They just don't exist.
One of the local municipalities has what they call a "two-stage" building permit for structures that are near flood-prone areas and should be above 'minimum finished floor' elevations, as determined.
They issue an initial permit for "foundation only". Then after a surveyor has satified the city that the foundation is above the minimum, the second part of the permit is issued to complete the structure.
Got a call from a client last week that needs a two-stage letter. I get out to the site and there is no foundation, only a graded pad. I set a TBM for the mud crew.
He calls and wants his letter. I tell him I can't give him the letter until I determine the elevation of something he hasn't built yet, but I did set a BM. I tell him to let me know when the slab is complete.
Got an email from him yesterday that states: "They will be stripping the forms tomorrow."
OK. Sent the crew out today to shoot the foundation...here's what they found:
This guy is getting under my skin...
Probably, due to poor management, the contractor is in desperate need of a construction loan draw. :-O
Have a great week!
That is almost laughable - were it not true.
Fortunately I've never been "blessed" with blatant BS like that. Send him a bill for your time involved with a PS: "strip the forms off of what exactly?"
Closest I ever got caught was being in the middle of crap was between a road builder in the field with us and our engineer back in the office. I knew from the road guy was going to put the road when he saw fit based on terrain [steep mountain side]. I know because he told us so. The engineer had never been on site but I tried my best to let him know what was going on when we got back to the office. After a few goes the builder finally just said he needed cut/fills on the road he already had going on - forget the engieer's drawings. To me that is simple trig but that would be engineering without a license for sure. I actually did run some numbers while on the way to lunch with my PC. We finally convinced the engineer he needed to be on site to see [with his own real eyeballs] what is going on. He did and busted out his calc with his plans on the hood. Guess what? My numbers were spot on.
I'm rambling on now.... don't know what ever happened with that project.
From the title of this thread I thought I was going to read a pleasant fairy tale of some mythical creature of your fanciful imagination.
And then I was brought back to reality: "They just don't exist."
Send the gov. Body a letter stating " the footing does not APPEAR to be above the min. " Include a photo and cc the contractor and owner also enclose an invoice at 2x your original quote. I'm sure everyone will get a whoot out of it.
Along the same lines when I was on a field crew: in the center of a built cul-de-sac was a 5+ foot tall conical mound of asphalt. Apparently, some wanna-be-engineer designed the road in an early version of AutoCAD and somehow did not notice this big conical thing sticking up in the middle of the cul-se-sac.
The field crew I was on was sent out to topo this mound at least 5 time (I don't think the office folks could believe that mound was really there, and they certainly could not be bothered to actually get and out to look at it).
Eventually, the top few feet of the mound was chopped off leaving a very awkward looking partial cone of asphalt.
I guess if I trusted the guy ..
I would hit an elevation of the compacted soil anyway.
If you are certifying as to the slab being above 'minimum finished floor' elevations and the compacted area is already above this elevation, what would be the problem?
I guess if I trusted the guy ..
> If you are certifying as to the slab being above 'minimum finished floor' elevations and the compacted area is already above this elevation, what would be the problem?
I see your point, but still: How can you certify the location/elevation of something that doesn't exist yet?
> The field crew I was on was sent out to topo this mound at least 5 time (I don't think the office folks could believe that mound was really there, and they certainly could not be bothered to actually get and out to look at it).
>
> Eventually, the top few feet of the mound was chopped off leaving a very awkward looking partial cone of asphalt.
I'm thinking it wasn't the digital photo age, but didn't somebody have a CAMERA and 1 hour photomat?
Surveying v. Engineering
I thought we were supposed to fix the engineers' plans when we lay out the roads just like we are supposed to fix the architects' plans when we lay out the buildings.
I guess if I trusted the guy ..
> > If you are certifying as to the slab being above 'minimum finished floor' elevations and the compacted area is already above this elevation, what would be the problem?
>
>
> I see your point, but still: How can you certify the location/elevation of something that doesn't exist yet?
You are not certifying the elevation of the slab. You are certifying that the slab is above a certain elevation. I would tell the contractor to email a picture of the completed slab if I was worried and would only for a trusted contractor.
I guess if I trusted the guy ..
If you are going down the path of certifying something, certify something that is there. Write your letter, certify the elevation of the compacted dirt, submit. If you do not locate concrete, then don't certify concrete. Then it's up to the inspector to choose to accept or make you go back.
I guess if I trusted the guy ..
I agree. If the inspector happened to stop by and saw no slab in place but you had certified to it being above a certain grade, you would lose all kinds of credibility.
I don't think anybody ever though of a camera back then. I think the consensus of the field crew (or at least me) was that someone from the office should get off their butts to come look at it instead of wasting the manpower of a three person field crew to shoot it so many times.....
Surveying v. Engineering
[sarcasm]And some of us think that (gasp) the engineers should do their own job and let me do mine[/sarcasm]
I will measure it as many times as you want...
> I don't think anybody ever though of a camera back then. I think the consensus of the field crew (or at least me) was that someone from the office should get off their butts to come look at it instead of wasting the manpower of a three person field crew to shoot it so many times.....
Asked to measure a single manhole with reverse flow 4 times:
1. 1st for asbuilts...
2. 2 months later, when someone has time to reduce the field notes, we are asked, "Is this right? Are you sure you didnt write it down wrong." (So we go out and measure it again, and now I try to include some sort of 'I really mean it' note when something isnt right in an asbuilt..). It was the same.
3. We must be messing up these measurements, so we had the builder standing there as we crawled down in the manhole (Which we are not supposed to do, confined space and all.) We discovered we were "wrong", there was even more reverse flow by a couple of hundredths.
4. I am pretty sure that we were asked about going out again, to "be sure". At that point we asked what we needed to write in the field book in order to be done with this. (Yes, sarcasm happened to bosses back when everyone had a job, not anymore.)
> I don't think anybody ever though of a camera back then. I think the consensus of the field crew (or at least me) was that someone from the office should get off their butts to come look at it instead of wasting the manpower of a three person field crew to shoot it so many times.....
Wow! People still use a three man crew?
