How do I deal with this engineer?

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DaveBowden said:
...As a state certified electrical contractor, my license allows me to design and draw up to an 800 amp service.
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If the project's scope is entirely within the scope of your license, I see no problem with offering the alternate pricing; however, I then wonder why the customer hired an engineer in the first place unless there were other design activities beyond electrical. If there is a broader scope you still may be running afoul of the State's engineering practice laws. I don't know, I don't practice in Florida and the laws aren't consistent throughout the US.
 
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rbalex said:
John, I beleive you are referencing the PE Act:
However Board rules 415 state:
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Yep just got off the phone with one of the local EE's and he called the state and they told him that a civil could sign any of the other disaplines as long as he was involved in the project. So you can't just have a Civil draw and sign electrical plans.

6737.2. Supplementary practice by civil engineer
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Nothing in this chapter shall prohibit a civil engineer, registered under the provisions of this chapter, from practicing or offering to practice any engineering in connection with or supplementary to civil engineering studies or activities as defined in Section 6731.
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cowboyjwc said:
Yep just got off the phone with one of the local EE's and he called the state and they told him that a civil could sign any of the other disaplines as long as he was involved in the project. So you can't just have a Civil draw and sign electrical plans.

6737.2. Supplementary practice by civil engineer
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Nothing in this chapter shall prohibit a civil engineer, registered under the provisions of this chapter, from practicing or offering to practice any engineering in connection with or supplementary to civil engineering studies or activities as defined in Section 6731.
[/FONT][/FONT]
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If accepted by plan review and PE stamped, does CA require compliance as drawn?
 
...The load calculations come up to about 360 Amps with everything figured at 100% (no derating).....
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Why, and what is the derating in reference to ?

Lighting, H2O heater, largest motor, sign all need something different!
 
I should have said the engineer's load calculations came up to about 360. There is nothing derated in the calculation. The only thing that could have been that I can think of off hand would be the receptacle load if it was large enough but it isn't.
 
DaveBowden said:
How do you convince a customer that the civil engineer (not electrical engineer) that they paid to draw this print is costing them unnecessary money? How do you convince the engineer that you don't need to ignore all the testing laboratories findings as far as protecting wires are concerned by oversizing everything by more than 25% ?
I tried to explain to him that there is no danger in running 400 Amp wire for a service that is rated for 400 Amps and protected at 400 Amps, but got the "That's how I do it" response.
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you don't.

there are a number of ways this can turn out that i'm aware of, and most of them don't benefit you.
you have no idea what relationship the owner and the engineer have, do you? it could be his
brother in law, y'know? or his drinking buddy, or whatever.

driving a wedge between a client and a engineer will turn out exactly as well as it would
if you found the engineer was telling the customer that your work sucked. what would you do
if the tables were turned?

you questioned the engineer, and got back a "duly noted".

you have a wet ink signature from a PE on a set of plans. bid it, put it in, and go to the bank.

you can RFI it by email, and get back something from him. then he owns it, and your due
diligence is done, but even that won't go well. it's more expensive this way, but not substandard
or unsafe in any way, and the signed prints absolve you in any case.

in my not so humble opinion pushing on this will blow it up in your face.
 
Fulthrotl,
Thank you for the excellent advice.
While I certainly wasn't trying to drive any wedges, I was probably overstepping.
I'll price it the way it was drawn and hope it doesn't compel the customer to seek a lower bid.
 
DaveBowden said:
Fulthrotl,
Thank you for the excellent advice.
While I certainly wasn't trying to drive any wedges, I was probably overstepping.
I'll price it the way it was drawn and hope it doesn't compel the customer to seek a lower bid.
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You shouldn't worry about how someone else bids it. If he wins the job by cutting the design, he will wind up eating it.
The only thing you should worry about is your competitor being pro-active and quoting the deduct alternate that you should have.
Owner's love VE shopping lists. And all VE's are "subject to approval" (no risk to you).
 
jumper said:
If accepted by plan review and PE stamped, does CA require compliance as drawn?
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Yes. You can go to the engineer and have them changed of course and send them back through plan review. Actually I believe that was in the Admin Code, so that should have been true for anywhere that adopted it.
 
cdslotz said:
You shouldn't worry about how someone else bids it. If he wins the job by cutting the design, he will wind up eating it.
The only thing you should worry about is your competitor being pro-active and quoting the deduct alternate that you should have.
Owner's love VE shopping lists. And all VE's are "subject to approval" (no risk to you).
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This brings up a good point that kind of goes along with my response to jumper, as an inspector I don't care why the engineer drew it that way, maybe he knows something we don't about a future expansion, but that's what he drew and that's what you're going to install.
 
cowboyjwc said:
This brings up a good point that kind of goes along with my response to jumper, as an inspector I don't care why the engineer drew it that way, maybe he knows something we don't about a future expansion, but that's what he drew and that's what you're going to install.
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Thank you. Raider has to do the same in Utah and VA required it also. I usually get grief about this.

I had one EE spec a #10 EGC for all 20 amp bundled MWBCs, so I had to do it.
 
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