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["Jake Watson" <jwatson(--nospam--at)utahisp.com>]

Whenever possible we try and stick to our guns regarding certification.  We have not had good luck with the fabricators that are not certified.  My experience (rather limited admittedly) has been very poor with non-approved shops.  There absolutely is a cost for being AISC certified, how much I really don't know.  However, projects where you are requesting the certification to begin with are likely large enough to warrant the added procedures to insure a good product.

 

Secondly, as someone has already said, there is a special inspection cost that needs to be researched.  At the least, the fabricator should be forced to build in the special inspection costs into his bid.

 

If you want to determine how many shops in your area are certified, I believe ASK has a list of approved shop on their website.  It might be worth your time to see how many in your area are certified.  You could then give your G.C. some leads on AISC shops.

 

HTH,

 

Jake Watson, P.E.

Salt Lake City, UT

-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Pradere [mailto:dpradere(--nospam--at)mlaengineering.com]
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 10:57 AM
To: seaint(--nospam--at)seaint.org
Cc: Mike Leonard
Subject: AISC Certification question

Hi all,

 

We're receiving resistance from bidders regarding our requirement that steel fabricators must be qualified as an AISC-Certified Plant, Category 1 through the AISC Quality Certification Program.  It seems that most steel fabricators being considered by the bidding G.C.'s don't have this certification.  This project is a two-story steel frame commercial building with exposed steel as a significant part of the building architecture.  We are maintaining this requirement as we feel the need to ensure minimum standards of quality on this project.  We are curious, however, about the economic impact, if any, to the owner in increased fabrication costs for using a certified fabricator as well as other engineers' opinions on when, if not always, to require this certification.  Also, is it typical that most shops don't carry this certification?

 

 

Dennis Pradere

MLA Engineering

Seattle