Originally Posted By: cradan
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a P.E.) in industrial flow, pumping and piping systems (environmental remediation). Refineries, heavy manufacturing plants, nuclear energy plants, waste treatment plants, landfills, Superfund clean-ups, ad infinitum. Most of those twelve years were spent working for and with P.E.'s. Many (not all) of them were more than happy to have me design, specify, estimate, purchase, install, test, Q.A/Q.C., troubleshoot and otherwise handle these complex systems. Ultimately, their stamp (when there was one) went on the “work”, but guess who did the “work?”
This is in no way an insult to professional engineers who have worked for, earned and reached some mastery within their area of specialization & expertise. As Erby indicated, the best of these are (in my not so humble opinion) unbelievable from a talent and capability standpoint.
I suppose the bigger issue I have with your post, Joseph, is your suggestion that home inspectors who are non-licensed civil/structural P.E.'s can't
"put forth any type of decision or opinion about the structural worthiness or integrity of a building, foundation, facade or other building components."Doubtless if one reads the Professional Regulation Standards in most U.S. states literally, your statement would be considered accurate as it was proferred. In real life, however, given a choice of a professional home inspector with typical training, specialized education and hundreds and hundreds of fee-paid inspections on like properties vs. a P.E. with 5 or 10 such residential inspections looking at my cracks, my money'd be on the H.I. every time for a more experienced opinion on whether I'd be best-served (as a home buyer) to take further action at the time of (or after) the inspection. Like it or not, Joseph, we spend much of our professional inspection careers rendering opinions on the overall
condition of such systems and components. We'd certainly be out of our professional (and legal) area of expertise in trying to render estimates of failure probabilities, etc., but under
most circumstances, many H.I.'s are more than well-qualified to express an opinion to their paying clients as to whether those clients would be best-served in contacting a licensed engineer or other professional services provider.
Regards,
--
Chris
http://www.inspect4me.com
Chicago Illinois Home Inspections
