huangyhg

field weld on residential beam
as part of an arbitration proceeding, an inspector testified that he encountered a field weld on a steel beam at the dwelling in question. from a code persptive, which code governs this type work? (dwelling was contructed under irc 2000) i assume there must be a requirement to have a p.e. 'certify' to the adequacy of the weld? the steel supplier was not involved as the builder took it upon himself to cut/splice the beam as he saw fit. any input is appreciated.
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there is no requirement i know of for a pe to "certify" the weld quality. this is normally done by a structural testing firm specially engaged to perform a "special inspection", but only when it is required by the engineer of record or local jurisdicction.
questions: did the contractor have a current welding certificate with the proper qualifications to make the type of weld seen? was he licensed and bonded to do this? what type of weld was it? a fillet, or full pen butt weld with backing bars? what electrode was used and what steel? where in the beam was the weld made? there a lot of questions here. he should be able to answer all of them.
please do not be offended, but for anyone to blindly hold an engineer responsible for the actions of a contractor, who, in all likelihood, did not want the engineer involved as he would complicate the "solution", is ludicrous in my mind.
yes, i am reading between the lines here, but speaking from experience. not admissable in court, but an indication of where to look harder for that admissable evidence. just my two cents.
mike mccann
mmc engineering
for residential construction, pe's are not usually required to be involved unless there is some design aspect that is not empirically provided for in the irc. in the case of a weld on a beam, if it was a secondary weld, attaching something to the beam, it may not be a requirement. if it was a total beam splice, then the building official should have required some sort of pe review.

i agree jae about not being empirically provided for in irc, it isn't, that is why more information is being requested from the builder, even though the local code official did not request it (there is no question he should have) the problem at this stage msquared48 is that we have no information on what was done. no one is suggesting blindly holding a pe responsible for this work. there are many unanswered questions and the builder has been come down with a bout of amnesia. regarding a pe being 'on the hook' we have the opposite problem. the builder's engineer opined that the beam 'is fine' yet provides no back up documentation, calcs. etc. this constitutes a net opinion and carries no weight. while common sense tells us that someone should have been overseeing the work or should have run the calcs before hand, there is no code requirement we can locate that tells us that. lawyers love code references.
thanks for the input.
check with your state building officials. there was a state building code in place. it probably required calcs for everything that's non prescriptive and i'll bet this was non-prescriptive. it alos probably requires who ever di this to have the calcs on file for about 5-7 years.
let us know how this turns out,
good luck,
dermott
welding isn't necessarily detrimental to an in-place piece of steel. engineers usually don't like to see welds because who knows how qualified the welder and procedure was but the presence of a weld isn't the end of the world.
i do not have the 2000 irc or had much experience with it, but in the 2003/2006 irc, you refer to the 2003/2006 ibc for things not following the prescriptive provisions of the irc.


don phillips

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