Can some explain how this happens?

I've been on lots of jobs that have goofy ends or wrong plans... They say built it wrong then we submit a change order... tear it down(getting paid for demo) then get paid to built it right..

We used to have a street with poles next to the street,,,Lots of broken mirrors and glass on that street

I'm constantly amazed that on jobs where I'm sure that there was careful planning some of these things can still happen.

Wouldn't you think that some guy on site would notice that something was amiss and actually say something?

hmmmm looked good on paper.

The engineer said "Just follow the Plans!!"
It happens quite often!

I AM IRONMAN said:

The engineer said "Just follow the Plans!!"
It happens quite often!

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I have met that engineer.


I have wondered if these pictures were real or photoshopped.
http://leenks.com/gallery499.htm

ddiiggy said:

I have met that engineer.


I have wondered if these pictures were real or photoshopped.
http://leenks.com/gallery499.htm

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Very possibly real. Take note of the guter on the right side of the house. It is cut at driveway level.

I don't have pics but here in the small city I live in decided they need to spend nearly mil on perrty sidewalks. Well that's all fine and dandy, but they took nearly two years doing the first phase ( which is maybe 2000 feet total ).

The problem comes in that we have to major highways run threw town and they have that little 35' offset. Coming from my side not a big deal. But coming from the right trying to get to the interstate there are skid marks all over the side walk. Tracktor trailers can't negotiate this turn and not mounth the sidewalk. Still no big deal if it wasn't an area traveled by them.

The trucks were here first. There is also no way around this aside from driving 50 miles out of the way. When I go that way I mount the curb in just the dumptruck and scare the bujebease outa anyone sitting at the light coming from the other direction if they are behind the line ( if not I can't make the turn ).

Curbs and sidewalks seem to be one of the more comon error I see. Most engineers have never pulled a 53' trailer and don't acount for them.

A recent mall built near one of my jobs had the same scenario as town here.

The wonderful new road buudget just put up about 10 miles of gaurdrail where there never was. Some is in places that might could use it, but the other half is just wasted steel and a grass cutting nightmare for the land owners. They put a section up and not sure yet, but think they've blocked my exit with the skidloader and trailer. Where my skidloader is it's kind of a blind driveway so no lollygagging when pulling out, but now that the gaurd rail hangs 10 foot into the radius of the drive I don't think I can go that way any longer. I'll have to go the other way and turn around and come back.

They also ground the edges of some new asphault for that horrible sound telling you you're about to cross the white line. Which is ok I recon a bit anoying in a wide vehicle in the country, but I can live with that. The kicker is there is a 45 degree turn on a pretty good down hill slope that they stooped doing this at the bigining of the turn then started again at the end. Kind of only doing the straight stretches and mild turns.

we have a few around here that are about that steep... personally I would have at least lowered the garage floor about 5 feet....

I can't see anything but a SUV making it over the hump

Elevated home

On the upside...drainage will not be a problem

Jobs are not built on a piece of paper. Sometimes, someone with a piece of paper on a wall will adamantly tell you that they are and as you point out issues before hand, they assure you that its right and well, then you have these pics.

In truth, sometimes contractors make gross errors as well.....admittedly, I have made a few. The problem is that when a contractor does, he eats it. When an engineer makes a bust, he often gets paid to redesign.

I did a drainage job a while back that was a trainwreck. One instance I recall was placing 3X5 precast boxes across a road....over an old sanitary sewer. The engineer had left a foot of fill from the FL of the sewer to the FL of the box.....

Well...the sewer was a 10" and the box walls were 16".....hrmm.....that's not gonna work, never mind setting that heavy box on top of a clay sewer pipe with only one foot of fill....

And, of course, I 'located' the sewer line with the backhoe and it was already a foot higher than shown. Oops. It was that kind of job.

Farmereinar said:

hrmm, im sure if you threw a brick at this place hard enough, the whole thing would shatter

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Is that the former Masonic Hall that burnt in Bangor Maine a few years back? Looks like the fire they had but hadn't seen pics in a while.

ddiiggy said:

I have met that engineer.


I have wondered if these pictures were real or photoshopped.
http://leenks.com/gallery499.htm

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Somewhere along the way, I learned the actual location of those pictures, and they were indeed real.


See the location as it exists now, in Google Maps.

Note that the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street is much further back from the curb. The original sidewalk on the side pictured was once also that far back, but it's been moved much closer to the curb. Turn and look back up the street, and you can see where they curved the sidewalk to its present position. Further up the street, it remains the same as it was originally.

Idle speculation on my part--the whole episode was one of a builder who didn't want to pay to cut the lots lower, vs. the city who spec'ed the sidewalks to be a certain distance back from the curb and didn't want to allow a change. If somebody downtown had approved the plans, it was probably cheaper for the builder to make his point and get a variance by doing the driveways as approved, even though he ended up doing them twice. :beatsme

Heavy Highway said:

Jobs are not built on a piece of paper. Sometimes, someone with a piece of paper on a wall will adamantly tell you that they are and as you point out issues before hand, they assure you that its right and well, then you have these pics.

In truth, sometimes contractors make gross errors as well.....admittedly, I have made a few. The problem is that when a contractor does, he eats it. When an engineer makes a bust, he often gets paid to redesign.

I did a drainage job a while back that was a trainwreck. One instance I recall was placing 3X5 precast boxes across a road....over an old sanitary sewer. The engineer had left a foot of fill from the FL of the sewer to the FL of the box.....

Well...the sewer was a 10" and the box walls were 16".....hrmm.....that's not gonna work, never mind setting that heavy box on top of a clay sewer pipe with only one foot of fill....

And, of course, I 'located' the sewer line with the backhoe and it was already a foot higher than shown. Oops. It was that kind of job.

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I've seen it happen sometimes where an engineer or architect, usually someone young and inexperienced will get very defensive and will look at any question of specs or procedure or even any suggestion as being an attack. Of course sometimes we are not exactly uhm diplomatic when pointing out something especially dumb.

Komatsu 150 said:

I've seen it happen sometimes where an engineer or architect, usually someone young and inexperienced will get very defensive and will look at any question of specs or procedure or even any suggestion as being an attack. Of course sometimes we are not exactly uhm diplomatic when pointing out something especially dumb.

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Indeed, and I think alot of people in our industry tend to play 'gotcha' instead of pointing out problems and offering suggestions.