CAD FILES FOR CONSTRUCTION STAKING
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Close Enough
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CAD FILES FOR CONSTRUCTION STAKING
Im not sure if this has been covered in other posts but I am the owner of a small land surveying firm and do a lot of construction staking in the bay area. It has been pretty common practice to have the GC request CAD files (usually have to sign a release agreement) but I am about to lose a big job because a large civil firm in the bay area will not give out their CAD files. I am fully aware that CAD files are to be used at your own risk but some jobs are impossible without them. This is text from the email "Recently, we have eliminated exchanging cad files with our surveying competitors" I was wondering if this starting to become the normal practice. I am mainly interested in other peoples experiences with this subject.
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DanFrink
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When I did construction staking many of the larger firms, one in Sac that comes to mind, would not give out CAD files for projects that they did the engineering on (their way of squeezing out competition). In one case I had to go off the horizontal control plan and "create" my own CAD file. The engineer better have one very good HC plan (which never seemed to be the case). Talk to the owner / developer and see if they can get anywhere with the engineer? This worked for me a few times. Good luck.
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shaunb
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I'd had this happen a time or two years ago.
We did 2 things.... once, increased our price due to the extra labor involved and expressly told the contractor why we did that. (They never liked having to pay more for a design they already paid for once to have drawn)
And the other, is anytime we had to layout something that wasn't on the plans with enough information to located it, we submitted RFI's.
After the 5th RFI and resulting delays in staking, the contractor that paid for the design put enough pressure on the design firm to give up the files.
In my mind, whoever paid for the design, has full rights to the cadd files also, and they, not the design team, should determine who gets the files to work from.
But, we'd also lost a couple jobs for the same reasons, design company wouldn't share files because they did surveying staking also. and either we took a bath on the labor to 're-draw' the plans or we walked away from the project.
We did 2 things.... once, increased our price due to the extra labor involved and expressly told the contractor why we did that. (They never liked having to pay more for a design they already paid for once to have drawn)
And the other, is anytime we had to layout something that wasn't on the plans with enough information to located it, we submitted RFI's.
After the 5th RFI and resulting delays in staking, the contractor that paid for the design put enough pressure on the design firm to give up the files.
In my mind, whoever paid for the design, has full rights to the cadd files also, and they, not the design team, should determine who gets the files to work from.
But, we'd also lost a couple jobs for the same reasons, design company wouldn't share files because they did surveying staking also. and either we took a bath on the labor to 're-draw' the plans or we walked away from the project.
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Jim Frame
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To me, a design firm refusing to release a design CAD file means one of the following:
1. The project owner agreed, knowingly or otherwise, to allow the design firm to retain exclusive rights to the CAD file. In making this agreement he has given the design firm a distinct advantage in the competition for the staking contract. A project owner should only have to learn this lesson once.
2. The design firm isn't confident that its CAD file is accurate and doesn't want anyone taking positional information from it because it might not be correct. This is something the project owner should be made aware of, as it indicates a substandard approach to design QC. We're not in 1990 anymore; the CAD file should be (and usually is, printed disclaimers to the contrary) the authoritative source of design data.
3. The design firm knows the project owner has rights to the CAD file, but is refusing to release the file to competitors in the hope that the owner won't figure out that this behavior is going to cost him money in the form of higher construction staking costs.
There's not a lot you can do about these scenarios except to educate your clients. It's really up to the project owner to ensure that he gets everything he should be getting from his design contract.
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1. The project owner agreed, knowingly or otherwise, to allow the design firm to retain exclusive rights to the CAD file. In making this agreement he has given the design firm a distinct advantage in the competition for the staking contract. A project owner should only have to learn this lesson once.
2. The design firm isn't confident that its CAD file is accurate and doesn't want anyone taking positional information from it because it might not be correct. This is something the project owner should be made aware of, as it indicates a substandard approach to design QC. We're not in 1990 anymore; the CAD file should be (and usually is, printed disclaimers to the contrary) the authoritative source of design data.
3. The design firm knows the project owner has rights to the CAD file, but is refusing to release the file to competitors in the hope that the owner won't figure out that this behavior is going to cost him money in the form of higher construction staking costs.
There's not a lot you can do about these scenarios except to educate your clients. It's really up to the project owner to ensure that he gets everything he should be getting from his design contract.
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E_Page
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I see two sides to this issue:
1) Are the plans correct and complete enough to stand on their own without the CAD file? Since the use of CAD to produce engineering plans, while the drafting quality has gone up some on average (although that's debatable; there were some darn good hand draftsmen in the early 80s and prior), the quality and completeness of content dropped, sharply in many cases.
The drop in quality in some firms was because there was the impression that since the drawing was the result of the calcs, the plans must be right, so the internal plan checks became less stringent. The drop in completeness was, for some probably a byproduct of less stringent plan checking, but for others it was a business strategy. If another firm tried to build from the plans, there was enough omitted info that rectifying that problem took a lot of time (cost) that the other firm would have to absorb or pass on to the client. So they either lost money on the job, were perceived as being more expensive in the long run by charging extras, or risked making costly errors in staking.
The idea for the firm that produced the plans should they keep the project into the staking phase, was that their CAD operators could supply the field crews or survey techs doing the calcs with the missing plan info, or that it would be in the CAD file and thus be a non-issue. I once worked for such a firm. It was not a non-issue.
Today, plans that have gone through some form of govt review are generally required to be complete enough to build from, so the problem of incorrect or missing info is not as bad as it once was, but it will never be perfect.
2) On the other side of the issue, some firms have seen time and again that they lose projects to firms that presume that they can cut out a lot of their calculation time by obtaining the CAD file at no cost, and so they get the job having cut out a major portion of the cost for work they would otherwise have to do. Those firms have grown weary of providing value to the competition that uses that value to beat them in the competition to provide the staking.
There should be a value to having produced the work that is preliminary to the staking, and the producers of that work feel that they should benefit from that value as part of a total service package.
If the hourly rate to do the calcs is $100, and the job requires about 80 hours of calcs if no CAD file is provided, but only 20 if one is provided, that CAD file has a value of $6000 to the staking effort. Maybe more if you have a DC capable of uploading the CAD file and eliminating any need for office calcs.
Many of the multidisciplinary firms have higher costs, and thus higher rates than most small survey companies, so in a head to head competition with price as the prime or only consideration, the big firm is at a disadvantage already. I can easily see why a firm would not want to give you an additional $6000 head start at displacing them as consultant.
In a competetive setting like that, I've never counted on getting the CAD file when preparing a budget, and have never asked for it once being hired. I have been provided a CAD file from a client, or occasionally because my employer had obtained it from the original consultant. But I've also always considered it important to run through the calcs myself, from the info on the plans, as a plan check measure before staking from them. The consequences of staking errors can be too costly and to immediate to not be diligent in that step.
1) Are the plans correct and complete enough to stand on their own without the CAD file? Since the use of CAD to produce engineering plans, while the drafting quality has gone up some on average (although that's debatable; there were some darn good hand draftsmen in the early 80s and prior), the quality and completeness of content dropped, sharply in many cases.
The drop in quality in some firms was because there was the impression that since the drawing was the result of the calcs, the plans must be right, so the internal plan checks became less stringent. The drop in completeness was, for some probably a byproduct of less stringent plan checking, but for others it was a business strategy. If another firm tried to build from the plans, there was enough omitted info that rectifying that problem took a lot of time (cost) that the other firm would have to absorb or pass on to the client. So they either lost money on the job, were perceived as being more expensive in the long run by charging extras, or risked making costly errors in staking.
The idea for the firm that produced the plans should they keep the project into the staking phase, was that their CAD operators could supply the field crews or survey techs doing the calcs with the missing plan info, or that it would be in the CAD file and thus be a non-issue. I once worked for such a firm. It was not a non-issue.
Today, plans that have gone through some form of govt review are generally required to be complete enough to build from, so the problem of incorrect or missing info is not as bad as it once was, but it will never be perfect.
2) On the other side of the issue, some firms have seen time and again that they lose projects to firms that presume that they can cut out a lot of their calculation time by obtaining the CAD file at no cost, and so they get the job having cut out a major portion of the cost for work they would otherwise have to do. Those firms have grown weary of providing value to the competition that uses that value to beat them in the competition to provide the staking.
There should be a value to having produced the work that is preliminary to the staking, and the producers of that work feel that they should benefit from that value as part of a total service package.
If the hourly rate to do the calcs is $100, and the job requires about 80 hours of calcs if no CAD file is provided, but only 20 if one is provided, that CAD file has a value of $6000 to the staking effort. Maybe more if you have a DC capable of uploading the CAD file and eliminating any need for office calcs.
Many of the multidisciplinary firms have higher costs, and thus higher rates than most small survey companies, so in a head to head competition with price as the prime or only consideration, the big firm is at a disadvantage already. I can easily see why a firm would not want to give you an additional $6000 head start at displacing them as consultant.
In a competetive setting like that, I've never counted on getting the CAD file when preparing a budget, and have never asked for it once being hired. I have been provided a CAD file from a client, or occasionally because my employer had obtained it from the original consultant. But I've also always considered it important to run through the calcs myself, from the info on the plans, as a plan check measure before staking from them. The consequences of staking errors can be too costly and to immediate to not be diligent in that step.
Evan Page, PLS
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Jim Frame
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There is certainly a lot of value in the CAD file, but the project owner already paid for it as part of the design contract, whether he knows it or not.There should be a value to having produced the work that is preliminary to the staking, and the producers of that work feel that they should benefit from that value as part of a total service package.
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DanFrink
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This thread strikes a nerve with me, having dealt with it in the past. The way I see it, the CAD file is a bi-product of the design work. The designer has already been paid for the design, so there is no additional cost to the engineer for supplying the file. When a surveyor performs a topographic survey does he not deliver a DTM to the engineer? Does this add any cost to the final product (no because the DTM is used to create contours for the hard copy)? If the engineer wants to keep exclusive rights to their digital files, than rather than waiting until they loose the survey bid to disclose this information they should supply this information to the developer up front. After all, the developer paid for the design right?
The one larger company I dealt with did this for the sole purpose of trying to bully the developer or GC into using their surveying service. Makes it hard to win work when you work for a survey only shop.
The one larger company I dealt with did this for the sole purpose of trying to bully the developer or GC into using their surveying service. Makes it hard to win work when you work for a survey only shop.
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Anthony Maffia
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When I worked at a small staking company a few years back, we'd get this sometimes. We (1) added it to the contract that the owner had to provide the CAD file, (2) verified most dimensions (all in the case of structural foundation), and (3) explained any added cost and potential staking problems to the owner.
The owner always came through.
Also, 90% of the plans didn't have a horizontal control plan, or if there was one, it wasn't stakeable. I had one parking lot plan that only showed center of parking isle dimensions and "R=2' TYP". I had to guess at the rest of the info.
The owner always came through.
Also, 90% of the plans didn't have a horizontal control plan, or if there was one, it wasn't stakeable. I had one parking lot plan that only showed center of parking isle dimensions and "R=2' TYP". I had to guess at the rest of the info.
- Anthony Maffia, LSIT
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btaylor
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I find it odd that an engineering firm can be paid for a design and then not turn it over to someone else who needs to work off it to support the client. Wouldn't that be the same thing as a surveyor refusing to turn over his work so someone can design off it? I cannot imagine doing this to a client, and it pretty much flies in the face of the license. How is the client protected from potential costly construction issues when people cannot accurately stake without their CAD file?
And regarding horizontal control plans, I also tend to find them lacking, and not very useful.
And regarding horizontal control plans, I also tend to find them lacking, and not very useful.
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E_Page
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You people all think that the client automatically owns the CAD file when they pay for a design project, huh? You somehow feel that the design product is the CAD file?
What the heck are the plans for then? IMO, the plans aren't worth spit if they don't depict a complete design. The CAD file, strictly speaking, should not be necessary.
When any of you enter contract for a boundary survey, is the CAD file one of your standard deliverables? What about your raw data files, your field notes, your adjustment files?
If it is in your contract that you will provide the CAD file, you probably create a sanitized file that reflects only what's shown on the hard copy anyway. You don't provide a copy of your main CAD file because it's your working file.
Unless there was a specific provision in the engineer's contract to provide a CAD file, I don't see why anyone would expect to be provided one. IMO, the client has paid for the CAD file not as an incident of paying for a design, but when extra has been provided for in the contract to clean up a file suitable for distribution and to account for the value the file would represent to another firm in cost savings.
Why on earth should you expect another firm to provide you an advantage in competing for a project by providing the CAD file for free?
What the heck are the plans for then? IMO, the plans aren't worth spit if they don't depict a complete design. The CAD file, strictly speaking, should not be necessary.
When any of you enter contract for a boundary survey, is the CAD file one of your standard deliverables? What about your raw data files, your field notes, your adjustment files?
If it is in your contract that you will provide the CAD file, you probably create a sanitized file that reflects only what's shown on the hard copy anyway. You don't provide a copy of your main CAD file because it's your working file.
Unless there was a specific provision in the engineer's contract to provide a CAD file, I don't see why anyone would expect to be provided one. IMO, the client has paid for the CAD file not as an incident of paying for a design, but when extra has been provided for in the contract to clean up a file suitable for distribution and to account for the value the file would represent to another firm in cost savings.
Why on earth should you expect another firm to provide you an advantage in competing for a project by providing the CAD file for free?
Evan Page, PLS
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DanFrink
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My point is that the CAD file WAS paid for as part of the design. Unless the engineer created plans by hand, the CAD file was used to plot the final set of drawings. If they want to "clean it up" before sending it, no problem. If the engineer wants to price a job on the assumtion that they are going to get the construction staking to "recover" some costs for "creating" the CAD file than they should spell it out to the developer up front (i.e. here is our price IF we also get the staking for the job). If not than they should price accordingly (still don't think it will cost them any extra, as I stated above).
If the plans have a GOOD horizontal control plan, then the CAD file probably isn't needed. The problem is that (as others have stated) the plans that I have seen often (as in most of the time) don't include an adequate HC plan that can be staked from.
Like someone else mentioned above, we started puting a statement in our bids that the price was contigent on recieving a CAD file. No file, price needs to be adjusted accoringly.
If the plans have a GOOD horizontal control plan, then the CAD file probably isn't needed. The problem is that (as others have stated) the plans that I have seen often (as in most of the time) don't include an adequate HC plan that can be staked from.
Like someone else mentioned above, we started puting a statement in our bids that the price was contigent on recieving a CAD file. No file, price needs to be adjusted accoringly.
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btaylor
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If I did the topo, then I think the CAD file should be provided. If I did not do any of the prior work, I would not be so presumptuous.
Here in the hilly Bay Area, the curvy, aesthetic retaining walls are impossible to stake without a CAD file, and I never see plans that allow for someone to calculate their locations by hand.
Here in the hilly Bay Area, the curvy, aesthetic retaining walls are impossible to stake without a CAD file, and I never see plans that allow for someone to calculate their locations by hand.
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MikeTurnrose
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Construction staking
I think the design firm should supply the CAD file to the property owner/developer/GC. It's a professional courtesy. However, I do believe the hard copy plans should show enough info. on them, so that things can be calcd. I've seen good horizontal control plans where enough info. was given and a lot of plans that didn't. The utility plans rarely give enough for calcs (no bearings, coordinates or dimensions) so how can you stake without the CAD files for underground?
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E_Page
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Unless specified in contract, the CAD file was Not paid for as part of the design. The design itself was paid for, along with a depiction of the design sufficient for the fixed works to be built in accordance with the design. Typically, that means hard copy sets of plans.
If the plans are incomplete to the point that the surveyor or contractor has to make some assumptions to fill in the gaps in order to build, then the typical ways to take care of that are through ROI's. If the engineer gets inundated with them because the plans were so lacking in information on them, then supplying the CAD file might be the most expedient.
But I wouldn't call it a professional courtesy unless that courtesy goes both ways. If you performed the design topo and provided a CAD file, then it would be a courtesy to get a CAD file back for the staking portion of the project. If you have never and do not realistically foresee ever providing something of equal value to the engineer, then it's not a courtesy, it's an ungratefully demanded entitlement.
For those of you who are adamant that the engineer needs to provide the CAD file for free, as a "professional courtesy", have you provided like value to the engineer in the past or do you realistically foresee doing so in the future?
CAD is not supposed to be the primary vehicle of depiction of the design, the plan set is. CAD is a tool to create the design.
Again with a parallel to a surveying project: You are hired to perform an ALTA survey of a mid-sized commercial/retail or industrial property with all the Table A items included (just to make it a busy drawing with lots of info). Lots of buildings, lots of improvements, lots of easements and other emcumbrances. Let's also say that it's a complicated boundary comprised of several parcels and a variety of physical and documentary evidence that doesn't piece together particularly easily.
In your CAD file, you may have several layers of working lines. You may have lines and points that you eventually reject but haven't erased because you want to preserve them just in case you find a piece of evidence tips the preponderance away from what you are currently accepting as the boundary, and you want to be able to evaluate these other lines and points you've calculated as potential alternate solutions in light of anything you may find.
You have layers of info that are not necessary to show on the drawing, but may be useful to discern how you arrived at particular other conclusions should you ever have to revisit the project in the future.
And perhaps most importantly to most of us, the locations of the various lines and points reflected on the final drawing are a result of a careful analysis and we have chosen to depict many of them a certain way for carefully considered reasons.
Your contract is silent on the matter of CAD files, or other working computer or hard copy files. Do you, as a standard course of doing business, provide a copy of your CAD file? If so, do you spend any significant time to remove info that you either think might only confuse a downline user of the file or any content that you consider proprietary. And why would you consider any info contained as proprietary? Since your client hired you to perform a survey and prepare a map, isn't your contention that they paid for all of you research and work product? Shouldn't you also be supplying them with copies of all your research, your notes and raw data files, your memos to the file, etc.?
Why is an engineer's CAD file any different than your working files?
If you do provide the CAD file, do you charge extra for it, or have some amount built into your fee to cover preparing a CAD file suitable for distibution to the client or subsequent consultants? Remember that for this example, we're talking several acres of a very complicated site, not a corner gas station/mini mart. The step of preparing the CAD file may take a few hours of deciding what to provide and what to delete, making certain that what needs to be deleted is deleted and what needs to stay doesn't get deleted.
If I were that engineer, and I had my own in-house surveyors to keep busy, my standard course of business would be that providing the CAD file would be an optional service at a stated fee. That fee would cover the time to clean out data that does not substantially pertain to the final design, and it would include an amount reflecting the value of time savings to YOU, the surveyor who would capture the project I was planning to have my in-house surveyors work on.
If an engineer creates incomplete plans, then they've created a problem for themselves that might be most easily and cost effectively (for the engineer) resolved by providing the CAD file, but that's another matter.
In my own practice, I have provided CAD files for topos I've performed for no additional cost. The file provided was not my working file, but a sanitized version of just the contours and the CAD entities representing the features depicted on the hard copy drawing. Points provided for survey monuments shown, but not random control. These were for relatively small projects that took an hour or less to prepare the file for distribution. A signed Electronic File Agreement was received prior to releasing the file as well.
But I didn't have an in-house engineer to keep busy either, otherwise I would have thought about the value I was giving away to competitors vying for the design project I would have planned on my engineer doing.
If the plans are incomplete to the point that the surveyor or contractor has to make some assumptions to fill in the gaps in order to build, then the typical ways to take care of that are through ROI's. If the engineer gets inundated with them because the plans were so lacking in information on them, then supplying the CAD file might be the most expedient.
But I wouldn't call it a professional courtesy unless that courtesy goes both ways. If you performed the design topo and provided a CAD file, then it would be a courtesy to get a CAD file back for the staking portion of the project. If you have never and do not realistically foresee ever providing something of equal value to the engineer, then it's not a courtesy, it's an ungratefully demanded entitlement.
For those of you who are adamant that the engineer needs to provide the CAD file for free, as a "professional courtesy", have you provided like value to the engineer in the past or do you realistically foresee doing so in the future?
CAD is not supposed to be the primary vehicle of depiction of the design, the plan set is. CAD is a tool to create the design.
Again with a parallel to a surveying project: You are hired to perform an ALTA survey of a mid-sized commercial/retail or industrial property with all the Table A items included (just to make it a busy drawing with lots of info). Lots of buildings, lots of improvements, lots of easements and other emcumbrances. Let's also say that it's a complicated boundary comprised of several parcels and a variety of physical and documentary evidence that doesn't piece together particularly easily.
In your CAD file, you may have several layers of working lines. You may have lines and points that you eventually reject but haven't erased because you want to preserve them just in case you find a piece of evidence tips the preponderance away from what you are currently accepting as the boundary, and you want to be able to evaluate these other lines and points you've calculated as potential alternate solutions in light of anything you may find.
You have layers of info that are not necessary to show on the drawing, but may be useful to discern how you arrived at particular other conclusions should you ever have to revisit the project in the future.
And perhaps most importantly to most of us, the locations of the various lines and points reflected on the final drawing are a result of a careful analysis and we have chosen to depict many of them a certain way for carefully considered reasons.
Your contract is silent on the matter of CAD files, or other working computer or hard copy files. Do you, as a standard course of doing business, provide a copy of your CAD file? If so, do you spend any significant time to remove info that you either think might only confuse a downline user of the file or any content that you consider proprietary. And why would you consider any info contained as proprietary? Since your client hired you to perform a survey and prepare a map, isn't your contention that they paid for all of you research and work product? Shouldn't you also be supplying them with copies of all your research, your notes and raw data files, your memos to the file, etc.?
Why is an engineer's CAD file any different than your working files?
If you do provide the CAD file, do you charge extra for it, or have some amount built into your fee to cover preparing a CAD file suitable for distibution to the client or subsequent consultants? Remember that for this example, we're talking several acres of a very complicated site, not a corner gas station/mini mart. The step of preparing the CAD file may take a few hours of deciding what to provide and what to delete, making certain that what needs to be deleted is deleted and what needs to stay doesn't get deleted.
If I were that engineer, and I had my own in-house surveyors to keep busy, my standard course of business would be that providing the CAD file would be an optional service at a stated fee. That fee would cover the time to clean out data that does not substantially pertain to the final design, and it would include an amount reflecting the value of time savings to YOU, the surveyor who would capture the project I was planning to have my in-house surveyors work on.
If an engineer creates incomplete plans, then they've created a problem for themselves that might be most easily and cost effectively (for the engineer) resolved by providing the CAD file, but that's another matter.
In my own practice, I have provided CAD files for topos I've performed for no additional cost. The file provided was not my working file, but a sanitized version of just the contours and the CAD entities representing the features depicted on the hard copy drawing. Points provided for survey monuments shown, but not random control. These were for relatively small projects that took an hour or less to prepare the file for distribution. A signed Electronic File Agreement was received prior to releasing the file as well.
But I didn't have an in-house engineer to keep busy either, otherwise I would have thought about the value I was giving away to competitors vying for the design project I would have planned on my engineer doing.
Evan Page, PLS
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DanFrink
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Well if I was a business owner, than I would pass on the CAD file as a professional courtesy, but I guess that’s just me. If there was some time involved with cleaning it up than of course I would have to charge accordingly (I don’t think we are talking about the kind of man hours that puts places out of business though, save a layer state, write block, email, done). I think was puts places out of business is driving up unnecessary project costs as a mechanism of trying to stiff arm your customer into using your overpriced services. Let’s face it, if the design engineer has a staking bid even close to what company B has, than 99% of the time the owner / GC / developer is going to use them. This is all based on my personal experiences, maybe others have had the fortune of better experiences than I. These types of problems are by far my least favorite part of surveying.
I think Mike Tunrose summed up my thoughts better than I can, thanks Mike.
I think Mike Tunrose summed up my thoughts better than I can, thanks Mike.
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Jim Frame
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I agree, but only because of the contract terms. Unless the design firm has sloppy procedures, the CAD file will embody the design, the prints being merely a reflection of the CAD file. The fact that paper prints are still the standard deliverable is an artifact of history, and one that won't be with us much longer, in my opinion.Unless specified in contract, the CAD file was Not paid for as part of the design.
As far as "cleaning up" the CAD file goes, that's a non-starter as a cost item when work practices acknowledge the file as authoritative. In my own work I do much as Evan indicates: most of my drawing files have many layers that my clients never see, though I routinely provide a CAD file as a deliverable when the client is capable of reading it. The cleaning process for me involves 5 steps:
1. Save the file to be delivered in an appropriate folder.
2. Restore the saved deliverable layer state to ensure that only the items I want shown are shown.
3. Invoke an AutoLISP function that deletes everything on layers not on and thawed.
4. Issue the PURGE command to remove unused layers, blocks, etc.
5. Save the file again to effect the results of the PURGE.
It takes maybe a minute. At my customary rates, that comes to an amount not worth itemizing on the bill.
Finally, as others have suggested, the industry is moving away from paper prints as the "real" deliverable, especially for complex designs. Improvement plans are often incompletely dimensioned despite vestigial requirements to the contrary, because the need for it is steadily decreasing as CAD files become the go-to source of dimensional data.
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land butcher
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- Location: calif
I am reminded of a project I staked. I was a employee of the national firm that created the grading plan.
The contractor noticed that I had my 2 guys making check ties to existing improvements then doing lots of calcs on the hood. A call was made to the survey supervisor asking why we were doing all that instead of staking so he could get to work.
A meeting was held and the head engineers only question, asked by him numerous times, was "were we contracted to provide a staking plan? We provided a grading plan per the contract".
In light of that, until paper becomes obsolete, I think a prudent engineer would state in his contract a separate line item for providing a CAD file. Without that exception I feel in these days a CAD file, if requested, should be supplied and if the engineer requests a nominal fee it should be paid.
Topos I have done state that one of the deliverables will be a CAD file and I add a few bucks for that.
The contractor noticed that I had my 2 guys making check ties to existing improvements then doing lots of calcs on the hood. A call was made to the survey supervisor asking why we were doing all that instead of staking so he could get to work.
A meeting was held and the head engineers only question, asked by him numerous times, was "were we contracted to provide a staking plan? We provided a grading plan per the contract".
In light of that, until paper becomes obsolete, I think a prudent engineer would state in his contract a separate line item for providing a CAD file. Without that exception I feel in these days a CAD file, if requested, should be supplied and if the engineer requests a nominal fee it should be paid.
Topos I have done state that one of the deliverables will be a CAD file and I add a few bucks for that.
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Close Enough
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Wed Apr 25, 2012 2:03 pm
- Location: Oakdale
Thank you all for your input. I sent an RFI requesting the engineer to provide enough info that the plans be staked without CAD files and wouldn't you know the CAD files came in the next day. I along with others in the thread rarely see a HCP with enough info to stake from. In my case it would have taken a drafter 2 days to provide the info I requested. Again thank you all for you valuable input.
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land butcher
- Posts: 1615
- Joined: Fri Jul 26, 2002 7:26 pm
- Location: calif
Close Enough wrote:Thank you all for your input. I sent an RFI requesting the engineer to provide enough info that the plans be staked without CAD files and wouldn't you know the CAD files came in the next day. I along with others in the thread rarely see a HCP with enough info to stake from. In my case it would have taken a drafter 2 days to provide the info I requested. Again thank you all for you valuable input.
LOL .....................................................
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MFORD
In this discussion I didn’t see any mention of “machine controlled staking” a lot of big contractors are utilizing at an increasing rate. The last big staking project (2007) I performed in cooperation with a design engineer who didn’t have a surveying department, the contractor REQUIRED the design engineer to provide cad files. The majority of the project staking was performed by the contractor using their centimeter accuracy GPS machine control. I provided the survey control network and location verification surveys to satisfy the local building department requirements. The lion’s share of the construction staking was performed by the contractor. How do civil firms get around not providing CAD files to contractors in that circumstance and how is that different from providing cad files to their surveying competitors?
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LS_8750
- Posts: 1166
- Joined: Tue Jul 20, 2010 5:36 pm
- Location: Sonoma
- Contact:
Good question Mike.
I found an interesting blip via ASCE entitled "Bid Documents Must Include All Information Material to Bidders", by Eugene Bass, Esq. Check it out here: http://www.asce-sf.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=674&Itemid=99999999
The title of the article pretty much sums up the CAD file issue as it may relate to a public works project.
First thing (RFI) I always ask when encountering a resistant design engineer is "Where is the record of survey showing the boundary line solution for this project?". That one gets them every time. Secondly, I just comb through the plans and drop about 10 RFIs the day before rough grading is to start. Another good one is to ask for bearings and distances for all building grids and then also from all building corners to property corners. Then you get out on site and things don't quite fit. RFI. Contractor gets hot and the engineer's CAD files find their way over.
I found an interesting blip via ASCE entitled "Bid Documents Must Include All Information Material to Bidders", by Eugene Bass, Esq. Check it out here: http://www.asce-sf.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=674&Itemid=99999999
The title of the article pretty much sums up the CAD file issue as it may relate to a public works project.
First thing (RFI) I always ask when encountering a resistant design engineer is "Where is the record of survey showing the boundary line solution for this project?". That one gets them every time. Secondly, I just comb through the plans and drop about 10 RFIs the day before rough grading is to start. Another good one is to ask for bearings and distances for all building grids and then also from all building corners to property corners. Then you get out on site and things don't quite fit. RFI. Contractor gets hot and the engineer's CAD files find their way over.
Clark E. Stoner, PE, PLS
Bear Flag Engineering, Inc.
Sonoma County
Santa Cruz County
tel. 707.996.8449 (Sonoma) or 831.477.9215 (Santa Cruz)
clark@bearflagcivil.com
Bear Flag Engineering, Inc.
Sonoma County
Santa Cruz County
tel. 707.996.8449 (Sonoma) or 831.477.9215 (Santa Cruz)
clark@bearflagcivil.com
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Jay Wright
- Posts: 122
- Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2010 11:39 am
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Jim Frame
- Posts: 1599
- Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2002 8:52 pm
- Location: Davis, CA
- Contact:
The licensee is responsible for professional deliverables regardless of whether or not he/she created them. That's the case with paper as well as digital. Digital is more complicated due to the challenges of authenticating authorship, but those complications don't deflect responsibility for an authenticated deliverable.Do you only have licensed design professionals doing your CAD?
In all jurisdictions with which I'm familiar, paper plans continue to be the sole authoritative document in the legal sense. However, regulatory requirements lag changes in the standard of practice, and engineering/architectural design is an area in which the lag is getting very pronounced. The fact that an agency reviewed and approved a set of plans doesn't make them complete, so the practice of RFIs and the provision of digital files as a "supplement" to the paper plans will continue.Was the CAD file reviewed by the agency that gave out the building permit?
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Jay Wright
- Posts: 122
- Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2010 11:39 am
Thanks for the answers Jim
My first question was stupid and your answer was perfect.
I think your second answer should have ended four words before the first period, but I agree that a CAD file can be an excellent supplement
I generally give out CAD files whenever I am asked and take them whenever I can get them.
I will probably rant and rage tomorrow about people who snap points onto other peoples CAD files and call it doing staking calcs but it wont be directed at you.
My first question was stupid and your answer was perfect.
I think your second answer should have ended four words before the first period, but I agree that a CAD file can be an excellent supplement
I generally give out CAD files whenever I am asked and take them whenever I can get them.
I will probably rant and rage tomorrow about people who snap points onto other peoples CAD files and call it doing staking calcs but it wont be directed at you.