Mark and Thom, I agree with your sentiments. The difficulty with enforcement by engineers on unqualified engineers is that we never see each other's drawings. Engineers within the same firm can police each other I guess, but the problem (it's a huge problem here is Florida) are the retirees or other uninsured non-practicing engineers who will stamp anything for $100. I know lots of engineers in many different disciplines that would love to nail these guys, but have no way of finding out who they are. Once they are reported, the state boards that I have seen do a pretty good job of investigating the incident and punishing the person if there is provable negligence - usually $2-$20k in fines and a suspension of license. In Florida, they publish a quarterly report with every violation, who did it, and what their punishment is.
Personally, I think contractors are in the perfect position to report these incompetent engineers. Contractors usually have the expertise in sprinkler systems and always see the engineer's plans. I don't mean reporting people for incidental mistakes, but when someone clearly does not understand the system and is unwilling work with you to resolve the issue, and insists on pawning all of the responsibility off on the contractor - that is ground for disciplinary action by most PE boards. Steve Kowkabany, P.E. Fire Protection Engineer Neptune Fire Protection Engineering LLC 616 Davis Street Neptune Beach, FL 32266 904-652-4200 Phone 904-212-0868 Fax -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mark Sornsin Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 6:12 PM To: '[email protected]' Subject: The Engineering Problem (RE: another fire - this will be interesting) Amen, Thom! As a member of the engineering community I completely agree. Paul, in my experience, most engineering firms allow their people to work outside their area of expertise - as long as MEs are doing sprinkler 'designs' this will be true. Kudos to your firm for bucking this trend. There was a time in the distant past when MEs DID layout of sprinkler systems - pipe schedules. I know they usually didn't do it quite right. But it was a heck of a lot more 'engineering' than they do today. Then the calculated system came into being and they never learned how it worked. Through laziness and frankly, a lack of ethics, they have completely washed their hands of the fire sprinkler 'problem.' (Ironic for a profession defined as 'problem solving') Thus, whatever remaining small percentage of engineering they were doing on sprinkler systems was handed over to the low-bid contractors. They quietly get away with it because owners and/or architects see "dots and lines" and assume that the "diagrammatic" drawing of a sprinkler system actually helps contractors. Of course, they DO provide a shop drawing review: and NONE of you contractors would know to add heads below ductwork in the mechanical rooms without the MEs input! It would be NICE if the jurisdictions had better enforcement of engineering - but too many are too small and/or strapped for money. This problem must be addressed from within the engineering community. Those of us who are trying to do things right must continue to teach the masses and grow our businesses. In our small market we've managed to force one of our competitors to take and eventually pass the FPE exam - he still can't and doesn't actually design sprinkler systems, but they at least are feeling some pressure. Many of our competitors now include separate fire protection sheets - because our common clients are starting to expect it. No, their fire protection sheets don't have any better "designs' than when they were part of the Mechanical sheets, but again, they're beginning to feel the pressure. These are extremely small baby steps, but we have to start somewhere. The more quality work we put out there, the more the market will learn to recognize it - and miss it when the MEs get the next job. Engineers CAN design sprinkler systems. All FPEs do NOT "just make things worse." We just need to encourage more to specialize in the field. So if you find engineers doing their work correctly, please let them know and more importantly, let their (and your) clients know. It has been said many times on this forum that you also need to call out the engineers who aren't doing their jobs. I know this is more difficult than it sounds: many times the sprinkler contractor is the low-man on the construction totem pole and is often ignored; the mechanical contractor looking for your price doesn't care about your thoughts on the engineer's plans. But when you get the chance to talk to owners or architects or AHJs, bring up the engineering problem. Suggest they use someone else for fire protection on their next project. Teach them that sprinkler design is NOT a branch of plumbing design. Mark A. Sornsin, PE Fire Protection Engineer Ulteig Engineers, Inc. Fargo, ND Direct: 701. 280.8591 [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Thom McMahon Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 2:29 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: another fire - this will be interesting Actually this is the engineering community's problem, not mine. You're the one's that allow incompetent work to be done by engineers that are neither qualified or trained to do it. Working "Outside their area of expertise" If all states licensed engineers by discipline or degree, or had some really effective bylaws and penalties for engineers that do work outside their knowledge or training it might help. Most states like Colorado allow the engineers to "Self Police" their brother engineers, and unless someone dies or a huge financial loss occurs, they rarely do more than send "censure notes" to fellow engineers.(Please don't be bad anymore, and take that 3 day NFPA 13 class, cause that's all the training you need to DESIGN fire sprinkler systems, because you already know everything else.) _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field) _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
