The Engineer is taking no responsibility. This is an alternative to marking the drawings 'Approved' which would put (potentially)responsiblity on to the Engineer

I would tend to tread carefully here. By marking that the drawings have been reviewed the engineer is confirming that he has looked at them. Under certain legal systems, and certainly under duty of care, that brings with it a degree of responsibility. That is the reason one often sees drawings returned 'No Comments'.

Thanks for the point Angus. I should have said 'The Engineer is seeking to avoid responsiblity'. It all depends on what the Engineer is being paid for. It rarely includes the 'approval' of drawings, usually because we strike the word out of the appointment. However, the inspection of contractors drawings and proposals is usually included. Despite what the tax man seems to think, 'avoidance' and 'evasion' are not the same thing!

I used to think that it was a good idea to use terms like "commented on" or "reviewed" instead of the old-fashioned "approved". However, I have seen what the use of such terms have done to the credibility of engineers and now I am not so sure. The intention of such ambiguous terms, are to put more responsibility onto the contractor or others and take it away from the engineer in my view. Some would say that it is just to make sure that we are not responsible for doing more than we get paid for, but we as engineers have drawn up the terms of engagement over the years and as far as I can see we have gradually changed them to cut out a lot of our responsibility. Why have we wanted to do that? Now we are left with the situation where the engineer is assumed not to have much responsibilty for anything. Little wonder fees for engineers have been cut back so much over recent years.

I would say it means not very much. It's we have looked, at them seen a couple of issues that we have commented on, but there may be other items we haven't spotted and as we are not approving.... I think you can only really tell what the difference between "Reviewed" "No Comments" etc. is when you get to court.

Christopher I take your point. If we look at a drawing and miss something, we would probably be held responsibility if it came to court, no matter what words we used. Impressions are important whenever we are getting paid. More and more clients are becoming hands-on and often have seen these ambiguous terms being used by engineers and have formed their own opinion on them. If that opinion is that we are trying to reduce our responsibility, it must have an effect on what they expect to pay us. This could result in us getting paid less but ultimately not having any less responsibility at all.

Is this a steel structure? If so, and the work is being specified in accordance with the NSSS, then Section 3.6 of the specification has a detailed description of what the Engineer is deemed to have checked. 3.6.3 Acceptance of General Arrangement drawings and connection design calculations The review and acceptance by the Engineer means: (i) the principal levels, dimensions and typical details shown on the General Arrangement Drawings are a correct interpretation of design requirements. (ii) the principle adopted for the Connection Design calculations are compatible with the design. Acceptance does not relieve the Steelwork Contractor of the responsibility for accuracy of the calculations, detail dimensions on the drawings, nor the general fit-up of parts to be assembled on site

Mr Irwin I wasn't saying its a good thing, I was just saying that it is. I completely agree with your point.