huangyhg

fee for an se stamping another firm's drawings?
washington state se value?
our small seattle firm (5 engineers) has been approached by a 2 engineer seattle firm to stamp their permit drawings for townhomes over pt-slab. both the engineers in the two-man firm are licenced pe's, but not se's. they want to hire our firm to stamp their designs for about a year until which time one of them gets his se stamp.
i originally brought the work to my boss because i know he has stamped work for other sole-proprietor engineers for states they are not licensed in. my boss, bob, is licensed in 23 states. so, i thought it was work he would consider taking on. however, bob is great boss, so i want to make sure he gets a fair shake rather than just a ton of liability.
originally, i had thought to do these pe guys a favor since i know them via a friend who recommended me to them. however, realizing that we (bob) is taking on all the liability for the job, i am thinking our fee should be significantly higher than a small review fee.
does anyone have a handle on what percentage of the pe's firm structural budget we should charge? 10%? 20%? 30%?
thank you,
seattlemike, se (but no mba)
wow! i'm surprised to see this post. everystate i'm licensed in makes "stamping" the work of others not under your control and supervision illegal.
stamping is not cool thing to do in florida and other states that i practice in! it would get you into trouble and sanctions that may vary from reprimand to suspension of you license.
regards,
regards,
lutfi
hello bylar & lutfi,
thank you for your posts. i appreciate all comments and concerns in this matter.
i am of course aware that washington state engineering ethics laws require that work be done under the supervision of the stamping engineer, and that the stamping engineer shall not practice in areas outside of their expertise.
and so, if we are throughly reviewing the final product, and the final calculations, and maintain the power to add notes and make changes, i believe we meet those state requirements.
it would be in much the same way an engineering office runs: in which the project engineer doesn't really get much feedback from the stamping engineer until he/she presents the stamping engineer with his/her final design. at least, that is the way it has worked in the smaller offices i have worked at. then, the stamping engineer redlines all the drawings, tells the project engineer what to fix, and sends him/her on his/her way. i belive this would be a similar process.
obviously we would have to require a review process, not just one pass. and we would want to have our legal staff to check into the matter.
so, i take it from the brevity of your statements, that neither of you have specifically looked into the legalities of this, but are more commenting on the fact that it is a bad idea to just stamp other peoples's work willy-nilly?
thank you again!
seattlemike
generally, what you are proposing to do is illegal, as stamping the work by others requires "direct supervision", which is not the case if you only review it after the fact. i do recall, though, that utah had or has provisions for doing this in their state law, so it's not universal. you might check your state's disciplinary actions as well, as this is a common issue.
while poking around in your state laws and rules, i find the following:
"plans, specifications, plats and reports prepared by the registrant shall be signed, dated, and stamped with said seal or facsimile thereof. such signature and stamping shall constitute a certification by the registrant that the same was prepared by or under his or her direct supervision and that to his or her knowledge and belief the same was prepared in accordance with the requirements of the statute."
elsewhere:
"direct supervision is a combination of activities by which a licensee maintains control over those decisions that are the basis for the finding, conclusions, analysis, rationale, details, and judgments that are embodied in the development and preparation of engineering or land surveying plans, specifications, plats, reports, and related activities. direct supervision explains the relationship between the licensee and those persons who are performing the work controlled by the licensee. direct supervision requires providing personal direction, oversight, inspection, observation and supervision of the work being certified.
"communications between the licensee and those persons who are performing the work include, but are not limited to, use of any of the following ways: direct face-to-face communications; written communications; u.s. mail; electronic mail; facsimiles; telecommunications, or other current technology: provided, that the licensee retains, maintains, and asserts continuing control and judgment."
and provisions for reviewing work by others:
"document review: when a licensee is required to review work prepared by another professional engineer or land surveyor, the reviewing licensee shall fully review those documents and shall prepare a report that discusses the findings of the review with any supporting calculations and sketches. the reviewing licensee would then seal/stamp and sign the report. the report would make reference to and/or be attached to the subject document(s) reviewed."
i'll chime in here too....seattlemike, i would quit using the word "review". there is no, absolutely no place in the engineering laws of the 20 states i'm licensed in where you can "review" and then seal/sign a design.
all designs must be accomplished by the sealing engineer or under their direct supervision. so if another firm asks you to become the engineer of record for that project, what technically must occur is a complete re-design of that project.
now the re-design may use the original design as a guide/outline/format, it may use the original drawings as guides. a lot of the work developing the design is already accomplished.
but in my view, you can't just look at the calculations and call them good; you should re-create the calculations for yourself and thus your fee should reflect that.
the effort is reduced somewhat by the fact that the coordination with the architecture, mechanical and electrical designs is already accomplished. the layout, framing concept, and laterall force system has been "thought out", but you really should (to meet the laws) re-create the calcs, re-redline the plans to your own requirements (as you mentioned above) and ensure that all load paths are properly accounted for.
just my 3 cents.
jstephen, what resources did you find for you research? i think i should do some more reading into those documents.
yes, i think my experience as a plan reviewer (in addition to structural engineering) perhaps led me down the wrong path of thinking here.
i agree that jae is correct: as the engineer of record, we should do our own evaluation using the original as a guideline. that makes good sense. it will definitely help limit our liability by doing a thorough check, and seems to fit the legal language in a way a "review" does not exactly.
the other option, from jstephen's explanation, appears to be that if we were involved in all the meetings and design discussions from schematic design through construction documents as well as doing the rough calculations, we could fulfill the requirement of direct supervision. that would be appropriate if a project were fast-tracked, not allowing as much evaluation on the back end.
thank you for you all for your help and warnings. i will do some additional inquiry with the people in olympia.
seattlemike
i disagree. the purpose of stamping a drawing is to take responsibility for the design that the design meets commonly accepted principles of engineering. not every design or concept will emminate from a profesional engineer's office. if you can review the design so that you are sufficently satisfied it is correct,i don't think that is a problem. whether you are reviewing a design developed by a staff engineer or a another professional in a different firm, i don't think there is difference, but you need to be satisfied the drawings are right.
another important point is that laws varry from state to state and over time. the best way to avoid trouble is to contact the licencing board, explain what you want to do and see if its acceptable
drc1 - i agree with your second sentence...taking responsibility for a design. but when you say that "not every design or concept will emminate from a professional engineer's office" i have to disagree.
according to every state law that i've read (about 21 - and i think that many others are probably similar) - an engineer must seal only those designs where he/she has done them personally, or had direct personal supervision over them.
so if a design is brought to me to "review", all i'm saying is that i have to do whatever is necessary to be able to testify that the design that resulted with my seal was done under my direct supervision. just "reviewing" the plans or calcs doesn't meet that requirement.
i guess the bottom line is the definition of the word review. if its looking over the calcs a bit, checking a couple of beam designs, or truss designs, or whatever, then in my opinion, that isn't meeting the intent of the laws - and its generally called plan stamping.
if you otherwise take a design, and re-create the full calculations by yourself, checking all load paths, connections, etc., then you have essentially performed a 100% "review" (i'd call it a re-design) and you can legally seal that design.
i fully agree with your last sentence - but upon calling, i would bet you'd get a similar response to what i'm saying here.
here is how i look at it. if i stamp a drawing i am legally and fiscally responsible for it. i will not risk my license, integrity, company or personal assets unless i am sure what i have done is totally legal and the work i have approved is technically defensible. legal is easy - my lawyer tells me. technically correct is also easy - i repeat the design path including calculations in the depth necessary to call it my own.
those quotes can be gotten to from this page:

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