Greetings from Bridging Solutions!
Bridging Solutions is proud to announce the relocation of our Tampa branch office to a brand new building located at 13301 W. Hillsborough Ave., Unit #202 Tampa, FL 33635. The building is located in the United Business Park and it provides plenty of room for our planned growth over the next few years. See a photo of the new building below.
This installment of “A Bridge Moment” provides guidance to civil engineers working on land development projects where a bridge or box culvert is required and there is not a bridge/structural engineer on the project team. All bridge projects constructed in the public sector and all building projects have one engineering firm that takes on the responsibility as the Structural Engineer of Record (SER). The International Building Code requires that a SER be identified as the responsible party and some land development bridge projects are not meeting this requirement.
If a SER is not on the team, the civil engineer or the land development project manager usually seeks out assistance from a bridge vendor for design advice. Most bridge vendors offer this assistance for “free,” but as we all know “nothing is for free” and “you get what you pay for.” Obviously this cost is included in the price of the product. The project owner’s interests are not best served using this approach because conventional bridge types are not considered which may cost less and better fit the site conditions. The bridge vendor only considers the products sold by his company.
If a bridge/structural engineer is not on the project team, most civil engineers will include some generic details for the bridge in their civil plans with references to a vendor’s product. Since the details of the bridge construction are not on the plans, the contractor typically buys the bridge products from a vendor and the vendor’s engineer performs the final design of the bridge elements and prepares shop drawings. This engineer is considered a Specialty Engineer because he is designing the bridge elements based on information in the civil engineer’s plans.
The civil engineer is then required to review and approve the shop drawings which gives the contractor approval to order the materials. Under this scenario, the civil engineer has taken on the responsibility as the Structural Engineer of Record. The concern for the civil engineer is if there is any problem with the bridge, the civil engineer will be first in line by the owner's attorney if a complaint claim is filed. The civil engineer will need to contact their professional liability company and hire an attorney. We have discussed this issue with our attorney and he agrees that civil engineers that fail to engage the services of a bridge/structural engineer for their land development bridge projects are taking on the risk of claims.
