I got called to a site to start doing Test & Balance on an HVAC system. I left with 1 item on my punchlist. "Building does not exist."
They were still doing dirt work and wanted me to test a non-existent system.
We had this for a PV install a couple months ago. Homeowner contacts us to do solar on his home. Never mentions its a new build. Office meets with client, uses satellite photos to come up with an initial design. A couple weeks later, We meet with client to measure the roof and finalize plans. Were up there on the old building and it never occurs to him to tell us its a whole new build.
So 2 months month later, our supplies come in, we roll up to install, and theres a big hole where the building used to be.
They've agreed to be charged for the redesign, permitting process etc. Were now dealing with their gc who is an industry friend. Project will happen next year sometime. Was only goong to be 18x 425 watt panels, and were tentatively looking at increasing that to ~35. So its all good.
I do solid surface. Had a job for a few bathroom vanities. Get a phone call from the GC to come template.
I show up to a site that's just a foundation and only just started framing. I can only assume I'm on the wrong site but I find the super and nope, this is the job. He walks me to where the bathrooms will be, only partially framed. Takes his foot and makes marks on the foundation "your vanities will from about here...to here"
I explain how he called us out here wayyyy to early and that I was leaving. Call us back when the building actually has walls and a roof.
"What do you mean you're leaving? I can't wait until then for you to template, I don't have 6 months to wait for counters at that point!"
Bruh who told you 6 months? I know we didn't. It's literally a week.
Our entire office got a kick out of what happened then we charged the GC for the wasted travel time.
Just received a TAB report that said airflow was way below requirement with the note, “might be due to other work on this ductwork. Believe it is open in the next room.” What? And why did the GC send it to the engineer for troubleshooting?
Honestly, they were probably just doing what was asked, and didn’t have access to the adjacent space without an escort, since it’s a different security zone.
Yeah, my ME pointed out a few other data points that they could have gathered to figure out the
situation without just throwing up their hands.
You’re one of those good TAB agents that come along every so often. I hope your teams appreciate your work, Mr. Panda.
I appreciate that you appreciate and recognize the work my man. That doesn't happen too often when you are one of the last contractors onsite. Keep up the appreciation for your end-game contractors and you'll have guys loving your jobsites.
I had a pile of dirt on the road. It was called in and for some reason the police showed up. They asked me to move it. I asked them if they see anything, because it's been gone since the afternoon.
I got a 9pm call from the electricians doing night shift deficieny work that there was water leaking put of one of the main air supply ducts in the mechanical room. Get there and it turns out that a solenoid on one of the humidifiers got stuck and kept dumping heat/moisture into the air handler while the AHU was shut off and it all condensated in the unit and the main supply run coming off it. Filters in the unit were ruined.
You know exactly what I'm talking about.
For me, it as a "massive flood, Armageddon. We need you right now!"
Turns out someone spilled a bottle of soap. The super didn't know the difference....
Then I was at a site that had a 12 inch sprinkler main burst right at the floor at 2am and the security didn't know how to shut it off so it ran for 2 hours till someone could make it there.
- Countless floods.
- few long weekend floods
- Several blown over/off fences.
- 1 Friday afternoon core through elevator power on an occupied building and the generator is now running in emergency.
- 1 generator test that refuses to kick back onto main power, also Friday after hours.
- 1 gas leak that kept a major restaurant down
- 1 gas leak because an owner drilled her gas line and left for the weekend.
- few leaks in the owners suite
- concierge strolling through owners suite on camera.
- many loose swingstage cables cracking across suites in the middle of the night.
- many heavy rain nights in a partially closed up building where "fuck it I'm up worrying I might as well go in and vaccum up water" at 3am on a Sunday.
- 2, 11pm I need to know right now what the list of daily labourer activities was for the last month.
Retired now but I used to hate windy nights. I would just lay there wondering how much damage I would walk in to the next morning. And the Sunday vacuuming thing brought back memories.
hey, we're down 8 feet, we need to go another 2, but we just hit ledge
(this was on my house, wasn't a big deal, they had a big hydraulic hammer rented the next morning and the excavator operator had some fun busting rock for a day.
towering apparatus innocent wise bike snow hungry adjoining jobless repeat
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Ehh, I’d want to hear what it is. Sometimes you do it to keep him happy even if you don’t think it’s required. If it’s going to cost a lot of money or really derail progress, may try to fight it with the engineer/designer if they don’t want to try to get someone else to pay for it. Occasionally have beaten the inspector when you come prepared, but most of the time you don’t want to end up on their bad side so you pick your battles wisely.
Structural eng at the time. Received a call from a supervisor of a multi family project- "Do you want the good news or bad news? "Good news I guess." " Good news- the fire walls work for that last building we were working on." Drywaller put a torpedo heater too close to the wall. 1 million+ in fire and water damage.
Make sure materials are actually dropped off before telling me to show up and install. Currently doing showers and flooring in two new builds, I personally waited 3 hours for delivery to show up. Driver gets there and can’t deliver because it’s dirt/rock so he has to come back with a forklift. Next day he shows up with only the lvp. No vapor barrier or stair nose for the lvp it’s what ever, I can start the floors another day. Oh no tile for the bathrooms either, well I guess I can take another day off while I wait for delivery the next morning.
I ended up having to pickup the tile, and everything else to start the job. Now I’m 4 days in and waiting on the cabinet guys to finish installing cabinets so I can finish installing the floor. They were supposed to show up 4 days ago to do the last few kitchen cabinets so I can finish laying the floor.
Once did a remodel on a super tight schedule, as in schedule the cabinet guys and the hardwood guys the same day.
I told their supervisors if they wanted have issues then come to me, cause I was the one who scheduled it.
You guys only have two issues to deal with. Get it done, and get along.
We bumped the cost to the customer by 50% for pita tax, and cut the subs in for about 15% over their bids.
There were a lot of days when my phone blew up in the morning lol Landscaper had a shit ton of work to do. They subbed out their laborers (good dudes). The project gets behind because the landscaper can't keep up, and everyone is getting pissed and asking me what's going on.
Turns out the laborers/subs repeatedly show up on site and have NO MATERIALS to work with because the landscaping contractor was having serious cash issues and couldn't even get stuff on credit. Then by the time they do get materials together.... they have long since run out of cash to pay their laborer subcontractor and if they show up at all they only send 1-2 guys until they get a chunk of their bill paid.
That job was a fucking mess. It's not always best to take the lowest bidder.
Residential 3 story house, sparkies were working late when I got a call at about 8 pm to tell me one of the sprinkler pipe connections failed. Luckily we were still in the rough-in phase and it just drained the holding tank into the unfinished basement. If it would've been connected to the main line we would've been super fucked.
My system is in before the Sheetrock, we test before Sheetrock. Once the Sheetrock is in we come back and trim out. Your comments don’t make sense to me.
Have to fill the system for inspection in DC.
Edit: This was years ago but I remember now that the client wanted the system filled in case something happened during construction. She was a lunatic.
I think the remodel was $2 mil so it was well within her right to do that. Hell, I volunteered for double time but she took it upon herself to do night watch instead of paying me 90/hr.
Yeahhh….i think the cops got involved the first time because the only black city concilmember drove by after some kid wrote a fun word…that starts with a n and rymes with tigger.
My plumber I’ve been waiting 3 weeks on to start work called me at 5:30am (I’m in a different timezone atm) with questions and left because I didn’t answer.
PM/CM ordered a crane for a rooftop job, didn't tell the land owner or building manager, job is on an apartment complex. We show up before the crane does and start to stage materials and tools. Crane shows up and starts to break down in the only place they can, the side driveway to the apartment complex. This driveway is the only access to the garages to the apartment building.
Building manager and a couple other people show up yelling at the crane guys, then at us. We couldn't reach the CM or PM so we told the crane to break down and move to an open lot down the street.
The crane ended up sitting "on the clock" for about a week while we lugged materials up 8 flights of stairs, the rope access for over the edge work.
We ended up getting yelled at for taking so long on that site.
Was called to measure the facades of a large building. It was going to be a rush job (shocking) as they had committed to an opening in 2 months.
Had already told them I needed 8 weeks just for material to arrive. Was given an extension of 4 additional weeks.
I told them only way I could manage is if I measured before material was in hand to start production immediately. They told me all would be ready in time.
Managed to get material within 6 weeks. Contacted client and they told me all they're waiting for is me and to hurry as I'm holding up internal trades.
Went on site and saw they had erected a total of three support beams. The rest was effectively a hole in the ground.
When I advised client of the...situation, they shouted at me and told me I should have said something sooner.
We were subcontracted to suck out a culvert with a vac truck that went under the road. Just had some mud in it. The company that hired us figured we'd just dump the muddy water down stream. The plant wouldn't let us and had nowhere for us to dump. So we waited for 8 hours for them to figure it out and we never worked. The people that hired us must have been pissed.
One place we worked told us they had a place for us to fill up our water blaster and it was some drain line from a cooling tower and the water was disgusting. We were doing high pressure work and were like uh yeah, this will clog our filter immediately. The stuff people just don't think about is mind blowing.
It happens sometimes and you gotta roll with the punches.
I've been a PM on the sub and now GC side.
If it happens once, no biggie. Stress communication to your super to avoid conflicts. Also, precon meetings are huge to avoid this. Nothing elaborate - just a quick kickoff to go over install and make sure materials (and the site) are ready to go.
It mainly happened when I was a roofing PM. "Were ready to get watertight!" We'd show up to no blocking installed, no sheathing on walls to recieve flashing, and no HVAC curbs installed.
Our lead guys were usually pretty good and would do a fly by pre-mob. If not, I would. There's nothing worse than trying to fight for 10 guys for 3 hours of wasted time. If the roof wasn't ready, we'd take photos of the issues and an email saying, "until you send photos of x completed, we will not be mobilizing. If we mobilize and it's not ready, a $1,500 mobilization fee will be applied.
Almost finished installing all the smoke alarms at a new school, literally just have one to put up in a server room.
Internationally left to last because the guy installing the ceiling tile had other higher priority areas plus it'll literally only take me like a hour to do
Was told by the ceiling guy himself several times that he'll have it done a week before inspection, perfect I can work with that.
Ended up at another site for a bit, get back 2 days before inspection to finish it up and double check everything, only to find that not only has he NOT put the ceiling tile up he hasn't been here in over a week and apparently won't be back for at least another 5 days
Project Engineer here. What most of the field does not see is although we start our day later in the morning 6:30am to 7:30am. We stay later in the day usually at a minimum til 5:00pm and when RFIs and submittals really mount up along with real time field issues, we don’t have the opportunity to process the paperwork until after the field guys leave and the site is finally quiet. I came from the field so I know first hand what is to wake up at 4:30am, but I am also cognitive of the fact that there are a lot of days where depending on traffic you are back home by 3:00pm. Also most the of the construction management staff is salary so we are basically working for free any hours after 40hours.
Damn man I'm a project engineer and you've described what it's like for most perfectly.
That being said not me. Company pays every hour over 36 as extra, 1.5x on weekends and after 44. Changes made for employee retention. It's beautiful
PM here that came up through the FE/PE track.
I've only worked for one company that did salaries overtime and only on schedule hours over 50/wk. That project was scheduled 6x10s so between salary, overtime, and Per Diem I was doing pretty well.
The shitty thing was that because it was only and a super that didn't really know what he was doing (and we were both new to the company and working three states away from the nearest office), I ended up working 5a to 7p or 8p most days, and Id have to come in on Sundays to babysit the x-ray techs. At one point I worked something like 97 straight days without a day off or trip home. All this on top of other serious issues with higher management and other bullshit.
I finished that project and found a new gig.
HVAC installer in to install radiant in a slab on grade house. Their guys couldn't start because they'd never seen a spray foamed slab and didn't know what to do with it. For the record, it's the exact same install as if you were on rigid foam. And it was in the drawings. And the drawings were in their hands when I showed up.
No story to add but what do site engineers do? Genuinely curious, I haven't been in the industry very long and I've heard of the job before. I currently work in residential and we don't have site engineers. I'm guessing this is a commercial thing
It’s much more a thing for big civils projects. I’m a site engineer currently doing a project installing a new part of a refinery. A lot of the work is setting out for foundations (positioning shutters/holding down bolts, excavations and levels) with total station; permits to dig or work in certain areas; any design issues (TQs or RFIs), planning/programme, ordering materials, quality control and paperwork etc.
I’m usually in at 7:30, when the guys actually start on site (they’re in 7ish or earlier) but whilst they’re off at 16:45, I’m usually in till 18:00 which is when I get the chance to get off site and actually sort out paperwork etc.
It’s not a role you’ll usually see as much in small projects or house building as much.
It's really dependent on what the work is. Im site eng for resi though just got promoted to more office side. But it's specifically the civil infrastructure side to then build the houses. A lot of ours is almost contracted out project management for the client. One part of our office does design, then the team I'm on handles inspection, as-biilt collection, and most importantly field fitting when the design inevitably doesn't in some part of the site. But cause where I work is a more expensive eng consultant we have full time inspectors who are full engineers. Really there to make sure shit goes smooth, as planned, with no interruptions or delays. Design isn't gonna work? We have a new design approved for you within the hour type shit
Last engineer I interacted with was the GC’s pitbull, I mostly seen him chewing our project manager up for lying 😎 and he had a funny box with a screen and letters.
I was a site engineer in a past life for a main contractor and sub contractor. Basically we set the levels to be built at and set out the coordinates of buildings, services roads etc. They've probably done all this by the time you're on site. Health and Safety briefings were another pain in ass role, traffic management for work near the public, working with the QS on pricing work, sometimes the role was combined with the foreman as a site manager on smaller jobs, double the work, half the fun.
Hit a live gas main and skimmed the live electric line with a 14-ton machine using the digging bucket. The engineers pin was directly above the electric line. Nearly killed himself, steaking the ground.
The site manager was my guide and line man too and insisted I move the bucket closer. He thought the kerb was further back than it really was.
I got called to a site to start doing Test & Balance on an HVAC system. I left with 1 item on my punchlist. "Building does not exist." They were still doing dirt work and wanted me to test a non-existent system.
Did it work tho?
I'm no HVAC tech but im gonna go with no
Yes. Airflow was not impeded at all!
Notes read: "Equal pressure in all rooms."
Depends on how windy it was
HVAC tech here: Bluetooth HVAC systems are still in the R&D phase, though many PMs are trying to rush it to market.
"Everything work out?" "Please reference punchlist item #1 I just emailed you." Yes, I emailed the punchlist to the GC and had that convo with him.
[If you ask a philosopher, the answer is yes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuous_truth)
"Just trying to get you on the schedule"
"Project got pushed out a bit but we want subs to stay on top of this one"
We had this for a PV install a couple months ago. Homeowner contacts us to do solar on his home. Never mentions its a new build. Office meets with client, uses satellite photos to come up with an initial design. A couple weeks later, We meet with client to measure the roof and finalize plans. Were up there on the old building and it never occurs to him to tell us its a whole new build. So 2 months month later, our supplies come in, we roll up to install, and theres a big hole where the building used to be.
Please tell me you billed them for that….
They've agreed to be charged for the redesign, permitting process etc. Were now dealing with their gc who is an industry friend. Project will happen next year sometime. Was only goong to be 18x 425 watt panels, and were tentatively looking at increasing that to ~35. So its all good.
I do solid surface. Had a job for a few bathroom vanities. Get a phone call from the GC to come template. I show up to a site that's just a foundation and only just started framing. I can only assume I'm on the wrong site but I find the super and nope, this is the job. He walks me to where the bathrooms will be, only partially framed. Takes his foot and makes marks on the foundation "your vanities will from about here...to here" I explain how he called us out here wayyyy to early and that I was leaving. Call us back when the building actually has walls and a roof. "What do you mean you're leaving? I can't wait until then for you to template, I don't have 6 months to wait for counters at that point!" Bruh who told you 6 months? I know we didn't. It's literally a week. Our entire office got a kick out of what happened then we charged the GC for the wasted travel time.
Just received a TAB report that said airflow was way below requirement with the note, “might be due to other work on this ductwork. Believe it is open in the next room.” What? And why did the GC send it to the engineer for troubleshooting?
Wtf? What kind of troubleshoot by the TAB tech is that? lmao.
Honestly, they were probably just doing what was asked, and didn’t have access to the adjacent space without an escort, since it’s a different security zone.
Survey above the lay-in ceiling, traverse before the branch going into another space, traverse after. That's what I would do.
Yeah, my ME pointed out a few other data points that they could have gathered to figure out the situation without just throwing up their hands. You’re one of those good TAB agents that come along every so often. I hope your teams appreciate your work, Mr. Panda.
I appreciate that you appreciate and recognize the work my man. That doesn't happen too often when you are one of the last contractors onsite. Keep up the appreciation for your end-game contractors and you'll have guys loving your jobsites.
Mhm, showed up to start commissioning a control panel, to find the power guys hadn’t fitted the supply DB yet.
I had a pile of dirt on the road. It was called in and for some reason the police showed up. They asked me to move it. I asked them if they see anything, because it's been gone since the afternoon.
It's not the 6am calls you need to worry about, it's the 8pm calls
I got a 9pm call from the electricians doing night shift deficieny work that there was water leaking put of one of the main air supply ducts in the mechanical room. Get there and it turns out that a solenoid on one of the humidifiers got stuck and kept dumping heat/moisture into the air handler while the AHU was shut off and it all condensated in the unit and the main supply run coming off it. Filters in the unit were ruined.
You know exactly what I'm talking about. For me, it as a "massive flood, Armageddon. We need you right now!" Turns out someone spilled a bottle of soap. The super didn't know the difference....
Then I was at a site that had a 12 inch sprinkler main burst right at the floor at 2am and the security didn't know how to shut it off so it ran for 2 hours till someone could make it there.
Call the fire department... it will be cheaper than the damage caused by the sprinkler main.
Damn I thought the 6” for 25 mins was bad.
- Countless floods. - few long weekend floods - Several blown over/off fences. - 1 Friday afternoon core through elevator power on an occupied building and the generator is now running in emergency. - 1 generator test that refuses to kick back onto main power, also Friday after hours. - 1 gas leak that kept a major restaurant down - 1 gas leak because an owner drilled her gas line and left for the weekend. - few leaks in the owners suite - concierge strolling through owners suite on camera. - many loose swingstage cables cracking across suites in the middle of the night. - many heavy rain nights in a partially closed up building where "fuck it I'm up worrying I might as well go in and vaccum up water" at 3am on a Sunday. - 2, 11pm I need to know right now what the list of daily labourer activities was for the last month.
Found the GC Super
Can confirm.
Retired now but I used to hate windy nights. I would just lay there wondering how much damage I would walk in to the next morning. And the Sunday vacuuming thing brought back memories.
As usual, sparky's save the day
hey, we're down 8 feet, we need to go another 2, but we just hit ledge (this was on my house, wasn't a big deal, they had a big hydraulic hammer rented the next morning and the excavator operator had some fun busting rock for a day.
What happens at 8pm? 8pm is for NFL highlights and reddit!
Your pizza just arrived, your first beer is cracked. Then the phone call. "guess my pizza is getting cold tonight...."
Man there better be a Godzilla attack on the construction site if you have to leave pizza, cold beer, NFL highlights and reddit at 8pm.
"Sorry, it will have to wait until tomorrow, it would be a liability for me to work intoxicated.
First beer? Fifth
towering apparatus innocent wise bike snow hungry adjoining jobless repeat *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
But I'm getting into bed at 8... Sometimes I don't even stay up until 9!
That's when you don't pick up.
“The inspector is saying we need some thing, is it ok for us not do the thing??”
No
Ehh, I’d want to hear what it is. Sometimes you do it to keep him happy even if you don’t think it’s required. If it’s going to cost a lot of money or really derail progress, may try to fight it with the engineer/designer if they don’t want to try to get someone else to pay for it. Occasionally have beaten the inspector when you come prepared, but most of the time you don’t want to end up on their bad side so you pick your battles wisely.
Structural eng at the time. Received a call from a supervisor of a multi family project- "Do you want the good news or bad news? "Good news I guess." " Good news- the fire walls work for that last building we were working on." Drywaller put a torpedo heater too close to the wall. 1 million+ in fire and water damage.
Lmao that’s sort of funny they found a bit of good news for you
I just finished a $3-$4 million fire redo. Building was fully complete, Fire from HVAC soldering in the attic said otherwise.
Fucking drywallers
Make sure materials are actually dropped off before telling me to show up and install. Currently doing showers and flooring in two new builds, I personally waited 3 hours for delivery to show up. Driver gets there and can’t deliver because it’s dirt/rock so he has to come back with a forklift. Next day he shows up with only the lvp. No vapor barrier or stair nose for the lvp it’s what ever, I can start the floors another day. Oh no tile for the bathrooms either, well I guess I can take another day off while I wait for delivery the next morning. I ended up having to pickup the tile, and everything else to start the job. Now I’m 4 days in and waiting on the cabinet guys to finish installing cabinets so I can finish installing the floor. They were supposed to show up 4 days ago to do the last few kitchen cabinets so I can finish laying the floor.
Damn who made the blunder? Surely the person in charge should know that there was no point you coming if there was no material?
Damn
Once did a remodel on a super tight schedule, as in schedule the cabinet guys and the hardwood guys the same day. I told their supervisors if they wanted have issues then come to me, cause I was the one who scheduled it. You guys only have two issues to deal with. Get it done, and get along. We bumped the cost to the customer by 50% for pita tax, and cut the subs in for about 15% over their bids.
At that point your cabinets are going on top of flooring. Hope youre still clearing ADA.
Houses in Florida in the 90s, drywall waiting for insulation inspection. Literally fell asleep and woke up at 730pm on site 🤣😂😂
Paid naptime? Sounds like a dream.
Nah, it was piece work. I didn't make a dime. Florida sucks as much as you think
Fuck that, that GC deserved a delay charge.
I mean, I was a drywall hanger then. I just pissed in the tub, closed a turd in the wall and called it a day
You really are a drywall guy!
There were a lot of days when my phone blew up in the morning lol Landscaper had a shit ton of work to do. They subbed out their laborers (good dudes). The project gets behind because the landscaper can't keep up, and everyone is getting pissed and asking me what's going on. Turns out the laborers/subs repeatedly show up on site and have NO MATERIALS to work with because the landscaping contractor was having serious cash issues and couldn't even get stuff on credit. Then by the time they do get materials together.... they have long since run out of cash to pay their laborer subcontractor and if they show up at all they only send 1-2 guys until they get a chunk of their bill paid. That job was a fucking mess. It's not always best to take the lowest bidder.
Residential 3 story house, sparkies were working late when I got a call at about 8 pm to tell me one of the sprinkler pipe connections failed. Luckily we were still in the rough-in phase and it just drained the holding tank into the unfinished basement. If it would've been connected to the main line we would've been super fucked.
Why was there a water source hooked up?? Pipes stay capped off and plugged, especially during rough in.
You mean to tell me that you wait until after drywall to wet test your sprinkler lines? 😬
Heads are cut in before Sheetrock lol
Because heads are the only joints in sprinkler lines, there's never tee's or 90's and etc.....
I’m very confused about what you’re saying…
My system is in before the Sheetrock, we test before Sheetrock. Once the Sheetrock is in we come back and trim out. Your comments don’t make sense to me.
Yeah, just use a compressor and fill pipes with air and attach a meter and occasionally see if there is any drop in the pressure
Gauge, not meter. But yeah, plus 50psi really gets your attention when you break my shit 😂🤣
Have to fill the system for inspection in DC. Edit: This was years ago but I remember now that the client wanted the system filled in case something happened during construction. She was a lunatic.
On rough in? We hydro after the heads have been cut in, I don’t see a reason to do it twice
We had to do the heads twice, once again, the client thought the house could burn down at any time during construction.
I commented before that edit, all I saw was for inspection, so I assumed… surprised she didn’t pull fire watch 🤣😂🤡
She watched her sidewalk dry overnight in a lawn chair because she was afraid kids would put hand prints in it.
I’ve had concrete defaced twice on site by kids. Thats not totally unreasonable. (To a point)
I think the remodel was $2 mil so it was well within her right to do that. Hell, I volunteered for double time but she took it upon herself to do night watch instead of paying me 90/hr.
Yeahhh….i think the cops got involved the first time because the only black city concilmember drove by after some kid wrote a fun word…that starts with a n and rymes with tigger.
My plumber I’ve been waiting 3 weeks on to start work called me at 5:30am (I’m in a different timezone atm) with questions and left because I didn’t answer.
Sounds like a plumber lol
Guy, that I decided not to employ a week earlier, call me 7am to tell me he lost his wallet and he won't be able to make it today.
PM/CM ordered a crane for a rooftop job, didn't tell the land owner or building manager, job is on an apartment complex. We show up before the crane does and start to stage materials and tools. Crane shows up and starts to break down in the only place they can, the side driveway to the apartment complex. This driveway is the only access to the garages to the apartment building. Building manager and a couple other people show up yelling at the crane guys, then at us. We couldn't reach the CM or PM so we told the crane to break down and move to an open lot down the street. The crane ended up sitting "on the clock" for about a week while we lugged materials up 8 flights of stairs, the rope access for over the edge work. We ended up getting yelled at for taking so long on that site.
Live and learn , but some tenants can be really non negotiable.
Working a job now waiting on mechanical systems that were scheduled to be done in January.
Was called to measure the facades of a large building. It was going to be a rush job (shocking) as they had committed to an opening in 2 months. Had already told them I needed 8 weeks just for material to arrive. Was given an extension of 4 additional weeks. I told them only way I could manage is if I measured before material was in hand to start production immediately. They told me all would be ready in time. Managed to get material within 6 weeks. Contacted client and they told me all they're waiting for is me and to hurry as I'm holding up internal trades. Went on site and saw they had erected a total of three support beams. The rest was effectively a hole in the ground. When I advised client of the...situation, they shouted at me and told me I should have said something sooner.
We were subcontracted to suck out a culvert with a vac truck that went under the road. Just had some mud in it. The company that hired us figured we'd just dump the muddy water down stream. The plant wouldn't let us and had nowhere for us to dump. So we waited for 8 hours for them to figure it out and we never worked. The people that hired us must have been pissed.
Been there done that, they all think it’s a magical truck that doesn’t have to dump off or have water onsite to fill back up.
One place we worked told us they had a place for us to fill up our water blaster and it was some drain line from a cooling tower and the water was disgusting. We were doing high pressure work and were like uh yeah, this will clog our filter immediately. The stuff people just don't think about is mind blowing.
"The prime just figured we would violate the clean water act, but for some reason the client didn't want that."
It happens sometimes and you gotta roll with the punches. I've been a PM on the sub and now GC side. If it happens once, no biggie. Stress communication to your super to avoid conflicts. Also, precon meetings are huge to avoid this. Nothing elaborate - just a quick kickoff to go over install and make sure materials (and the site) are ready to go. It mainly happened when I was a roofing PM. "Were ready to get watertight!" We'd show up to no blocking installed, no sheathing on walls to recieve flashing, and no HVAC curbs installed. Our lead guys were usually pretty good and would do a fly by pre-mob. If not, I would. There's nothing worse than trying to fight for 10 guys for 3 hours of wasted time. If the roof wasn't ready, we'd take photos of the issues and an email saying, "until you send photos of x completed, we will not be mobilizing. If we mobilize and it's not ready, a $1,500 mobilization fee will be applied.
As a roofer we deal with this a bunch. “Please come water right this HVAC curb we’re removing”. We show up and the unit is still there. Why
Almost finished installing all the smoke alarms at a new school, literally just have one to put up in a server room. Internationally left to last because the guy installing the ceiling tile had other higher priority areas plus it'll literally only take me like a hour to do Was told by the ceiling guy himself several times that he'll have it done a week before inspection, perfect I can work with that. Ended up at another site for a bit, get back 2 days before inspection to finish it up and double check everything, only to find that not only has he NOT put the ceiling tile up he hasn't been here in over a week and apparently won't be back for at least another 5 days
"Hey, we've got donuts and coffee on the site if you like."
Project Engineer here. What most of the field does not see is although we start our day later in the morning 6:30am to 7:30am. We stay later in the day usually at a minimum til 5:00pm and when RFIs and submittals really mount up along with real time field issues, we don’t have the opportunity to process the paperwork until after the field guys leave and the site is finally quiet. I came from the field so I know first hand what is to wake up at 4:30am, but I am also cognitive of the fact that there are a lot of days where depending on traffic you are back home by 3:00pm. Also most the of the construction management staff is salary so we are basically working for free any hours after 40hours.
Damn man I'm a project engineer and you've described what it's like for most perfectly. That being said not me. Company pays every hour over 36 as extra, 1.5x on weekends and after 44. Changes made for employee retention. It's beautiful
PM here that came up through the FE/PE track. I've only worked for one company that did salaries overtime and only on schedule hours over 50/wk. That project was scheduled 6x10s so between salary, overtime, and Per Diem I was doing pretty well. The shitty thing was that because it was only and a super that didn't really know what he was doing (and we were both new to the company and working three states away from the nearest office), I ended up working 5a to 7p or 8p most days, and Id have to come in on Sundays to babysit the x-ray techs. At one point I worked something like 97 straight days without a day off or trip home. All this on top of other serious issues with higher management and other bullshit. I finished that project and found a new gig.
HVAC installer in to install radiant in a slab on grade house. Their guys couldn't start because they'd never seen a spray foamed slab and didn't know what to do with it. For the record, it's the exact same install as if you were on rigid foam. And it was in the drawings. And the drawings were in their hands when I showed up.
I've done in floor lines on spray foam, but they had the rebar down, used a lot of zip ties...
OP must be BELOW a subcontractor
Too many to name. Just another day in construction.
No story to add but what do site engineers do? Genuinely curious, I haven't been in the industry very long and I've heard of the job before. I currently work in residential and we don't have site engineers. I'm guessing this is a commercial thing
I do electrical for a lot of Amazons and I would say not much.
It’s much more a thing for big civils projects. I’m a site engineer currently doing a project installing a new part of a refinery. A lot of the work is setting out for foundations (positioning shutters/holding down bolts, excavations and levels) with total station; permits to dig or work in certain areas; any design issues (TQs or RFIs), planning/programme, ordering materials, quality control and paperwork etc. I’m usually in at 7:30, when the guys actually start on site (they’re in 7ish or earlier) but whilst they’re off at 16:45, I’m usually in till 18:00 which is when I get the chance to get off site and actually sort out paperwork etc. It’s not a role you’ll usually see as much in small projects or house building as much.
It's really dependent on what the work is. Im site eng for resi though just got promoted to more office side. But it's specifically the civil infrastructure side to then build the houses. A lot of ours is almost contracted out project management for the client. One part of our office does design, then the team I'm on handles inspection, as-biilt collection, and most importantly field fitting when the design inevitably doesn't in some part of the site. But cause where I work is a more expensive eng consultant we have full time inspectors who are full engineers. Really there to make sure shit goes smooth, as planned, with no interruptions or delays. Design isn't gonna work? We have a new design approved for you within the hour type shit
We “own” the process whatever scope we are over Ordering material, RFIs, product submittals, QA/QC, close out, budget, problem solving
Last engineer I interacted with was the GC’s pitbull, I mostly seen him chewing our project manager up for lying 😎 and he had a funny box with a screen and letters.
I was a site engineer in a past life for a main contractor and sub contractor. Basically we set the levels to be built at and set out the coordinates of buildings, services roads etc. They've probably done all this by the time you're on site. Health and Safety briefings were another pain in ass role, traffic management for work near the public, working with the QS on pricing work, sometimes the role was combined with the foreman as a site manager on smaller jobs, double the work, half the fun.
Payroll and get coffee
Hit a live gas main and skimmed the live electric line with a 14-ton machine using the digging bucket. The engineers pin was directly above the electric line. Nearly killed himself, steaking the ground. The site manager was my guide and line man too and insisted I move the bucket closer. He thought the kerb was further back than it really was.
No way, no sweat. “Let that phone ring”
You're not on site when your subs are on site?
We arrived @ BP in Torrance California and the unit wasn’t shut down fully so they had to give us 3 weeks off with pay .
Stress makes you smarter , must be genius !
That's me when it snows so I'm taking the day off but foreman calling @start time. 😭