Whether it’s renovating or starting construction from the ground level, construction is a complicated process. Only constructing a house is not enough, we also need to make sure that the house we live in is safe and falls under bye-laws so that we do not have to face any problems in future.
Construction is the combination of planning, engineering, paperwork, operating, maintaining, and constructing the project until it has been completed. It takes a considerable amount of hard work and time to transform an idea for a building into reality. Now, talking about choosing between an engineer contractor or a local contractor, here we have a few points where you can have clarity and go with the best.
Engineers are responsible for the design and construction of your home or building. They have all the qualifications, including a degree in engineering and years of experience, so they know what they're doing.
From knowing about the materials used in construction, reading architectural and structural drawings, identifying and also correcting any mistakes in drawings, tentatively estimating materials for construction, making sure to work under the National Building Code (NBC), visualizing the architect's or designers’ views to interpreting blueprints and work-related documents.
By choosing an engineer, you'll get a better finished product at a lower price point than with a local contractor who doesn't have the experience and knowledge to oversee your project. You'll also be able to add or remove features as needed during construction and therefore get exactly what we agreed upon when we signed off on our plans.
Engineers are pretty friendly with the software and the real-world problems as they go through the process of construction from 0 to 100 turning into the final real structure. So, sometimes there can be unexpected setbacks, risks, or opportunities that often arise.
In such cases, it will be difficult for local contractors to analyze and solve the problem because of not having a broad set of skills as engineers. So, you need an engineering contractor who can quickly adapt and tackle whatever situation in the best way possible.
Contractor is simply a business and has a very different culture from engineering firm or Construction Company. Contractor is financially motivated, whereas the engineer/construction company wants to give you service and quality according to your requirements. You will be surprised to know that even after completion of work, there could be problems with defective liability period.
For example, It is often seen that local contractors do not use the mentioned size rebar in the column which eventually weakens the column resulting in the failure of the building. So, in this case, engineers get serious with their work and follow the drawings because of our work ethics and also because we engineers are focused on quality.
Engineers are the innovators of the future. They observe, imagine and create an actual real structure on this planet. Along with being innovative we engineers also need to think out of the box on a daily basis.
The ability to identify problems and come up with a new solution is an essential role of an engineer. Since engineers are well experienced, they don’t need to worry about how to do the task, they perform the task assigned to them in less time and use the rest of time to find better ways of getting the job done.
On the other side, local contractors do not have to face and solve problems on a daily basis so they lack the ability to think out of the box which results in work delays. Hence, it is beneficial to choose engineer contractor to complete the work more efficiently and effectively.
Technology advancement in construction has transformed the construction industry. Being in a professional engineering field, we engineers are updated and acquire modern technology to work faster. For example, there is a bar bending machine, a bar cutting machine that makes the work of rebar faster resulting in the completion of the project before the deadline.
Also, as a responsible engineer, we make sure to check the quality of material in the site such as using equipment to check the strength of concrete to construct strong buildings like Concrete Cube Molds. Such equipment is not used by local contractors.
They do not even have options to use the equipment and technology as acquiring capital to invest in technology can be a challenge to local contractors whereas we engineers have more efficient processes and equipment that make it possible to execute work cheaper and faster than others.
There are distinct technical skill sets that every engineer possesses. Having technical knowledge is vital as construction is all about physics, science and chemistry. We need to calculate loads, density, simulations, stress, and reactions of chemicals with water, cement and many more. If done properly results in great construction or else the construction will turn into a disaster.
Local contractors are unaware of such things as they do not have education and experience. This will make your home weak and problems like seepage of water or cracks in buildings or differential settlement can easily arise.
Therefore, constructing a dream house is a lifetime dream for many people. So, we suggest you make a wise decision and choose an engineering contractor in order to meet the project goals, and budget needs, and prevent any problems in the near future, resulting in saving a lot of time and money and making your house investment into a time investment.
