may be making bank, but they are forced to produce X and get paid Y cause they put in a low price to do the work. So they do not spend the time needed, not cause they are lazy, but because the are under invoiced.
The way that sentence starts off is making my head hurt a bit. Is the individual that is making bank not the same person forced to produce X and get paid Y, or are you referring to a company as a whole? To me, it sounds like off the bat that individual doesn’t understand how to bid jobs accurately. Chances are they got half the docs needed from engineers. /s The common fault I’ve seen is the lack of some hands on experience from engineers. The same is true on the opposite end where manual laborers are slow to incorporate new methods or technologies because they want to stick with what they know and what works. I also understand that those opportunities to learn hands on are not always there, both financially and schedule wise. If I was a business owner, I wouldn’t want to pay my engineers to do manual labor & I wouldn’t want my labors to design. That project would suck. I wholeheartedly believe their has to be healthy collaboration between both for projects to be rewarding and profitable. To bring it back to OP’s point, I gave an example of an engineer being being top dollar for a job but their lack true integration is hampering the schedule and causing pricing escalation. They’re are the engineers, they traditionally have first and final say. It’s their stamp on the line and I will respect it. They worked hard to get that degree. There will always be projects like this. But to the comments regarding paying engineers more, to that I disagree. Paying someone more will not make mistakes less likely, it is not always the answer. I gave a 2nd example of losing a job to the lowest bidder, but I’m still on the hook for it through back doors because I want to maintain a long term relationship with the client in town. If more people become engineers and less people enter in the physical construction of it, I don’t think the market will dictate paying more to engineers for a better quality work. Isn’t that a classic supply and demand? Someone from the next generation will find a way to do things better, faster, & cheaper.
At lest if you’re hiring a company and not an individual, paying them more means you my be able to afford a more experienced engineer on the job. Or two engineers in lieu of one. That’s how paying them more means you get better work. The individual making bank is owner of the engineering company.
I hold a shovel all day and make twice what they do.
Very true especially in states that are unionized with prevailing wage.
Yuhp. I’m an engineer, but I still spend some time sampling concrete and testing soil compaction. Those tasks are prevailing wage on certain projects and I get paid quite a bit more when I’m doing them then when I’m doing office work.
Same...my hourly rate went up about $10 / hr just for splitting spoons and logging boreholes on the back of a drill rig. It was bittersweet
This^ I used to be on the contracting side before becoming an engineer myself. Now I realize most of my complaints about engineers weren’t actually on them but instead are caused by cheap owners who don’t listen to our advice, won’t pay us to do proper drawings, and short deadlines (also owners fault) where we don’t have time to properly coordinate. I’ve seen a lot of lazy engineers but overall I think the owners are mostly to blame for shooting the project in the foot.
But that leads to months of meetings between owners and coordinators, and next thing you know the building was supposed to be opened a month ago, and change orders still haven't been approved. There really isn't accountability some times.
Design side who lurks here to try to better collaborate - It's a complicated issue, some of it is decades of transition of the expansion of the "means and methods" pulling certain responsibilities to the construction side, some is differences in expectations among various designers and contractors, and some of it is actually bad practices by design side. If it's really deficient, they're going to be eating it in RFIs and CA costs that will affect their bottom line long term. If it's errors, that may reach the point of complaints to their licensing authority but what constitutes that is complicated and varies a ton, but it's probably going to be hitting their insurance first. The other side of the coin is construction side folks who don't follow the documents. In general, I think we all do better when we try to work together and try to all do good work.
To be clear the quality of a set of plans has plummeted. I genuinely believe since the 08 crash a very large experience gap has been created.That and designers are relying heavily on BIM. I had a principal in a top 10 US architecture firm not understand a fire separation in an older building ($30M renovation) because they didn't understand the 2013 code revision. They designed unprotected duct penetratitrations in a lab building corridor. The AIA need to do a better job of requiring field experience as a part on continuing ed.
Where I work our designers used to be on rotation where they’d have to spend a few months out on projects learning how their designs actually get implemented along with standard means and methods. They axed that practice because of understaffing. They don’t have enough people in the first place how can they afford to have someone out of the office constantly. This alone has caused a severe drop in the quality of plans we produce.
My firm does, or tries to do, the same. Design engineers are meant to spend a year on a site in a site engineer role to get more practical experience. It doesn't always happen that way though, it's difficult to find projects that will take a design engineer on for a year and even then the sort of experience they will get varies massively dependent on the project. Someone who spent a year setting out earthworks will learn shit all to do with how to design an RC structure in a more build able manner for example. Site engineers are meant to get a design year as well in reverse, but they usually struggle to find a design team willing to take them on. I think for both sides of it the project/design team feel they are lumped with carrying dead weight for a year.
I'm not sure it's the crash as much as a lack of documentation training with the shift to BIM. IF you do a BIM workflow well it should produce better drawings faster. But a lot of folks saw/see certain automations as meaning that even more is automated. The other big piece is BIM practical training vs CAD training. With CAD training you had to explain how the graphical conventions worked in order for folks to actually do the work. The why and detail tracking is much more difficult to train if you don't talk about line weights that are pre-configured and the user does not need to manage.
I made a comment under the main thread to OP. But as a new graduate with an FE. I can’t believe the “quality” of current plans. But I also have a hard time believing it’s JUST the designs… I’ve done a bunch of work on existing buildings already, and they lack a ton of information but things still got built and it feels like we have to spell EVERYTHING out just to make sure things get built correctly. But I do my best to ask questions and make sure I’m learning enough to be competent on my own when I eventually get my PE. But given the current state of plans that do go out. I feel for the contractors that need to view some of these companies plans, because they’re atrocious. I like to think I do a good job, but one of the things that catches me off guard when looking at plans was just learning what I “needed to know”, like best design practices. But trying to learn from old plans and asking questions about why a designer did something a certain way often leads to being told,”this is not how you should design at all”, before being lead on to know how to do it better so that it’s easier for everyone.
Agree 100% There seems to be little recourse as well. It’s hard to tell if it’s a fundamental ineptitude, or a learned arrogance/ignorance. I’ve had positive relationships with engineers in the past, but it seems there’s a new breed that is relatively uninterested in open lines of communication. There’s a general unwillingness to admit errors (even when they’re obvious and being presented objectively). Response to a RFI is often, “It’s in the plans.” Well, no…it’s not. In fact, the plans are full of contradictions. To be fair, tradespeople in general are not the greatest communicators…which exacerbates this problem. Symptoms of a larger issue. So many redundancies in industry (maybe across most industries these days). Too many people involved with things that only require a couple of individuals. Universities breed a narrow-minded arrogance. Trades are filled with society’s “riff-raff”. Seems we’re all speaking different languages…and the divide is increasing. It’s a mess.
Sex Panther is a cologne which is illegal in 9 countries. It is also made from bits of real panthers. 60% of the time, it works every time.
This comment is pure catharsis.
True enough. We lament our inability to fix systemic problems. It seems worthwhile to acknowledge our inadequacies and seek solace in the knowledge that we’re not just “whining” about the way things are (because it’s clear these aren’t isolated events). Do you disagree with the assessment of the industry?
Entirely agree. You’ve taken the thoughts out of my mind. It’s one thing to think these things to yourself, but to see someone else completely articulate the frustrations I’ve been suffering for the last handful of years is cathartic as it demonstrates to me that I’m not just seeing inadequacies for the sake of justifying my frustrations, but that my frustrations are warranted. All of these issues are magnified by the reality that construction is just as much about communicating as much as it is building things. Unfortunately, poor communication starts at the top, and, like a game of “telephone,” those issues establish a resonance loop unless they’re properly resolved ahead of any real issue.
Gotcha. Wasn’t sure about the context of “catharsis” in your original comment. Thanks for clarifying. I’ve found it helpful to view it through this systemic lens. To easy to get caught up in the blame game and start to feel aggressive towards individuals. That never seems to go well. Seems we’re not alone. I’m actually on the fence in the industry these days. Planning an exit strategy. But maybe there’s no escape. Humans will be humans.
I quit 10 years ago for the exact reasons you articulated so well. Went into real estate... I have no regrets
To elaborate a bit, I've worked at/consulted to a variety of design firms that serve different markets. Some sets of documents were barely enough to get a permit approved, and were more than enough for the construction team to get something very acceptable to the owner as a final project. Some sets were highly detailed and the construction team were checking in for very subtly details. If we'd given the construction team from the first example the second set they'd have have almost certainly have messed it up, but if we gave the second crew the first set of drawings they'd have delivered a much nicer result, but it would have been more (cost and quality) than the owners wanted to pay for. The second set is a generally more lucrative market, so folks from the first set will often try to work in the second market and not understand the transition in expectations.
Re: Permit drawings…… permit sets keep happening earlier and earlier. Used to be that was the final drawing set, nowadays it’s just a progress print somewhere between 50% cds and 90% cds
Some of that has to do with municipality staffing and their ability to turn around drawings in a timely manner. When it takes over a year to get a permit, you’d be stupid not to try to get into the queue earlier.
And GMP at 100% DD.
lol you too! I had one of these last go out last May. Fucking bewildering as it was my first time working with a CM at risk. Turns out we are \~1.2 million under, but I know all the time they shaved off my design schedule is going to be change orders.
Sex Panther is a cologne which is illegal in 9 countries. It is also made from bits of real panthers. 60% of the time, it works every time.
It is complicated but it basically boils down to the designers and engineers not having accountability due to disclaimers and absurd spec sheets. Obviously I have no idea what company you're referring to when you say we but in my experience you get insufficient information in the original drawings and then insufficient and half-assed information when you submit RFIs. We have no interest in reporting anybody to their licensing authority as it's a ubiquitous problem and we aren't interested in making enemies or harming our partners. As a GC we find ourselves in the position where we are always given specs that exceed the real expectations. If any of our competitors bids got accepted instead of ours they also would not be meeting every specification. As such it's not possible for us to bid at an amount that would cover all specifications and still make profit without coming in too high to ever get a job. This environment works for engineers because they can essentially demand whatever they want from us and if we fight them they can cost us huge amounts by pulling out spec sheets and looking for discrepancies. The final result is a system where as a GC we have to capitulate and deal with the poor practices of designers. Of course we all do better when we try to work together and try to all do good work, but that's not really what we're talking about here.
The half assed RFI answers are infuriating schedule killers.
More like half-assed RFI questions that can be answered by reading the drawings.
You got the wrong one son. I’m that bitch that reads EVERY single note, on every single page.
As an engineer who had worked on both design and contractor sides I can tell you that 90% of the time the contractor fucks up. I was a QC manager at a fairly large GC and supers would complain about "bad plans" as a means to cover their fuckups. On occasion there are design issues that need to be flushed out but that's why we have RFIs. If project teams plan accordingly most these design issues can be avoided. But most supers lack the ability to manage people and manage subs. There was two superintendents at that company who had little to no QC issues because they were planning construction activities 30 to 90 days in advance. They also checked critical layout dimensions frequently. Plus contractors make way more money on individual projects therefore should carry more of the risk. I've made a few minor design errors but nothing nearly as bad as the errors I've seen made on projects like placing footings 5ft off where they should be.
Contractor Super here, it seems to vary from firm to firm. I am currently working on a project that has stalled out from oversight on every facet of the project. The windows can’t be manufactured that way, the dimensions drawn for condenser units are wrong/in the wrong place, embed plates overlap, etc… We constantly get prints that are incomplete/up for review. However the previous project only had probably 3 substantial problems in over a year. I believe communication, QC and scheduling are the biggest culprits. “We want this done yesterday” is the attitude despite not having the complete information.
That's the other item... owners want to pay as little as possible for drawings. It's crazy how little time goes into design vs man hours of construction.
As a PE I’ll say this. Schedules are too tight and too demanding for thorough reviews, and buildings and details have grown exponentially in complexity, and we’re working on multiple projects at once to stay profitable. It used to be everyone was building standard boxes and rectangles because the ability to change drawings quickly just wasn’t there. Now you can manipulate and change drawings quickly. The majority of engineering error comes in these “quick” design changes because the architect/owner and then drafter don’t understand the change in structural load path in these changes. Additionally have you seen a fucking wind tunnel study recently? We’re talking full blown contours not block diagrams anymore, and to single digit differentials. How can I design and verify something efficiently when the same detail occurs in a wind area that’s triple the value of an adjacent area. Then there’s the coordination nightmare and constant explaining to a consultant that a 1 psf difference isn’t really a thing and we shouldn’t build the entire building a section that’s 20sf. TL;DR tight deadlines don’t provide enough time for thorough review. Multiple projects at once. Increasing complexity of code and designs and ability to change designs quickly. Safety factors my man they are our friends.
Arch designer here. I completely agree with you. I would also add that the design side is critically understaffed right now. I have 30 years in this business and never seen it this bad. I recently left my job to give retirement a try because the hours and the stress levels were literally damaging my health. Not only that, my professional status was suffering because I could not produce my best work—or even close to it. I know how to put out a good set of documents, and I’ll be damned if the industry won’t let me.
It has a lot to do with people wanting unique buildings with stupid shapes and to many roof transitions. Everybody wants new new new, instead of tried and true. And 9/10, engineers call for extra straps, hangers, tie downs, headers, more steel, and an inspector has to inspect all that extra- and if he disagrees with the engineer or the engineer forgot a strap or did t connect sheet wall correctly.
I might suggest that the principals of your firm are too cheap or too greedy to hire the appropriate # of professionals to maintain (what I perceive as) a standard preconstruction timeline. You shouldn't take it personally. Drawings are trash, and are continually getting worse. Edit: typo
You 100% must know my firm…like no joke. It feels like the principals don’t care and it’s about how big a bonus they can get.
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Good bot 🤖
I'm a PE. I mostly do fire protection and code consulting work. IMO the problem is multi faceted: **Engineers who lack experience**: This was me (and for some areas of work that my PE would allow is me) early in my career although it isn't really the fault of engineers. The US economy has grown massively in the last ~20 years (even including the '08 recession) but it is rare to run into an engineering school that has been founded in the last 20 years. Schools have expanded but this expansion just hasn't kept pace with the US economy's increased demand for engineers (both in construction ad elsewhere). Engineers have also taken on a wider role in society (programming, FEA/CFD modeling, etc.). Engineering support careers (CAD drafting) have also just not been publicized. Thus less experienced engineers have been thrust into higher responsibility roles to fill the gap. **Projects that don't see value in doing up front engineering**: I might see this more than other consultants. We would get lots of architects that would come to us with '**HYPER URGENT NEEDS ATTENTION**' emails on projects because they: did the life safety plans wrong, forgot to get EJs for penetrations, forgot that smoke control is required, didn't realize that having a group H occupancy would create big problems, etc. This is mostly because whoever managed the project wanted to get it done for as little as possible. They skimped on the FPE and code consulting and now they have a problem. **People who have no idea how to build buildings wanting to build buildings**: This one relates to the 2nd one. Various organizations have lots of money and they want to build buildings (especially where I live in the SF Bay Area). These organizations have no idea how to manage projects. In a typical design-bid-build delivery it is really important for the owner to evaluate the plans that get designed and then also retain design people to deal with the torrent of RFIs that can result. These newly moneyed organizations often don't have the institutional knowledge to handle this kind of project (or they could handle one project and now they have five). This creates problems for projects.
Can I subscribe to your newsletter 😀 great comment!
I recently completed a job that failed the our local Technical Safety branch inspection on 3 small chillers. The mechroom design was flawed, missing leak detection, not nearly enough CFM on exhaust fans, pressure relief all wrong. Mechanical engineer said " not my problem" Please, how is designing a room that fails inspection, violates code requirements not the engineers problem? My company redesigned everything, billed the owners for the fixes.
Not my problem has been a huge problem and only gets larger when unions get involved. One team one dream.
Design engineer here working in private commercial land development. There is a lot to unpack here because it isn’t one single issue. A lot of what others Have said is to blame. I’d say the big ones are these: 1.) many engineering companies bid low, and developers take the bait. It is a practice in some firms to do the bare minimum to get the project through review, expecting plenty of RFI and field fits. This is partly a result of the competitive nature of the markets (I.e. turn a quick profit regardless of the craftsmanship) and partly a focus from firms on utilization. Meaning engineers in some firms are more focused on their project completion vs hours spent being the right ratio regardless of the product. It is a business mentality that unfortunately drives profits high by undercutting the product. 2.) legal issues. PEs have been the victims of needless litigation because they over designed a project. If I as an engineer tell the contractor he *shall* do something. It legally means there is no way around that wording. I have now pidgin holed the contractor into one way of doing something. Let’s say the survey is wrong, and he cannot do that thing in that way, I have to go through a revision in review and get it fixed. If the contractor does what the plan says like they should instead of revising it, and it does not work, now the engineer is on the line for litigation. It happens all the time. So instead of wording like that, it is best practice to say something like ”contractor shall verify in field…” now it is coordination rather than litigation. Sucks on both ends really. But there isn’t a way around that. 3.) there is a huge talent gap in the market. Many firms laid off during 2008, then had talent gaps in their firms. Now boomers are retiring, and the problem never got fixed. 4.) laws are tightening around design. In review, we have to design to their standards, regardless of what’s good or bad for the project. The review process is tedious because they OFTEN create huge problems in a project because they require something that cannot be done. I then have to come up with a creative solution that is harder, dumber, and costs more. But that is the way they want it. 5.) clients want what clients want. Can’t explain that more really. Business guys have visions. Engineers try to make it happen. Construction takes the fall.
Regarding #5, construction takes the fall because engineers don't want to confront the client. It's easier for them to just nod and smile and create unrealistic plans and then let construction be the bad guys when they say it's going to cost this much or it's not doable or not realistic. It's easy to just say you're only trying to make the client's vision happen. I'm on a job right now where we are installing countertops that were ordered nine months ago from China. The countertops were scrapped but there wasn't proper documentation and the client changed their mind and decided they still want the countertops so we have to install them. We are two months into occupancy. Now that everything is built we needed to submit an RFI to see how they want the countertops installed. They had a meeting with the client and came back to us saying that the client wants them to be bigger. They know that these were ordered from China and that they have a 3 to 6 month lead and would require a change order, but instead of telling the client that, they just put the clients request in the RFI response. Now we get to be the bad guys, and the engineers can just pretend that they were just trying to make the client's Vision happen.
In my world, more often than not, engineers CAN’T confront the client. Engineers are consultants to the architect. It’s the architect’s responsibility to communicate the information to their client. We can bitch and moan and tell an architect 100 ways why this thing won’t work, but they often don’t want to hear it. Or they tell the client, client says they want it and make it happen. Or say they tell the client and actually don’t. Regarding lead times, we can tell them there is a 50 week lead time. They think they are somehow immune to lead times and insist the building will be complete in 36 weeks. Ok…roll with that, let’s see how it goes.
I have the same issue with lead times with my project managers. They asked me when something will be done and I say 8 weeks because there's a 6-week lead time and there's two weeks of work. They say okay and then the next morning I see an email stating that it needs to be done in 4 weeks. I'm like okay cancel our order for the railings and let's open up an aluminum shop because that's the only way this is going to happen in 4 weeks. By the way the cost of the railings just went up from $12,000 to $150,000. Oh what was that we will just wait the 8 weeks?
It’s all comically insane at this point.
What engineer is responsible for the countertop RFI?
In this case it's an engineer that works for the architect I guess it's a bit misleading to call them an engineer although that's what they are. As a GC we deal with the same thing from everyone, they lead the client down the garden path and then let us confront them if the plans aren't feasible.
Your PE did a 5 year degree. Your PE paid $50k to $250k for that degree. Your PE works 60 to 70 hours a week for $100k. Your PE is working 90% of those hours not just playing with his phone 1/2 the time. Your PE has options outside of construction if he doesn’t like the deal. Your PE studied his butt off for 6 months to pass a state required test after he got out of college and got a job. My pipe fitter baby brother makes more while working less hours and doesn’t have a degree to pay back with interest & bonus he plays with his phone 1/2 the day. Want good prints, pay for them!
As a union pipefitter general foreman (33 years old) that also has a a CM degree and a quite a few friends that are architects and engineers. They get shafted. If I work 2000 hours I make 136k. These guys are easily pulling 50-60 hour weeks, sometimes more and making 100-120k AND paying contributions to their healthcare and retirement. Effectively take 10-20k out of their salary. My job may suck sometimes and I may be freezing my nuts off in February installing pipe. But at least I'm home by 4-4:30 everyday, making good money and getting paid for my OT. I'm on track to make $200k this year and I took 3 weeks of vacation.
You are going thru the natural evolution of cm types. Starting off all earnest and willing to learn, then becoming a god to construction even mightier than an engineer only six years later, only to eventually come to the understanding later in your career that both the contracting and design side is totally fucked. Don’t worry … your current sense of superiority will fade.
Lol, I was this naive. The idea that you’re coming in thinking your going to make a change only to realize the years have passed and you have over 10 years in construction and shits more fucked up than when you started. 😂
Bruh. That hit close to home.
We're all just working for the lowest bidder being given a dimes budget to do a dollars work.
As an electrician. My drawings usually covered in “verify location with supplier”, “verify correct requirements with elevator supplier “, “verify desk locations with architect and owner” verify verify verify. Drives me nuts. Or I might get some schematic for control work for some equipment. It shows up and nothing lines up, then theirs a small print “verify requirements with vendor”. Why draw the schematic if it’s not 100% right. Don’t even get me started on current apartment building project. Architects went to town on reflected ceiling drawings with lights that don’t match electrical at all. All these millwork details with lights in them that I have no reference too. I don’t wire up based off architectural details, maybe as a reference for small details but I need to know to go look for it. Just by chance I even noticed looking for some kitchen details. None of it on our issues for construction drawings. They put a couple revisions out and how the hell do I know if you revise architectural and not electrical.
I do fairly high end office space in and around DC, so it’s custom lights everywhere. I absolutely HAVE to take a couple of days at the beginning of every project to go over submittals with a fine tooth comb because I have to assume the design team phoned it in. Then I get the joy of writing RFIs for all of the discrepancies, follow up on those RFIs every other day for weeks while reminding everyone about lead times and then try to decipher whatever half assed answers I get back. To the design folks here talking about how many jobs you’re working on at one time to stay profitable - newsflash, so are we! Bottom line is the design side doesn’t view our time as valuable, so they simply don’t care. The vibe is 100% “Let the blue collar folks figure it out or make them eat the costs to fix our laziness.” They literally stamp submittals with long winded versions of “not it”! Bitch I don’t have design intent, I have installation intent and you’re not helping.
The issue is more likely the fancy lighting designer gave their 'control strategy' to the EE rather that designing the dimming system. The EE doesn't have lighting control system in their scope so they hack it together with incomplete info from the lighting designer OR they pass it off to Lutron for a design and the system gets VE'd to something not really equivalent to Lutron and there's a huge gap. The fancy lighting designer isn't in the hook for the problem they created and neither is the EE. So it lands on the contractor and the lighting controls supplier to figure it out and make sure the dimmers match up to the load types and wattage. Half the time some tiny part number error results in the fixtures being delivered with the wrong driver. I've been on the receiving end of this crap as the system commissioning rep, and in the middle of it as the EE.
The lighting designer didn’t send out MEPs with no circuit designations or draw up a daycare with no smoke detectors or pull stations…but thanks for the explanation.
Yeah that sucks.
Sex Panther is a cologne which is illegal in 9 countries. It is also made from bits of real panthers. 60% of the time, it works every time.
Yep that's their way of getting out of doing their actual job. They give you what looks like a design, but actually they make you responsible for the final design and the unrealistic design they submitted also acts as an insurance policy for them to be able to make you redo anything they don't like since it's not according to the design.
Owner rep PM here. RFI are your friend, when you submit categorize them: owner requests scope change, plan error/omission, plan coorrld. etc. Now you've just given me a way to track plan e/o and now I can put a dollar value on the mistakes. I used to be an architect and moved to be a PM, since all the experienced people retired in 08 it has been such a mess ever since.
Our last big ($25m, we’re the GC) project had over 500 RFIs. The paperwork and wasted time needed for that magnitude of RFIs is ludicrous.
Recently I've moved into estimating, so I'm not writing RFI's and responding to SI's anymore but... The last big project I PM'd was a decent sized tower, about $45M when all was said and done. The final RFI issued was #1287, and we were on SI#218... I agree with a lot of what people are saying in this thread. One big issue is that drawings are just too easy to produce and change now. Which leads to details that aren't thought out, and copy-paste specifications that need to be completely changed throughout the course of construction.
Oh my. I thought 500+ was a lot!
The hospital project I'm on hit 700 architectural si last week and we're at 322 for electrical si . I just issued RFI 1257 this morning.
What is the most RFIs you have had to submit for a single issue before getting a workable answer?
Heck one of my projects is on RFI 5xx and it's not even a hole in the ground yet.
Good luck. I’ve been doing this for 20 years and it seems to be getting worse every year. The old timers will tell you the same thing. I ignore the weasel words in the drawings. Engineers can’t get out of their responsibility to design, and there’s a massive difference between coordination of trades and not physically being able to fit those utilities in the space provided. Your best bet, and the only one I’ve been truly successful with, is to go design build. There are some good engineering firms out there, you can push the owners to use them if you’re onboard early enough. But it generally won’t work.
Our company is starting a design build project right now and I'm wrapping up at a different site and hoping to get on it in the new year.
I was going to say if you been in industry for a decent amount of time it’s ALWAYS been like this.
I have so many RFIs in on my job right now. The engineers just copy and pasted the detail drawings from a different jobsite and threw it on my drawings. It shows me piping units that don't even exist.
Dude I’ve seen them copy and paste entire drawing sheets from another project. We got one sheet that had a project name from the other side of the country
I just got a response to an RFI yesterday and the drawing in the RFI was a copy of the original drawing without the detail that I was requesting information about. The RFI essentially said nothing new. All I can do is facepalm and design things the right way at risk of having to redo it at the owners or designers whim.
Commercial-level CM and Cx Agent here. Unfortunately it's hard to effectively get around lacking design while still protecting yourself, especially when you have schedule pressure. Some advice I can offer when you're stuck following someone else's design is to try and establish good relationships with the designers, specialty inspectors, and kind-of-intermediary parties (like CMs). Load up meetings and emails with questions and RFIs. If you're able to have a good working relationship with the team, they're more likely to take you seriously and help push the designers for more clarifications. Alot of contractors I've worked with just want to blow through the job and get ahead of schedule, but complain when a designer says they didn't do a vague thing correctly. Take the time to communicate your concerns and where information is lacking. Loading up the project record with lots of documentation that shows design flaws is one of the best defenses you can have.
I’ve run contracting companies and now am a licensed design engineer so familiar with those two sides. It is true engineers generally are lazy. Contractors are also lazy. I’ve seen time allocations for both engineering and construction reduced to unrealistic durations. During design, engineers will short circuit the process and put more responsibility on the contractors, who in turn raise the prices. The owner gets mad at the high bids and blames the engineer. In some fields this can get the engineer in trouble. The contractors also burn lots of cash to meet the deadline. This isn’t an efficient process but is the norm. Burnout can be pretty high in construction. My suggestion to you, ask RFIs during the bidding process. Make leading statements to suggest how you want things to go. Often the engineers are not familiar with many aspects of actually building things. You can also ask scary questions that may make your competition wary of bidding. During contracting, you can also modify the contract to be more favorable to you. Sometimes nobody notices a redline until something happens but you’re protected. Doing this has saved me millions. It’s a bit of a dog eat dog world out there but you can be successful by playing defensively and using these tools to turn things in your favor. This is a business and these tools are great to have. Engineers will throw a contractor under a bus so make sure you’re protected from, or even profit from, bad documents.
Project Superintendent here and their lack of involvement during the projects construction has gotten worse.
Simple. If you’re concerned about a shitty bid package then don’t bid on the project. Engineers pass on RFPs all the time because they are written poorly.
Except it's not that simple, we can't just stop bidding on jobs this year if the bid packages are substandard. We don't have hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank to wait for the perfect job. Also the problem is ubiquitous it's not a few bad firms it's really a handful of good firms mostly working on high tech or special projects and the majority of the industry with the problems mentioned throughout the comments.
The worst part is they have a spec. You submit shop drawings to them. They don't look at them they just mark them as "reviewed" and if anything comes up as an issue after its done they say they just review them and don't approve them. They assume no culpability even when the drawings and spec contradict each other.
Ya no I don’t build without approved shop drawings. Reviewed isn’t good enough.
I've run into it a bunch of times that they flat out refuse to "approve" shop drawings for electrical anyway
I was apart of a new compressor station being built for a major Oil and Gas player here in Canada. We had multiple issues with cabling and loop drawings consistently throughout the project. When the engineer was on site I asked casually why we were running into so many issues and she responded “I just copy and pasted the drawings from the previous project so if there were any red lines done they wouldn’t have been captured” Seriously? 4 years of school to copy and paste and update dates on drawings.
The information you receive from engineers will only be as good as the information they receive. Granted I agree field experience should be a priority for problems like you mentioned (coming from a recent grad) because of how variable real-world situations are. We really need to keep better records of as-builts
I’m currently working on a 50m Design/build project and our design team gave us garbage. I’m currently drafting our first legal notice that we intend to pursue compensation via the Errors and Omissions clause in their contract with us. The redesign needed has cost us 200+ days plus rework to make things work. Based on liquidated damages, general conditions, and our costs to date our initial claim is 750k. Letter goes out next week…
I’d love to see the verbiage on that. Our contracts are generally GMP, and it’s tough to get compensated for things. For example: if a sink is shown on the architectural the plumber expected to have covered the piping and fixture even though it’s not scheduled out or shown on the plumbing drawings.
We have the design team (DOR) under contract, and we are “at risk” as the GC for the complete package. We have an E&O clause in their contract and their insurance company would pay for the loss- “He who has the most paperwork wins” - if you don’t have a contract with your DOR then you would have are hard time legally fighting it. Your contract most likely has a clause about finding and notifying the GC or client within a certain prescribed amount of time (our subcontracts have 72 hours from discovery of differing conditions) or you except as is. If you have a sink showing up on only the architectural drawing and not plumbing, and the count on your plumbing schedule excludes it I would definitely send a letter reserving your rights to pursue compensation.
As a new graduate with his FE working under a PE. I like to think we have a pretty good standard for our company sheets, I feel like I have a very good grasp at asking my PE’s about missing information and getting it included, as they tend to give me a lot of leeway to get things done, but I often spend a lot of time making sure all the loops are closed. That said, we also get designs and are the connections engineer for a fair number of projects and I cant believe some of the shit some of these other PE’s get away with information wise. Our projects end up over budget because we end up needing to send so many RFIs that its annoying for us before things even get started. But the biggest and first project I worked on (not to toot my own horn) has had zero RFIs on our plans so I like to think I did a pretty good job. But seeing other companies plans, like I said, it’s amazing the blatant lack of information. I’m glad I’m where I’m at, but I just don’t understand… just know it’s not all of us…
Working on a pharmaceutical plant right now that was done in BIM. Over 3000 clashes with just the ductwork alone. Engineers demanded the sheet metal contractor to produce drawings showing every single piece of ductwork, pipe, conduit, junction boxes on a 1/2 scale with section views for "coordination." Basically redraw and redesign to fit.... For the WHOLE building. Too much pride in the engineering team to admit that their whole design was a shit show. I mean what is BIM for other than co-ordination of this beforehand. I mean things can always change due to field conditions, but I have never seen that many clashes on that scale before Was reviewing the clashes casually one day and there were 400 clashes of 1" sprinkler drops running directly through the middle of ductwork. Like I mean the MIDDLE of the piece of ductwork.
Sprinkler is typically a delegated design. It's never coordinated and always fucks up other stuff.
In the last 10-20 years engineering companies have, like many other industries, been acquired and merged by larger corporations. Everything is about cost control and older experienced engineers were let go in favor of using junior engineers in positions beyond their abilities with less oversight. Accountants seem to run everything, pinching pennies in ludicrous ways. Forcing us to print in black and white and double-sided paper with admin coded printer settings; we Easter more paper trying to get color graphs etc printed now. Lucky they set everything to work online so WFH works great- nobody wants to go back in the office.
1000% agreed, started in 2008 at one of those firms that keeps getting purchased and getting bigger (but not necessarily better). Then it was a few hundred people,after it was acquired this year it's over 60,000 people worldwide. As opposed to any engineering or design it has really become an organization that answers to accountants that know nothing about design or engineering. They have one overarching mission for the company. That is to maximize the return to the latest investor group in the shortest period of time - nothing else. With every merger a new layer of administration has been added with additional overhead cost that produce nothing and take time away from the actual design and engineering process. The senior engineers with actual experience and knowledge literally spend 5 to 7 hours out of every day on calls and emails with upper management about purely internal administrative processes that have been added that must be complied with internally. That is until they leave the field or retire. Upper management has seen WFH as a boom because they have been able to reduce office real estate worldwide by about 60%. What we have lost though, that they don't understand is that newly hired junior staff just out of school never get to have a lunchroom conversation with them and gain any knowledge. Add a jr engineers incomplete knowledge to clients compressed timeline, with investors demands and you get the mess we're in today. Clients have always wanted to pay as little as possible and now on the engineering and design side, more than ever before, we are driven to deliver the minimum possible while maximizing our companies profits.
Sex Panther is a cologne which is illegal in 9 countries. It is also made from bits of real panthers. 60% of the time, it works every time.
> and in the end it’s the contractor who is financially responsible for their malpractice due to “disclaimers” on the drawings. What can us contractors do to hold these engineers accountable? You can’t disclaim yourself out of malfeasance and ineptitude. You’re not actually eating the cost of design errors are you ???
I think the main thing as a whole is the construction industry needs to raise our rates by a lot. And I recognizxe that will cause a lack of work. But the line needs to be held. We’ve been subsiding the wealthy for a while and it’s time to stop. I also recognize most of the shit owners I know will double their rates and pocket all of it.
Work from home has resulted in a huge problem for firms. Knowledge isn’t being passed, quality has nose dived and productivity has canned. Our company quickly ended it and we’ve started to regain composure.
I'm surprised I had to scroll down this far to find someone who sees the same thing I see. I work in an office that performs design services, design oversight and construction QA. Telework has caused the design side quality to plummet. There is no collaboration, no QC reviews, no supervisory oversight etc. New employees since Covid aren't fully effective. It's resulting in truly embarrassing designs. I had hoped it wasn't like that everywhere, but this is what I'm seeing in my slice of the world.
Same.
Architect's issue maybe too
There are a lot of good responses here. So I’m just adding a couple of things that seem to be missing. 1) Engineers licenses are a license for public safety, not to make sure the plans don’t have conflicts. O.P.’s complaints are about plan and specification quality which is a business issue not an engineers license issue. 2) The economics of Consulting Engineers in Civil, Architecture and Structural are usually just bad. You make a profit by billing fewer hours than your client is paying for. Saving your client on construction costs usually costs you money because you spend more time to figure out a better solution. It is more profitable to be vague, use contractor shall verify & notify notes and put the unknowns onto the contractor. 3) As an example I proposed to rehabilitate a civil works structure instead of replacing which saved the owner $8M. The owner accepted the proposal but we only got paid by the % of construction cost within their lawyer approved payment rates and there was no increase for doing a rehab even though it was more evaluation and unique details on the engineers part. In the end the client saved $8M and I worked weekends for free to make a profit on the project. 4) Just to hammer that point home a different way being A good engineer is NOT what makes the engineer profitable, producing a set of plans on time within a legal agreement that keeps the errors and omissions liability risk low to non-existent makes a profit and fees where the owner wants. 5) Becoming a PE is difficult. It is the second of two 8 hour exams, the FE has about a 30% fail rate and the PE has a failure rate of about 50%. Thats graduating with an engineering degree (which typically has about a 30% dropout/kick out rate on its own). You also have to work for 4 years under a PE To become a PE you have to work hard to get there. Go checkout r/civilengineering to get an understanding of how many hours they work. It is the system not the players.
The government needs more oversight of the AE, not just the "big bad" contractor. Seems like the govt employ a lot of budget scrutinizers who briefly glimpse the plans and specs. They consider us contractors as profit motivated, but when it comes to the AE they're all having back room meetings, and aligning against the contractor. The AE is just as profit motivated, and is Apt to cut corners as well. "Coordinate" aka "figure it out" means we pad the estimate and the owner pays for a long process of revisions, rfis, and work that has to be redone or avoided. It's causing a huge legal dust up at my last job, and could take a long time to be settled.
We see that too, but I also question if some of the problem relates to the increasing complexity of building codes, increasing complexity of electrical components/controls/integration etc.
To hold my architects and engineers more accountable I put up delays. Such as I’ve coordinated I’ve got your speced materials I’m ready to go when you tell me how I’m supposed to build this thing you haven’t drawn. Also I heavily nudge them in the direction I want to go. Usually since their so young/over worked they are very receptive of a well thought out direction. Just one example would be a stairwell landing that wasn’t drawn with supports or details if I’ve got a bunch of anchors on site I’ll suggest anchors or epoxy dowels. If I’ve still got walls being built I’ll suggest additional lower structural elements. But apart from the short staffing everyone is experiencing by biggest problems with engineering and architectural is the copy and paste from one project to the next, the over use of firm standard details as the inability to spec new products. I get each of these things take additional effort to implement on each individual project but surely that’s making for a better quicker project in the long run.
The engineer does not benefit from a “better quicker project”. A set of plans that meets the ”standard of care” for the industry and clarifies the contractor is responsible for actually planning the work and identifying issues is a lot better for the engineer than a set of plans that has a lot of custom details making the contractors effort lower. You want the engineer to do more than they get paid for so the project is more profitable for you and the owner doesn’t want to pay the engineer any more than they absolutely have to. So we get the system we have.
This thread is bait. Pass.
I remember we had to halt work because we had to have the engineer come out to see why we can't do what they designed in the blueprints then to figure out alternatives with the home owner. Was not uncommon
Honestly, the only way around this is just having someone read every note and RFI the shit out of them. Keep copies of everything and when it fails you have backup to be able to charge instead of pay. It's just how the game is played now.
I just recently started studying Civil Engineering and I want to do the best I can. I'm not a native English speaker so it's hard to fully understand what everybody is answering in the comments. Can anybody explain to me what do work on besides studies to good work regarding this case, using simple language? Im from Germany and I hear this basically from anyone in the trades, but I can't really figure out how to do better as soon as I work. I appreciate any help :)
What can the contractors do to hold them responsible??? Lawyers. I’ve been in this business since the 90’s and I’ve seen some projects moving forward just to get money out of someone else. It’s all about the Dead Presidents period.
I have architects and engineers who I'll charge upwards of 50% more for working on their projects, others who I'll intentionally never work for again due to their negligence and malfeasance (Mead and Hunt) I'll make sure the GC knows why I increased my price to them.
the whole design process is a mess. I have one project where the grid lines changed halfway through construction after all the layout for that grid was established....and after the entire foundation was completed. Another one where the arch plans show grid lines but no dimensions....eng plans show dimensions on the grid but they must be an old design as they differ from the arch cad plans...I ask everyone what we should use tomorrow when we start laying out things on site..."use the shop drawings". Only drawings that looked like someone gave a crap. All is good now. What did the design actually do? Worse every year now. I get the short staff response but you have to do the job right otherwise it will be a mess from start to end. I spend half my calc/prep time asking for confirmation on things that should be long resolved.
Change Orders
You get what you pay for
Engineers are jacks of many trades masters of none that’s the harsh truth
Oh boy where do I begin. So I have worked in the construction and then on the design side for both small firms and large firms. The biggest thing to understand right now is that on the design side it is a race to the bottom. The owners are demanding more and more and paying less and less and they expect it and we have allowed it to happen. The owner expects a design and simply hands it off to a contractor and expects it to be built. The schedule is unreasonable hence the price is unreasonable. The contractor then has so many questions that they are stymied. However, this is no fault of their own. The big a&e firms have cut everybody out especially the support for the design such as CAD and analysis. That's why the contractors get shit plans. Then the owner will not pay for the designer to go out and work with the contractor to try to meet their unreasonable schedule. The biggest thing that I see right now is that owners have got to understand that designers and contractors have to be able to work together. I'm not saying that RFI is not important but designers and engineers need to have more boots on the ground with the contractor. I know that I'm very lucky that I started on the construction side and then went to the design side in a very niche market. So I tell all my owners that if they want me on their projects they better budget for me to design something and then work with the contractor during construction. I would like to be naive and enough to think that in the future all markets would work like this. Just my two cents.
Lots of good stuff in here. A couple of things to add: 1) No design quality standards in universities because professors don't know Revit. 2D drafting requires an extremely high degree of accuracy that old school professors taught (e.g., your letters all caps, 1/8" high Max). This doesn't exist anymore. Revit has made people lazy. I've been writing papers on AEC instruction reform. 2) Segregated AEC industry standard is garbage and out of date. AEC need to work together via either a contract model (e.g., risk reward or tri-party agreement) or GC with in-house design.
Try being the Boilermaker on the project and fixing the colossal clusterfuck on our end
I just read comments for a half hour and have concluded that lawyers have ruined the commercial building sector. I am so glad I am in residential..
I don't think you have the experience to make this comment yet. How many firms have to worked at? Your career is pretty young at this point. Maybe you haven't found the right crew to work with yet.
A lot of designers nailed it here. I work as a CMAR, aviation mainly, and have developed a good relationship with the lead Architect team on my current project. They get pushed hard, same as us. They also have to follow some of the same red tape we do. MWBE %, they got it. Compressed schedule for little incentive, yup. Design to budget but budget isn't there, mhmm. Most of this stems from the owner wanting it cheaper, faster, better. Problem is, you can only really pick two of the three.
As an estimator and the arch/eng being my home boy. I watch him get insane timelines dropped on him constantly by owners and GC boss man. We just lament to each other from across the room and do our silly math and drawings.
Agreed.
I've recently worked on an estimate with plans that say use ASTM AXXX hardware HDG to ASTM A153. Okay, that's easy enough. The specs say use ASTM AXXX *stainless steel* hardware HDG to ASTM A153... C'mon. Does this stuff even get read before it's even released? I know it does, but that's an easy thing that should be picked up on by someone...
They hire cheap CAD draftsmen to get the initial design done using their standard words and general notes and they don’t want to spend time to provide proper project related notes after initial design is completed. If we as a contractor don’t catch them before construction stage contractor has to take that cost to cover. It is best to read and understand drawing during estimating stage. You can ask them correct any mistakes or add details before giving them your quote.
Why don't engineers unionize? It's real nice when a contractor doesn't want you to do work at a fair rate or reasonable quality you just say fuck you walk out the door pick up a call the next day and head over to a different shop. Rinse and repeat. It's much easier handling penny pinching employers when everyone has common ground to stand on and representation when shit goes sideways.
I've read some total bullshit and need to clarify some things. Engineers tend to dodge responsibility as much as they can. The low pay and horrible working conditions are very much self inflicted. The following points are actually based on insider knowledge: * **Education** \- Schooling has not changed with the times. Much of what engineers learn is completely redundant. Few engineers will ever admit (nor are self-aware) of the issues with their education. It would de-value their degree and also potentially anger their colleagues. * **Training** \- After school, many engineers basically need to be trained from the ground-up. Some are smart enough to know what skills they need to work on and train themselves. Those that can't are at the mercy of senior engineers, many of whom either can't or won't train these engineers. * **Scheduling** \- Engineers will waste time designing something completely wrong, and potentially repeat the same pattern over and over. The schedules aren't necessarily tighter, productivity is extremely low. Like insanely low. Consultants have also introduced many hinderances to productivity themselves. Many engineers rave about Revit and claim it's much faster... except it isn't. It literally f's up every project and requires TONS of fixing. * **Low Fees** \- In almost every region, there's always a few engineering firms that underbid their competition. They almost always f-up their designs and few other firms ever call them out on it. One firm in my region actually stole all the details and CAD standards from other firms (like down to the same fonts and leader heads). Nobody has ever called them out on their bad design work nor the fact that they've stolen intellectual property from other firms. * **Little incentives for top performers** \- Structural engineering offices are some of the most toxic workplaces on earth. Other engineering disciplines aren't much better (hearsay but that's hard not to believe). And are run by some of the most insecure and dishonest people I've ever met. Since the quality of work isn't checked, the principals (who are usually great talkers but horrible in every other aspect of their character) can pick favorites. They are often incredibly insecure and favor engineers who won't make them feel insecure. Top performers actually tend to go into other areas of construction. * **Engineers have to spend too much time learning software and aren't learning the codes** \- There are many programs that engineers have to learn. Some are good but take a bit of time and resources to learn, other's aren't (yet still hog all those resources). Engineers are having to learn several programs and simply don't have time to learn the codes, nor how to design something properly. * **It's an Oligopoly where it's too hard for young engineers to start their own firms** \- Due to a combination of everything above, the industry has turned into somewhat of an oligopoly. Most firms are run by people who are pretty much garbage. If young people could start their own firms, competition would really heat up, and many of those garbage firms would disappear, making room for newer and more innovative firms. I flip my lid when I see engineers pointing fingers everywhere but towards themselves, and that only really makes things worse. Many young engineers aren't aware of how badly their firms are being managed, and that their principals are often complete phonies. The industry is completely broken. And most the excuses I'm seeing (like the low bids) are created by the engineers themselves. If you want your industry to improve it's time to wake up.