How much would you charge to review and stamp drawings?

[willsee]

I viewed the thread as his company used to hire someone else to stamp drawings and now wants HIM (an employee of said company) to stamp the drawings. The first is illegal the second is not.

 

[mevans154]

Ok this is the situation...i used to work for an electrical contractor that do design build projects...there is no engineers in house the only engineer was me when i was an eit...the owner has an electrical contractor licence...when we design a project we contacted an engineer that knew the owners for a long time to review and stamp the drawings...i dont know how much he charge...now that i am a pe...how much do i charge for the drawings since i am replacing his place...so is not like stamping drawings for some one i dont know is for the company i gain the experience tobe a pe...and i know we make good designs. (null)

I viewed the thread as his company used to hire someone else to stamp drawings and now wants HIM (an employee of said company) to stamp the drawings. The first is illegal the second is not.

I view this thread as 'Wildsoldier PE' used to be an employee, but is no longer an active employee. He wants to know if it is OK to stamp the drawing because he is familar with the company's work in the past.

Am I reading this thread right?

 

[willsee]

Yea i saw that and assumed a typo

If he isn't an employee then yea..illegal

 

[MA_PE]

As listed above a lot of states have specific regulations defining what and how drawings are to be stamped and the responsibilites of the enginner sealing them. The bottom line is that the engineer must be prepared to defend his actions hsould a problem ever arise with the design or if there is a question of the validity of the stamp.

That being said, the engineer needs to have adequate error and omissions insurance to cover any potential litigation that might arise as a result of the design.

The cost for taking the responsibility for the design is up to the engineer. How much is enough to assume full responsibility for the design. If there's ever a problem, he can't put the blame elsewhere.

 

[jburke]

This is a very tricky issue that does tend to come up from time to time in our profession. My take is that if you are asked to seal a set of drawings for a contractor or even another firm that does not have the ability to seal them, you should immediately hear alarm bells ringing. I think someone mentioned this eariler (or something close) - why are they doing the design with no professionally qualified employees in their company / firm. I have recieved a request for something similar but what I recieved was more of a design concept set. The contractor made their best effort to size beams and columns but needed my reiview / input and ultimately my seal and signature. I told them that I would take there "preliminary" design and treat it like a Design Developement set but I wanted an architectural set and an actual contract to be the engineer of record. I based my starting point for my design on what they gave me and basically checked to make sure everything worked. I make red marks and sent them back. They picked them up in-house and when I was satisfied I sealed it. The big difference here is that I made them give me a contract for engineering services and I just used their production staff for the drawing markups. I didn't seal it until I was satisfied with the drawings. I ended up changing very little in the end but I was able to stay within the law of any jurisdiction.

The basic idea is that instead of just charging for a reivew and your seal and coming up with some silly per drawing rate for your seal, you figure out how much you need to charge to take the project from DD's to CD's and you GET A CONTRACT. In some states you, as EOR will need to do site visits as well so make sure that is in the fee as well. And as always, before taking on any contract situation you are not used to, run it by your designated legal counsel and you insurance carrier as well. In most cases, the fee you ask for will be so small compared to the construction contract that this shouldn't be an issue for the contractor.

 

[audioaddict]

Feel this thread needs a bump.

I'm a licensed Fire Protection Engineer, and all Navy/Marines Corps fire alarm/sprinkler/life safety drawings have to be prepared by someone who passed the NCEES FP exam, no exception. There are certainly qualified Electrical/Mechanical PEs who can fill the role in most cases (maybe even better in some cases), but they are not allowed to seal these jobs.

That's why I was hired as the sole FPE in a Civil/Structural/MEP firm in another state. Once the laws changed they had to sub out their seals initially to an outside consultant.

In FP, given the specialty aspect this is rather common. A Mechanical,Electrical, etc. job would raise questions, although I contend there is always at least one or two good reasons why this scenario is kosher.

My viewpoint is if you treat every job as if it were your own, then it's not a big deal to seal drawings prepared by another Engineer so long as you put in the proper amount of time to review the drawings, make calculations, etc.

The sad reality is that the PE in the big firm is probably not reviewing drawings of his subordinates in the manner he should. A good chance it's not as good as these one off scenarios of reviewing work by an outside Engineer.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

When I was with the A/E firm, we subbed out our FP drawings on some projects. But in those cases, the drawings were done by the FPE on their own title block, then incorporated into our drawing package. That way, it was their stamp going on their drawing and they assumed all liability.

 

[humner]

I find this thread to be troublesome...maybe the laws in your state are different, but in Texas here is what it says...

§137.33 Sealing Procedures

(a) The purpose of the engineer’s seal is to assure the user of the engineering product that the work has been performed or directly supervised by the professional engineer named and to delineate the scope of the engineer’s work.

( b ) License holders shall only seal work done by them, performed under their direct supervision as defined in §131.81 of this title, relating to Definitions, or shall be standards or general guideline specifications that they have reviewed and selected. Upon sealing, engineers take full professional responsibility for that work.

From §131.81 Direct supervision - The control over and detailed professional knowledge of the work prepared under the engineer's supervision. The degree of control should be such that the engineer personally makes engineering decisions or personally reviews and approves proposed decisions prior to their implementation. The engineer must have control over the decisions either through physical presence or the use of communications devices.

So unless you basically re-design all of the work, or directly oversee whoever did the work, you cannot seal the plans...in Texas, at least.

If you are sealing documents that were done under your direct supervision, or that you designed yourself for your employer...I would think that would be part of your duties as a PE for the firm. Selling your seal by the page to your employer doesn't seem right...

What if your employer said that he is not going to give you any raise...but wants you to stamp the drawings...i'm not thinking on stamping anything without being paid for that. I refuse to do that!

Sounds like he should make you a partner.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

I'm a licensed Fire Protection Engineer, and all Navy/Marines Corps fire alarm/sprinkler/life safety drawings have to be prepared by someone who passed the NCEES FP exam, no exception. There are certainly qualified Electrical/Mechanical PEs who can fill the role in most cases (maybe even better in some cases), but they are not allowed to seal these jobs.

That's generally only true on the federal side.

Most states are general engineering and any PE with competancy in fire protection will do.

 

[miloc]

Ok basically thats the question..if some one comes to you asking to review and stamp their drawings how much would you charge??..i heard that some engineers do it for $500 a sheet... And some engineers charge more. This is only review that everything is fine and stamp...doesnt include you doing the real design...someone else design it.

(null)

Charging per sheet? that's preposterous! If an engineer has to sign and seal a drawing he/she won't do it blindfolded, he/she must use the extend of his/hers engineering knowledge and judgement before signing anything. Also, take into consideration it is not the same to review a surface runoff drainage design in Las Vegas than a bridge foundation in San Francisco.

 

[MGX]

Hey! Stamping blindfolded isn't easy! $500 a sheet makes it easier to pay for all the ruined stamps and wasted ink!

 

[LindseyLouWho]

this was a good read. i'd be curious to know what policy (both written and practiced) in michigan tends towards.

 

[hoffmajl]

This is the signing and sealing requirements in Oklahoma. This was taken directly from the state board website.

A friend who is a general contractor has caused to be prepared a set of plans for a church with occupancy of 500 which includes structural, mechanical, and electrical engineering sheets. Since I know this general contractor does good work and has a good reputation, and I have reviewed the plans, can I sign and seal the plans if the governing authority requires an engineer’s signature and seal?

No, because you were not in direct control and personal supervision of the engineering design work. There is no provision in the state laws or rules that allow an engineer to simply review and sign and seal the plans prepared by a non-licensee.

 

[razorback]

This is an old post, but I thought it better to revive than to post new.

I was approached by a residential storm shelter manufacturer about signing and sealing drawings for their products. It is not a requirement to have a PE sign/seal manufactured storm shelters in most places, but there are some cities that require it. I obviously wouldn't do that blindly, but... If it were you, and you went through every single calculation (essentially redesigned the shelter) would you be comfortable signing those designs? Obviously I would be fine with signing a design that I did from scratch, but the goal for them is that my design would look exactly like theirs. Their idea was that I would be able to "redesign" a shelter for each of their sizes, and then stamp the drawing for each install after checking that it met the local requirements.

In the end, I would truly expect my design to look just like theirs because it is a good design. But, would my own calculations and design documents be sufficient to prove that I truly was involved with the design from the beginning? Is it a grey area to design something that looks essentially identical to what a client already uses?

 

[Hamilton]

This is an old post, but I thought it better to revive than to post new.

I was approached by a residential storm shelter manufacturer about signing and sealing drawings for their products. It is not a requirement to have a PE sign/seal manufactured storm shelters in most places, but there are some cities that require it. I obviously wouldn't do that blindly, but... If it were you, and you went through every single calculation (essentially redesigned the shelter) would you be comfortable signing those designs? Obviously I would be fine with signing a design that I did from scratch, but the goal for them is that my design would look exactly like theirs. Their idea was that I would be able to "redesign" a shelter for each of their sizes, and then stamp the drawing for each install after checking that it met the local requirements.

In the end, I would truly expect my design to look just like theirs because it is a good design. But, would my own calculations and design documents be sufficient to prove that I truly was involved with the design from the beginning? Is it a grey area to design something that looks essentially identical to what a client already uses?

I would consider that to be "repeat engineering", and we do it on tract homes. it's been designed once very thoroughly, then we go through quickly on each repeat and make sure it meets local requirements. I don't see anything wrong with it as long as you go through and understand the design top to bottom on the first run through.