Yes construction can and does take place all year long. But in the Midwest where frost can get down to about three to five feet, activity tends to drop off as winter sets in. We typically use this time indoors to plan for next year’s projects, and as the robins show up and warmer breezes…
Tag: construction
The F-word, contractors, and women
What I've come to realize over the course of my career is that there are some male contractors who will accuse engineers/inspectors who are women of using the F-word in an effort to discredit them or get them into trouble. And I think the recent reaction to the use of this word by a U.S. diplomat…
Managing CCDD Material in Illinois
Well now that the dust has settled on the CCDD regulations, many of us are figuring out how we are going to manage the material in order to comply with the law. Basically, the process for many of us will be some modification of the following: Determine if the excavation is near a Potentially Impacted…
Should We Give People Free iPads?
Over the last few days I've been exposed to two ideas that interest me in how each demonstrates the need to properly vet an idea. (As an aside for for all of you familiar with MMORPGs: I figure if life was a game, "Vetting an Idea" would be considered a passive ability for those in the engineering profession.) First on…
Sales Tax Exemptions for Public Projects
Normally when we bid a construction project, we don't address in the bid documents the payment of sales tax. We do, however, indicate that the contractor is required to follow all Federal, State, and Local laws. Because of this, I would assume that on most projects, a contractor would be paying any required sales tax…
Kinect, Robotics, Highway Safety, and Saving Lives
There's been a lot of talk about the use of Kinect and robotics. Yes, people have figured out how to use Microsoft's awesome gadget to manipulate robots. And Microsoft even has a Robotics website and development toolkits for this purpose. But so far, most of the demos I have seen focus on using robots…
Public Works Puzzles
Lately I've been working on developing some educational coursework related to the public works field. Through this effort I've come across some interesting online tools that can be used for educational purposes. One of these tools, Jigzone, takes a photo and turns it into a jigsaw puzzle. As an example, I've started with one of…
The Things Contractors Say
Shortly after I started inspecting construction almost thirty years ago, I started realizing most contractors have the same response to similar situations. When I was younger and asked a contractor to do something, the typical response was something like, "Honey, I've been doing this for thirty years, and …." Then they would go on to…
Plan Holder/Bidder List – To Share or Not to Share
We currently have a project out to bid for the installation of about a quarter mile of 10-inch water main. As usual, after we release the notification to bidders, we begin receiving requests from companies asking for a list of bidders or plan holders. Our city's policy is to not release this list until after…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 65
Day 65 I really wanted to title this blog post: Today I Discovered Why We Have no Transportation Funds! The other day, I wrote about the BRT and Randall Road – the major corridor that runs through many of the communities in our area. In that post, I also mentioned the Route 529 study –…