{"id":4813,"date":"2016-06-10T15:01:46","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T18:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/?p=4813"},"modified":"2016-06-10T15:01:46","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T18:01:46","slug":"why-do-we-need-forensic-engineers-when-we-have-excellent-performance-guidelines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/10\/why-do-we-need-forensic-engineers-when-we-have-excellent-performance-guidelines\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do we need forensic engineers when we have excellent performance guidelines?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was delighted recently when I saw the text <em>Performance Guidelines for Basements <\/em>while looking for another\u00a0book in my library.\u00a0 The guidelines\u00a0are lengthy and comprehensive like many for the built environment &#8211;\u00a0185\u00a0large-format pages.\u00a0 To some, that would be\u00a0a lot of guideline for what would seem to be a lowly part of a structure.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Performance guidelines for basements<\/em> by the National Research Council (NRC)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This type of easily read guideline is important to non-technical people\u00a0concerned about failures and accidents in the built environment.<\/p>\n<p>The guidelines\u00a0were prepared for all parties involved in the planning, design, construction and maintenance of basements.\u00a0 Pretty well everybody from the pick and shovel guy to\u00a0the cost control people.\u00a0 NRC\u00a0&#8211; and similar organizations in the U.S., publish a lot of material on buildings.<\/p>\n<p>Basements &#8211; and the foundations down there, are not a glamourous\u00a0part of a structure.\u00a0 Except, they\u00a0just happen to be\u00a0the sole\u00a0support of\u00a0the\u00a0<em>building <\/em>above &#8211; <em>the most frequently erected structure in the world<\/em>.\u00a0 And the basement is often the most complicated to design and construct &#8211; if you&#8217;re going to get it right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Other Guidelines<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I have other guidelines on different\u00a0aspects of the built environment.\u00a0 For example,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Moisture in Atlantic Housing<\/em> by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)<\/li>\n<li><em>National Building Code of Canada<\/em> (NBC); a set of guidelines\u00a0on minimum standards<\/li>\n<li><em>Slip, Trip and Fall Prevention, a Practical Handbook<\/em> by Steven di Pilla.\u00a0 This text is good on performance guidelines for floors and stairs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I also\u00a0have\u00a0guidelines on\u00a0investigating engineering failures and accidents when good design and construction practices are not followed.\u00a0 For example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Guidelines for Failure Investigation<\/em> by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)<\/li>\n<li><em>Guide to the Investigation of Structural Failures<\/em> by ASCE<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are guidelines of sorts in the published surveys of how structures fail.\u00a0 Knowing\u00a0how things break, fall down\u00a0or\u00a0don&#8217;t work\u00a0properly\u00a0is a first step to ensuring your structure performs properly.\u00a0 For example,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Failure Mechanisms in Building Construction<\/em> by David Nicastroon.\u00a0 This text\u00a0 catalogues and categorizes 209 different ways a building can fail.\u00a0\u00a0It&#8217;s very good and readily available.\u00a0 (Just think, the building you&#8217;re in now can fail in these many different ways)<\/li>\n<li>Also, <em>the ASCE guidelines above<\/em> contain lengthy sections on some of the primary modes of geotechnical, foundation\u00a0and structural failure<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Errors and Omissions<\/strong> <strong>in Guidelines<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You might wonder, why bother with a forensic\u00a0engineer when there are such comprehensive guidelines on getting the built environment right?\u00a0 A\u00a0fair question if you didn&#8217;t know that <em>the guidelines sometimes contain errors and omissions<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>For example, the NRC guidelines mentioned above illustrate an <em>error<\/em> on page 30 in construction of the footing drainage system.\u00a0 There&#8217;s also an <em>omission<\/em> in these guidelines &#8211; an explanation of the need for a drainage system beneath a basement floor.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve seen errors and omissions in CMHC guidelines.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s an <em>omission<\/em> in the NBC &#8211; as\u00a0I suspect there are in\u00a0some\u00a0similar Codes in\u00a0North America,\u00a0in the\u00a0vague guidance on the skid resistance of floors.\u00a0 (This was the case prior to 2015)\u00a0 Building inspectors make a call now on this problem but this is not good enough.\u00a0 I had to get guidance from the English translation of comprehensive German research on a slip and fall case a while ago.\u00a0 I did this to corroborate information I was getting from literature in the U.S. on practice\u00a0in some areas there, but not in all areas and not codified.<\/p>\n<p>(The NBC code is periodically updated as it was recently\u00a0in 2015.\u00a0 This updating is the case\u00a0for many performance guidelines)<\/p>\n<p>Also referenced above, the published survey of the 209 ways a building\u00a0can\u00a0fail is extremely good but\u00a0it&#8217;s completely silent on\u00a0foundation and basement failure.\u00a0 And there are many ways a basement can fail as evident in the 185 pages of the NRC publication.\u00a0 <em>Quite an omission in the text on buildings.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<p><strong>Performance guidelines are good<\/strong> &#8211; no one would\u00a0do a forensic\u00a0investigation without considering the guidelines pertinent to the failed structure or component.\u00a0 <strong>But not good enough<\/strong> to omit consultation with a forensic engineer\u00a0at some\u00a0point during an investigation.\u00a0 They are <em>a guide only<\/em> to what must be done and achieved &#8211;\u00a0and\u00a0some guidelines\u00a0do contain errors and omissions.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was delighted recently when I saw the text Performance Guidelines for Basements while looking for another\u00a0book in my library.\u00a0 The guidelines\u00a0are lengthy and comprehensive like many for the built environment &#8211;\u00a0185\u00a0large-format pages.\u00a0 To some, that would be\u00a0a lot of &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/10\/why-do-we-need-forensic-engineers-when-we-have-excellent-performance-guidelines\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4813"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4863,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions\/4863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}