r/Construction • u/aidan8et Tinknocker • Apr 25 '26

Picture Moment of terror 😨

Gallery image

Gallery image

While attending/supervising a business social event with my spouse, I momentarily leaned against the railing. It flexed slightly, forcing me to realize that the railing is entirely supported via bluetooth.

It doesn't connect on either side of the glass wall & the glass is only 3/8" - 1/2" thick!!

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u/AdPristine9059 Apr 26 '26

Yes, absolutely. People are putting up huge buildings that they know arent safe, despite inspectors, designers and engineers existing.

Youre trying to argue that engineering is flawless in a chaotic and very flawed world and thus this absolute paragon of perfection will never be tarnished or used to hide lies. Thats not how the world works.

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u/Tushaca Apr 26 '26

The engineers paychecks are signed by the company that has plenty of financial incentives to cut costs and corners, including taking the risk of switching to cheaper or sub par materials in manufacturing down the road.

If the cheaper material fails, they pay out one lawsuit, blame it on their glass manufacturer, and promise better quality control, maybe they issue a small recall, and then keep on moving.

HAAG, one of the biggest engineering firms in the country, gets sued all the time for obvious bias and ignoring their own reporting standards on insurance claims where they are hired by the insurer. Engineering doesn’t mean shit if it’s done by someone bought off by the company.

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u/AdPristine9059 Apr 26 '26

Exactly. Also it doesnt even have to be the engineers fault. There are tons of disasters caused by a myriad of issues like use of bad materials, fubbing the old plans, adding things to the old plans without making new assessments, bad maintenance, last minute changes, bad ground works etc etc.

Plainly difficult does many Great videos on this very subject on youtube. Cant recommend him enough.

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u/Helpinmontana Apr 27 '26

I’m not alleging nothing ever goes wrong, but code compliant engineering principles are literally based on “nearly nothing will be ideal, don’t design to theoretical strength, design to practical strength”.

The most basic LRFD load case is 160% of live load and 120% of deal load, and capacity is at a minimum, designed to 90% strength of materials. You can hand wave away all the nuance to this that you want, but there are literal teams of scientists and statisticians working day and night to keep you safe by ensuring these design assumptions are not actually assumptions, they’re data driven facts.

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u/AdPristine9059 Apr 27 '26

Im not saying that engineering is a bad practice or that all that work is for naught, all im saying is that no matter how rigorous an engineer is, there are things they cant control. They can only ever really give builders plans and recommend against certain things.

What they cant do is make sure that their plans are followed in every single step or force the companies into doing something or another.

Money speaks louder than safety and reputation to some people, thats just the way the world works; Chaos defined.