Immediate AHJ-Approval for Plan Submittal?

9/23/2019

With all our submittals we are required to have a PE review and stamp before submitting to the AHJ.

Has anyone else wondered why it takes two business weeks to get review and approval?

I appreciate the statement that they are being reviewed for quality control yet when I've found errors with approved city drawings and they have no responsibility.

Any opinions? Anyone seeing "pay the fee" and getting immediate AHJ approval?

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6 Comments

David J Branson, PE link

9/23/2019 10:28:45 am

For many of the AHJs I work with, the job is pulling long days and barely keeping up with the workload. I have not seen many that are over-staffed. My experience is that two weeks is a very common minimum review period.

9/23/2019 10:46:50 am

I’ve been fortunate to be involved with the plan review process for multiple jurisdictions. I would challenge the “they have no responsibility” statement. Inspectors and reviewers can go to jail for negligence just as easily as an engineer or designer can. A lot of times these review offices are integrated right in with the fire department and are the first people the operations personnel turn to. If nothing else, they have a responsibility to ensure operations (or suppression) personnel can do their job. Further, the general public and media turn to the permitting office for a lot of information if something were to go wrong.

I am very well aware that various jurisdictions review processes, estimated review completion dates, staffing levels, etc can vary widely. In general, one common denominator I have found is how short staffed these review offices are, even when fully staffed.

Also, in a lot of the larger, (and at times even smaller jurisdictions), dozens of plans come in any single day. To give you an idea, I was able to do 7-10 reviews at most, and feel comfortable allowing a permit to be issued, and that was on a good day. This doesn’t include the follow up conversations, meetings, etc that were part of the day-to-day operation in the office. As holidays, staff time off, etc come and go, the wave of “number of reviews due” changes. An obvious influx can also be seen at various times such as summer and the end of fiscal years. Further, some reviewers have other job duties which can include new construction inspections, mandated periodic inspections, public out reach, training, and fire investigation duties, to name a few other areas of responsibilities.

Regarding the “pay for immediate approval”: one of the jurisdictions I was a part of did this. Sometimes these reviews can take all day if not multiple days. Again, keep in mind this ties up a reviewer to be able to dedicate that time to your review, taking a reviewer away from the other submittals to review. I’ve seen it work well, but then again if something such as a high-rise tower is submitted, it really demands a lot of the reviewer, and if they aren’t in their tip top prime, things can easily get missed. The departments I have been a part of have been great in the team mentality, so reviewers rely on field inspectors (and even to some degree engineers and designers), and field inspectors rely on reviewers.

I hope this provides some insight. Designers, engineers, and AHJs are as much of a stake holder in a project as the owner/operator.

Johnathan H

9/23/2019 11:20:10 am

As an AHJ, that was perfectly said! Sadly, in our little town of 18,000 I do the work of the Building official AMD the Fire Marshal, So I am looking at plans all day long. Fortunately I have a contract inspector that is knowledgeable enough and experienced enough to do a great job in the field! Where he doesn't know, he is not afraid to ask, plus about half of the submitting contractors around here are extremely good and conscientious in both their plan prep, as well as their installs!
We also have a fire prevention officers group made up of the fire inspectors, fire marshals, and seemingly the better contractors who gather together to discuss the code, installation issues, and anything else that prevents the process from moving forward. It is not a perfect world, by far, but communicating with each other is a huge key!

Matthew King

9/23/2019 10:58:04 am

Where I am at 2 days would be a godsend. Currently, 2- 3 months with an expediter depending on content. Without up to 6 mo backlog. They are very short handed here. They are converting to electronic submittal process.

Scott Thomas

9/23/2019 08:51:58 pm

As an AHJ (fire), I'm glad you asked. I'm always happy to educate contractors, design professionals, the public, local and state politicians why certain tasks are not completed in the fashion that suits every individual needs. As David J Branson and K explained AHJ's are understaffed and working in a world where everyone's project trumps all others. As most Fire Officials we strive to complete our job tasks with integrity in a timely fashion. Here are a few responsibilities that most Fire Officials have:
-Construction plan review
-Plan review of active and passive fire protection systems
-Site plan review
-Annual fire inspections
-Re-inspections for annual fire inspections, which can drag out for months or even years.
-New construction and new fire protection system inspections
-Consultations
-Complaint Inspections
-Fire Investigations, which many are criminal investigations, along with fire death and injury Investigations
-Responding to emergency calls
-Public education
-Continuing education and training for EMS, fire suppression, rescue, HAZMAT, along with ICC and NFPA certifications

Those were just to name a few. I would really love to be able to crank out plan reviews in less than two weeks, but when we get plans with deficiencies it takes longer to contact the designer and contractor to advise them of our findings and then wait for revisions. Right now with construction booming one or two people reviewing 20-30 sets of plans takes time inbetween all of the other duties previously mentioned.

My question to you would be, why are you sending incomplete plans in for review? You previously mentioned that you catch errors on city approved drawing. I do find omissions that designers think we will not catch, and at times we do not catch the errors because we are not all perfect. I tell all parties that just because I missed something in plan review, it does not relieve the contractor or designer of following the code and all violations found during the inspections shall be corrected even if they were missed during plan review. I would also ask why you would not turn in the drawings two weeks ealier if you know the standard review time is two weeks, and I'm sure it's not two weeks just for your prints, normally we have 20 or so prints in queue. We normally hear that we are the hold up, but those submitting plans normally know about the project long before the AHJ does.
As for the pay for immediate review, our jurisdiction does not offer that service at this time, though our state does for those projects being reviewed by the state building and fire safety division.
I would ask the municipality that you are having issues with and ask them about their process and let them know that you have found errors that they missed. I'm sure they will have all of the errors listed for you in the future!😉
I would be open for suggestions on better ways for faster review and time management for all of my required tasks if someone was concerned over my review times!

Mike

9/23/2019 09:36:08 pm

I think the main issue is that fire sprinklers usually are contracted very late in the building process. Sometimes the building is already being built. The contractor then has to design, submit and get approval for a prefabricated project and can be the last to install. I install anyways and have never had to change piping because of errors in design.

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