Ok, so here goes an unashamedly engineers bashing post. I have had some doozies in past couple of years and I thought I would share these little gem stories.
1. I have a job for one of my larger construction clients building a retail store. The project engineer (Georgia Tech) for the store owner shows up on a rain day while grading is going on and reports to the superintendent....."Mr. Smith, the silt fence seems to be holding back the silt, but the fabric seems to be letting water through it".....Here's your sign.
2. Another project engineer from the same client, right out of college (Georgia Tech) is asked by the superintendent to check the curb and gutter as the grader had installed a certain critical section of C&G. She returns and said "I looked all around the top of the building and all of the gutter looks good....I thought they had already installed that".....here 's your sign.
3. Did a stake out job over the weekend and was in the process of checking the new building, which butted up to an existing dock. They left 25 extra feet on the existing dock which threw all of points I typically check 25 feet further south than they normally would have been. While in the middle of the conversation with this engineer (origins unknown) he declares "Why don't you just stake out the coordinates?" .....here's your sign.
I understand that it is tough to really grasp the idea of some things without having done them....but somethings would be more along the lines of "common sense".
Would love to hear more stories.
Those first two should go to Georgia Tech and demand a refund.
C.Tompkins, post: 366604, member: 975 wrote: ...Would love to hear more stories.
Was contacted to stake a small strip mall on which I had prepared the original boundary and topo, they wanted some rough pad and grading stakes first.
My topo had a top rim of a sanitary MH shown as something like 1197.44'....and that info was also ghosted in on their grading plan, along with the exisiting contours (labeled)AND a prominent note(by the engineer) stating the project BM was the top rim of the sanitary MH, elev. = 1197.44'. But the FF of the proposed building was plainly shown as 100.00'. And all the proposed C&G was in the 98' to 99' range.
I called the civil that had prepared the plans and left a message, "I need a little more info on the site, it looks like the proposed elevations might need some attention."
The engineer returned my call (as a message) and more or less said the elevation of the plans couldn't be altered because they had been approved for construction.
Okee-dokee then....
I staked the site, with cuts like "C - 1096.5' F.F."....(the dirt contractor thought it was hilarious). The engineer finally called me back and had some cock and bull story about sheets "getting mixed up" (it was a signed and approved set...). He acted like I was being a smart ass about the whole deal. I charged him extra for remarking the stakes, and he paid. B-)
I have a set of architectural plans on my desk right now which include 3 different vertical datums, why for the love of God!?
1. the assumed elevation of 500.00 feet from our site topo
2. the architect's assumed vertical datum holding top of foundation wall at 100.00 feet (with some proposed contours around the site in the 96-100' range)
3. site elevations shown on the architects site plan in the 4180-4185 foot range (I assume they plucked this from a USGS digital elevation model)
I also mentioned that the grades on their plan may need some "attention." I was told that the entire plan set referenced 100.00 feet at top of wall. I assured them the building would be easier to construct if we can relate those elevations to the onsite survey control on our assumed system.
It must be fun to be a design professional that doesn't need to consider whether the plan is "constructable"! As long as that Arch E sized sheet looks swell who cares, right?!
Not an engineer but an architect was in the office, must have been about the late-90's,.
He had never gotten CAD, I was plotting out a drawing, he came over to me upset after watching it on the plotter and said it was plotting upside down.....
MightyMoe, post: 366637, member: 700 wrote: he came over to me upset after watching it on the plotter and said it was plotting upside down.....
Looks like this meme is going to be useful today!
B-)
Storm drain run on a topographic survey (the existing structures were about 50 years old)
MH A: Invert in: 100.0
MH A: Invert out: 99.9
MH B: Invert in: 90.5
MH B: Invert out: 90.4
MH C: Invert in: 85.6
MH C: Invert out: 85.7
MH D: Invert in: 79.4
MH D: Invert out: 79.3
Engineer with a Masters Degree from BYU: "Your field crew must have made a mistake because when the system gets to Manhole C it starts flowing backwards"
Landscape Architect: It looks like your base survey was mistakenly rotated 90 degrees, do you want me to fix it?
Surveyor: Really, do tell.
Landscape Architect: Well..on the tick marks the northing coordinate is labeled on the lines that go east/west and the easting is labeled on lines that run north/south.
Surveyor: Don't ever talk to me again.
Provided an engineer with a topographic survey with the boundary plotted and labeled. Engineer brings it back and says she is having trouble doing area calculations for drainage because my boundary doesn't close. So I spend a few minutes checking the linework in the drawing. Perfectly closed polygons. When I went back she said she wasn't using the linework in the dwg, she was using the bearings and distances to create new polygons. Um, significant figures! Boundary closed by less than 0.001 feet, but she couldn't understand why the linework wasn't closed perfectly. Palm to face.
Young Buck, post: 366676, member: 1666 wrote: Provided an engineer with a topographic survey with the boundary plotted and labeled. Engineer brings it back and says she is having trouble doing area calculations for drainage because my boundary doesn't close. So I spend a few minutes checking the linework in the drawing. Perfectly closed polygons. When I went back she said she wasn't using the linework in the dwg, she was using the bearings and distances to create new polygons. Um, significant figures! Boundary closed by less than 0.001 feet, but she couldn't understand why the linework wasn't closed perfectly. Palm to face.
Yes and even a surveyor should understand how significant 0.001 is to a drainage calculation. The contractor can easily pick up the discrepancy with his micrometer. :whistle:
Highway Dept had designed a new road (two new lanes creating a divided 4 lane) but due to a gully, the fill was gonna run off the R/W. So they moved it over and put in a short left hand curve then another right hand curve to get on the new alignment. The problem was the area was flat and anytime you are crossing 0% cross slope with the super transition, you are taking a chance of creating a bird bath in the road.
I suggested taking the left hand curve out and only having two right hand curves and a tangent line. The engineer said we could not do that because the bridge was already built. I said we could just shorten the long curve. She said it would change the curve info. I said yes, the curve info is completely different but it's still in the same place, we are just whacking off the end.
Her comment was "Well yea, but, um, I don't know how to make the computer do that."
I figured it up with my HP41 and gave it to her on paper.
Last I heard, She is working in the private sector now.
Hey! No whacking off allowed!