The Steel Detailer's Perspective on RFIs Artwork

What the RFI?

Join Matt Brennan, Assoc. AIA as he discusses the day-to-day life in the Contract and Construction Administration world. This podcast bridges the gap between Architects, Designers, Engineers, consultants and General Contractors as they work through Construction Administration (CA) related items.

Each episode focuses on the challenges, techniques and technology to help navigate through the fast-paced construction industry.

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What the RFI?

The Steel Detailer's Perspective on RFIs

March 24, 2025 • Matt Brennan • Episode 24

In this episode, Matt Brennan and Adam Williams delve into the intricacies of steel detailing and the challenges faced in the construction industry, particularly focusing on Requests for Information (RFIs). They discuss the roles of architects, contractors, and steel detailers, emphasizing the importance of communication and accurate drawings. Adam shares his extensive experience in steel detailing, the mentorship he received, and the need for better coordination among professionals in the field. The conversation highlights common issues with RFIs, the impact of BIM technology, and the necessity for a collaborative approach to ensure successful project outcomes. In this conversation, Adam Williams and Matt Brennan discuss the intricacies of steel detailing, the challenges faced in communication and collaboration within the construction industry, and the importance of early engagement in the design process. They emphasize the need for clarity in drawings, the value of teamwork, and the role of technology in improving communication. The discussion also touches on learning from mistakes and the necessity of working better together to enhance project outcomes.

Takeaways

Steel detailing is a critical yet often overlooked aspect of construction.
RFIs can significantly delay projects if not managed properly.
Communication between architects, engineers, and detailers is essential.
BIM technology can help reduce RFIs and improve coordination.
Understanding the roles of different professionals can enhance project efficiency.
The construction industry needs to recognize the importance of steel detailing.
Effective project management involves tracking RFIs and maintaining clear communication. Understanding RFIs is crucial for project management.
Regular check-ins help maintain clarity in communication.
Direct communication can resolve many RFIs quickly.

Sound Bites

"There's more than meets the eye when it comes to RFIs."
"I have to go through the fabricator, then the GC."
"Nobody knows what steel detailing is."
"We create a puzzle."
"I want to know where every part of the job is."
"Why has this RFI been out this long?"
"You're just trying to get this information."
"How can we start working together in a better way?"
"Communication is key to getting rid of RFIs."
"We all got to work better together."
"Let's try and start eliminating surprises on the site."

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction to Steel Detailing and RFIs
02:11 - Understanding the Role of Steel Detailers
04:46 - The RFI Process and Its Challenges
10:32 - The Importance of Accurate Drawings
12:08 - Mentorship in Steel Detailing
14:26 - Communication Gaps in the Industry
19:19 - BIM and Coordination Challenges
26:17 - RFIs: Common Issues and Best Practices
29:03 - Understanding RFIs and Communication in Detailing
32:15 - Collaboration Challenges in the Construction Industry
37:02 - The Importance of Early Engagement in Design
41:57 - Improving Drawing Clarity and Communication
46:48 - Learning from Mistakes in Detailing
49:00 - The Role of Teamwork in Successful Projects
53:15 - Leveraging Technology for Better Communication
57:11 - Working Better Together: A Call to Action

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0:00

Steel detailing. There's more that meetsthe eye when it comes toRFI's. Let's get into it.Welcome to What the RFI. I'm MattBrennett and this is the podcast allabout CA. This has beena very busy week. I've been connectingwith a lot of architects inthe New York City and the niceencouragement thing that came from it isthat work is still movingdespite these trade wars,tariffs and everything and federal cuts.We're still seeing workand again I was meeting withanother group from North Carolina. Thingsare moving. There's alot of growth which is veryexciting and today's episode is going tobe another different oneinvolving sub-trades andGCs and architects. We don't really talkabout this. We haven'treally talked about this on thepodcast episode in that sense and I'vegot a very special guest today andwelcome to the show,Adam. Why don't you tell the audience howwe met, where things havebeen going, who you are,where do you do before we get into it? Somy name is Adam Williams. Wemet through LinkedIn. I put apost on there kind of nicely rantingabout RFI's and you commented on it andasked me to be on theshow and I gladly accepted because I liketo share knowledge. Soabout me, I am a still detailer.I've been doing it for over 25 years andI've been a detailer,checker, detailing manager, trainer,done a little bit of all that you can doin the detailing world.Currently, I'm the leaddetailer at Aspen Fabricating and Weldingin St. Louis, Missouri.Nice, very cool and kind of like for ouraudience, young architects, architectssetting the stage andjust kind of bringing it up, like therundown with how astandard project works. Ideally,typically it's the owner hires thearchitect and the architect hires asub-consultants in that sense.They put a job out to tender, maybe it'sCM, whatever the case is,they're awarded a projectwith the GC and at that point, the GC hasbeen collecting all thebids from the sub trades andin this case, a steel company and then ofcourse, that steel companyis probably a sub-trade you,would that probably might cut on line?Yeah, I work directly fora fabricator. So we have anin-house detailing team, but a lot offabricators do not. So theyhire out another sub-trade,which would be the detailers. Right, soexactly. So now with this kind of pitch,either role in this hierarchy that we'vekind of visually explained is yeah,so when you're starting to work on thejob, you're workingunder the GC in that sense,because he's hired you and where we'regoing to see this episodeis kind of like it's yourperspective on the job versus architectversus contractor, becausewe're going to see it froma different light now from yours and whythe RFI is are beingtriggered, what we're seeing.And at the end of the episode, hopefullywe can see a clarity ofhow can we give you thebest knowledge, the best drawings, thebest specs, so you know how to do yourjob properly. And justagain, eliminate the time from that backand forth, back andforth. And that's what I'm kindof hoping to see this episode all about.So yeah, I feel anything youwant to add to kind of thatapproach in terms of how you see it fromyour side, because again,you got the whole differentperspective here than what I do. Right.So for me to get a question to anengineer or an architect,if I'm a subcontractor to the fabricator,that means I have to gothrough the fabricator,then I have to go through the GC, andthen it gets to hopefullywhere it needs to go. So wehave to follow the AISC manual here inthe States. So it statesthat for the approval process,there's two weeks approval process.There's no timeline forRFI. So we can send an RFI in,and it could be six weeks before we getan answer back. And why isthat? Why is that? Why is sixweeks? Why give or take? It could be, itcould be, we could getthem back as fast as three,three hours, but sometimes it takesforever. And I can't explainwhy. My next question is what doyou, what is the answer for this? And theDC is rewriting it andtrying to answer it themselves,or how exactly where that lag is. And aswe all know in theindustry, if you take six weeks toanswer a question, that's six weeks, I'mnot working on yourjob. And in that six weeks,if I am a detailing firm, I may havetaken another job because I can't sit onmy hands for six weekswaiting on an answer. Exactly. Whichmeans you lost your slot,and we'll come back to your jobwhen we can get to it. Right. Peopledon't like, but sadly it'sa reality. Do you think it'sset with the contractor or you think it'sbecause of the architect and hisstructural engineer orwhere do you kind of think it lies? Isit, or it's just acombination? I can't answer that. I haveheard horror stories of where people havesaid in RFI's and engineershave stated, we've spent ourbudget on this job. We're not answeringit anymore. Yeah. So now I have questionsbecause your drawingswere wrong. Who's to answer? Now, what dowe do with this job? 100%.No, and you're right. Andthere's a few quotes that with some ofthe clients I'veworked with and it's like,the quote was like, our whole goal is notto lose our money when it comes to CA.And that's the thing,it is a really challenging thing from thearchitectural point.Because you basicallygot a fixed fee for the whole entire job.You've allocated say20% for 25, you know,anywhere from kind of 15 to 25% for CA'sor fees. And then, hopefullyduring the design developmentand then CD, you didn't burn it. Maybethe client, you had a reallydifficult client that you'reconstantly making revisions, revisions,all that takes time and nowyou just burn the fee out ofthe job. Then you go to CA and you'relike, oh my goodness, Idon't even have that fee.And that's really tough. Or the otherscenario is, hey, you didgreat. You were very profitable inthat job and I've been on some of thosejobs, but we're rocking it.We've, you know, we really gotit out. We got it on time, on budget, andwe're on fees. And then weget a fund contractor that'slooking for that extra and they justinundate you with paperworkand then you just start burningthat fees and it becomes a full-timecareer and it should neverhave been that. So it's a,you're absolutely right with how you kindof let into this conversation,little soapbox moment I had with it. Butyou're right. It's, ifthey don't have fees, but thatdoesn't alleviate from the excuse of notdoing it. They still got togive you what you need to doyour job because it's your time. And likewe, some of theproblems we run into, like,I'd like to throw a lot of it up to,they're just bad drawings. Like, I'mworking on a job that Isent in an RFI. It was like fourquestions, simple questions. I believethey were simple questions.And we got an entire set of reviseddrawings and it wasn't just, like, weadded all your answersinto it, which is great. You gave me anupdated set, except for youchanged the sizes of steel,you changed all this other stuff. And alot of the still on thisproject had to be mill orderedbecause it was specialty sizes that youcan't just buy off theshelf. So now it's already beenrolled. We've already purchased it, butnow you've changed the sizes. So nowwe're stuck with thisstill because you changed it. So that inturn, as the fabricator comesback to, you got to buy bothparts of steel if you want us to usethose new shapes becausewe ordered per your design.Right. Absolutely.But luckily on this job, they came backand they're like, well,their original sizes were fine.And then now as a detailer, you're going,well, why did you changethem in the first place?Mm hmm. Yeah. Are you finding with? Yeah,it was a good point whenyou bring that steel in,like, yeah, there is a change. And I knowthat, of course, youguys are going to be a comp,you're going to send an invoice to thecontractor who's going togo request an extra from thearchitect and all that kind of stuff. Areyou managed to reuse thatsteel in a different job?Ideally, yes. Like, you're going to havewaste because it's notgoing to be the perfect length.You can't really splice it. And I guessyou can. But if it's a commonsize, yes. So if we were usingjust a 18, a W 18 by 35, that's reallycommon on a lot of jobs.But on this particular job,it was W 14 by 145. Okay. In 25 years,I've never seen that size called out.Right. Good point. So we can't, you know,sometimes you cansub, like if they want an1835 and you have 1855, you can sub thatin and they're okay withit. But I can't sub in a beamthat's a hundred pounds per foot morethan the beam that theyasked for. Right. Yeah. No,that's a good, yeah. I want to like,we're going to come back tothat. Cause we're going to talkabout how can we again, as anarchitectural community and everything,how can we make thisprocess better? So that's a good pointabout spec and the right size of, youknow, the standard sizeof beams, the ones that are readilyavailable and everything,unless, Hey, there's that onecool feature that just requires it in thestructural engineers noting, but yeah,let's come back to thestandard sizes and just kind of like asidebar question. What gotyou into this field? Like what,what, what, what interest of do you deal,do you have detailing and stuff?To be honest, when I got into the field,I had no clue what still detailing was.I took drafting in high school to acommunity college, continued takingdrafting there and theyhad a job to work. I applied to every jobon the board because Ididn't want to work in fast foodanymore. And I had an interview with thecompany that I started withand I called them every dayafter the interview until I think theyjust got tired of me callingand hired me. Uh, I think Ijust wore them down. And so from then,like even when I was there,it was four years before I waslike, I kind of understand what I'm doingnow. I still don't know itall. I, the guy who trainedto me, still my mentor, I call him when Istill have questions andhe helps me out. I, we gettogether, we play golf together now. Andbut, you know, he's still mymentor will probably alwaysbe my mentor. And I'm appreciative ofeverything that he'staught. And so in my perspective,I wouldn't do the same thing. I don'treally have people to train, but theworld's different now.When I was learning, you know, we had theinternet, but it isn'tanything like it is now. So I canshare my knowledge on LinkedIn, or I'malso a member of a group.I'm part of the marketingcommittee for the NISD, which is thenational Institute of stilldetail. And it says national,but it's worldwide. You don't have to bein the U S to be a member.And, you know, there's a lotof big things that they do and they'retrying to help out trying topush still detail and forwardis what their goal is. And they've beenaround since like1969, I believe. So they'vehad their time and now we're justcontinuing to build on.That's so cool. And I appreciate it. Andthat was kind of likewhat the last episode is allabout mentorship too. And, and shortlyafter we published that oneand connected with a one groupthat like, they create these old intranetkind of solutions that thearchitects put on their thing.And it's all about the mentorship living,how they, you know, kindof making your standardpractice, your SOPs and everything. Andagain, cause that is thething is like, how can we bebetter? How can we communicate for thelongest time architects? Andit won't talk to each otherin that sense. And, you know, having thatopen community, there'san app idea by itself.We'll see, but, but no, it's, it's, it'sappreciated cause it is, you know, thenew generation comingin and they're not, they're not swinginghammers or anything likethat. They're clicking buttons.They want to just be part of the fun, youknow, sexy stuff when itcomes to it. But when it comesto the drawing of the details andeverything, that's, there's alot of gaps there. And that'swhere, you know, individual, like you're,you know, telling yourstory and you're, you're,you're explaining these frustrations andstuff like that and howto, how can we be better?So we just do it once and do it rightattitude versus like I said, just overand over and orderingwrong pieces of steel cause steel is notcheap. No. And we also havethe problem in my, in my tradeof the still detailing is nobody knowswhat it is. You don't goto school and they're like,do you want to learn still detail? You goto school and like, do youwant to learn architectural?Do you want to learn engineering? Butnobody, you know, beyond that it's, youcan learn how to well,but where's that in between person thatis in between theengineering and the welders.That's right. And that's what kind ofwhat still detailing it'slike. I always tell everybody,it's like, we create a puzzle, make allthe pieces, but then wegive you the key to putthe puzzle together. All right. I loveit. That's, that's, that'syour song clip right there. Thatis perfectly how to explain it. That isincredible. So, andwe've kind of, this is,this is a great segue into the steeldetailers challengeand everything. You know,we kind of touched on some of the pointspreviously, but what doyou find is the common issuewhen it comes to the design drawings andthen kind of what you'redoing and what it's givento you? What is kind of like, Oh no,again and again andagain, they seem problems.A lot of it is, it seems to everybodybelow, once you get past the biddingphase, that it doesn'tappear that people like to talk. So we'llget architecture drawingsand we'll get the structuraldrawings and grid lines don't match anddimensions don't match. Walls are indifferent locations.It's just like, are we, I worked for anengineering firm whenI first started. Andback then, like the architect was intheir drawings over, theywould overlay their drawingsand that's how they're made. This is backin 2d auto-cad. So alot has changed and othersrev it now. And, but it's, it almostseems like people just aren'ttalking. So we're getting thisno coordination between the two, the twoprofessions. Yeah. Yougot it. That's the bestthing I can think of. And so we run intothose problems, but then you get intothe engineers that are drawing thedrawings. Have they been to a fabricationshop? Have they beento a job site? Because they'll show aconnection. You look at theconnection and you're like,Hey, that thing looks really good. Andthen we go to draw it and it's like,I can't even get my hand in there to puta bolt in place becausetolerances and then shipping,like how much can you ship? Like we canfabricate you a 90 footlong column if you want,but then we're going to have to permitload it. And if we build itin Indiana and we have to shipit to North Carolina, that's not just onepermit. That's a permit inIndiana and Kentucky, you know,every state. So shipping that one piecegets really expensive. Sothen we ask, Hey, can wesplice it? And that's where the RFIstart. Hey, I know you want itthis long, but it can be a lotcheaper if you let us go. And startchanging. Are you, andwith the drawings, are you,you're typically going off the structuralengineers drawings.Are you looking at thearchitectural as well? We are, asdetailers, we have to look at all thedrawings. So we start withthe structural drawings, but then we arealso digging into thearchitectural drawings. We'redigging into the electrical. We'redigging into the mechanical becausemaking sure everything fits.Like we have to make sure those rooftopunits are going to fit where they saythey're going to fit.Because as an architect, you go, I wantit in about this spot, but then thestructural guy comes inand is like, well, I need joist at thisspacing. And like now thatthrows off the architecturalroof plan because the joists are in theway of where theyoriginally want. And BIM has helpedwith this a lot whenever you do a BIMjob. And BIM has also helpedalleviate a lot of these RFI'sbecause the first question almost everydetailer sends out is I needlocations of all the rooftopopenings and everything because, and it'sone of the last things weget because the HVAC guys areone of the last people hired. Yeah. Yeah.No, exactly. And thenof course, the mechanicalengineer can say what they want. They canlook at the cut sheets.And then of course, this ispeople in the channel know I hatealternates because whenalternates come in, that startsscrewing things up too. But yeah, themore that you can coordinateduring that design proposal,the better. And we were introduced,notice my last firm, wewere introduced to a new clientin a new region, which was awesome. Andwe got to, you know, therequest of the client says,can we work with your consultant? Wesaid, sounds good. They were all AutoCADand we were all Revit.Right. So we said, sounds good. Let'swork together. That's all good. We gotthe structural drawingsand I was, you know, because they weren'tusing Revit, we modeledeverything, you know, in thestructural steel and everything. And thenwe were bringing it inbecause we wanted to ensure,and you nailed it on the head when youset out, I'm like, it's waybetter. It's coordinated becausewe were looking at that. And next thingyou know it, you know, we got themechanical drawings andwe drive on most of the major big duckwork just to ensure thenlike, you know, guys, this doesn'twork. You know, you got a major beam andwe're not going to dropthat ceiling down to, you know,seven feet. Like this is a public school.Like we were open for 12foot ceilings in these like opencorridor areas. And I think the other onethat was quite comicaland it was very embarrassingfor the structural, but we got thestructural drawings. Theywouldn't tell us where thingswere changing. And then next thing we'rein the site meeting orexcuse me, in the design meetingwith the owner and we like took just, youknow, we looked at throughthe drawings. They didn'tidentify what was changed and we foundit, you know, because I'd have all thesedifferent highlightingcopies of their work trying to discover.And they put the beam right underneaththe toilets in the washroom and it'slike, we can't have this. And I'm sothankful that we were soproactive in using, you know, Revit andreally visualizing anddoing these sections every fewfeet when we got more and more down thedetail in the CD phase isthat we caught that becauseif that was the case, like what would youdo in that last minute? Thebeams and like you guys are,you know, early on, like you'd beredesigning all the interiorarchitecture and that's nevera fun thing. Like, are you finding thatyou're getting those requests too? Like,Hey, we need to redesign this becausethat beam can't work inthis location or something likesomething example like that. I've been,I've been on some BIM jobswhere people are like, Hey,can you move your beam three inches so myduct can fit through? AndI'm like, I can't. And thenI'm like, why not? And I'm like, becausemy stuff is holding thebuilding up. Yeah. So that's onenice thing about being the still detailerin BIM meetings andstuff like that is becausea lot of my responses are we probablycan, but it's going to costa lot of money because it'snot just me being able to go, yeah, I'llmove that beam. That'sgoing to be me RFI in it.Then there's going to be a change orderand you know, it's just going to stackand stack and stack.And then finally, the typically the HVACguy is just like, I canjust move my stuff. I'm like,why do we have this conversation? But Iunderstand they've got their model done.They don't want to change their model.Just like, I don'twant to change my model.Right. Yeah. And you, and you findingthat you were getting involved in this,in the site meetings or the kind of likekept at arm's length because again,it's the GC contractor though, the onesthat, cause again, likewhen we did our site meetings,like we weren't bringing subtrades intothe meeting. It wasjust between architects,the design team, the owner, the GC, youknow, that was kind ofit. The subtrades were notinvolved in those meetings because it wasvery, you know, do you find that you,where you're working, you're actuallygetting more involvedin that or is it just.I think it's a little different like yoursite meetingscompared to the BIM meetings,because when you were coordinatingeverything, you'remodeling everything in. And thenthe jobs I've worked on that have beenBIM jobs is there's a BIMcoordinator and then all thetrades are creating models. And thenthose models are beingcoordinated with each other. So theystart with the architectural andstructural engineers model,but then by the time the modelis done, those models have all beenturned off becausethey're using everybody else'sfor lack of better way of saying it, likemore accurate models, like our level of,I can't remember the words I'm trying tothink of so we can cut that.Oh, it's all good.But it's like the LOD. What's the D for?Okay.But so like if you're looking at say ahelicopter's view,I'm looking at an answerbecause I have to put all the boltsexactly where they go. The structuralengineer don't care wherethe bolts go. They just know I need aconnection here. And I'mtelling you, you need seven boltshere. So our model is a lot more definedbecause it has to be.Exactly. And it's in any way. And that'sa good note because it isfrustrating when the structure,I've had some structural engineers dothat. And I reallyappreciate that. Like just even justgeneral, like, you know, the gussetplates or whatever, and thenkind of the base plates andthe bolts and stuff. Because from thearchitectural standpoint is if, you know,again, we know the sizeof the beam, you know, the column,whatever the case is in the drywall,we've doubled up our,you know, our steel studs to accommodate.Oh, by the way, there's firespray on this. So thereforewe've got a one inch perimeter aroundthere. And we know that, youknow, if we know the beams aregoing to be crossing at different anglesand there is a certain amount oftolerance that they'reallowed to do that. One job, we had to doa whole extra strappingbecause we just didn't have quitethe cavity space to manage that. But samething when you got that,you know, the base plate andthat kind of stuff. Typical structuralengineers aren't modelingthat in. And for structuralengineers listening to this, it'd be niceif you started doing that,modeling it. And then when thewhen the architect gets it, he goes, oh,we've got to make this wallcavity a little bit biggerbecause you've got this base plate that'sjust protruding out orit's, you know, whatever thecase is. Right. I have a buddy who's anarchitect. He has an architectural firmhere in my hometown.And he did a job to where it all lookedgood on paper. It got builtand he went out and did it.And he's like, why is that base platesticking out from the wall?Yeah. And then it wasn't thesteel detailers fault. It was hisengineer's fault. The engineer didn'tlook at, oh, we need to putthat in the concrete. He was just like,oh, it just goes right there.And whoever detailed it didn'tlook at the architectural drawingsbecause that is something you should do.Like, do they really wantthis base plate sticking out of the wall?Probably not. Architects are designingfor visual appearance.Exactly. In the details. So do you want asix foot by six foot gussetplate in the corner that'sgoing to stick out of your walls? Youdon't want that. Yeah.Unless it's a design feature.And of course it's a design feature. Youknow, that's how it is.We're walking around and say,oh yeah, owner, that's a design feature.Yeah. I like the, I likethe plates being procured.And like, I know you had a guest on acouple episodes ago, David Long,long three. Yes. Yeah. David.I'm trying his name and I apologize forthat. Long three. But hesaid like an architect hasto have the knowledge of like an oceanwide. And I don't know howdeep he said, but my buddy said,like he was taught in college that it's amile wide inch deep.That's how he worded it. And Iwas like, well, that makes a lot ofsense. You know, like does he need toknow how the steel goestogether? Right. Absolutely. But forstill detailers, we have to know how thesteel goes together.We need to know how thick that two bypiece of wood is, youknow, there's a lot more tostill detail and then just the still.Yeah. Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah. Lateral, allthe different loads,everything. Yeah, you're right. And thenof course, you know, youmentioned earlier aboutrooftop units and all that and tying tocoordinate that. Allthose things are really,really, really critical. So when. Sorryto interrupt. That was thepost I posted on LinkedIn.You commented on was about I sent off aquestion saying I needrooftop locations and they send mea hundred pages of cut sheets. Yeah. Idon't need a hundred pages. Ijust need the one that showsthe actual curves is what I really need.And preferably I don'teven want that. I want youto take a drawing and go from this gridline to the center line ofthe opening is whatever distancebecause that's all I really care about.Like I don't care thatthat air conditioned unithas three openings in it and it weighs6,500 pounds. I justneed to know where it goes.Yeah. Yeah. And it ties to the mechanicalbecause he needs his duck work andeverything. And thenof course that ties to the sub trade. Andyeah, again, like you said,it was beginning like it'scommunication. Guys just need to chat andcommunicate. And thatgets us into the realmof our advice. Why, you know, request forinformation is neededin terms of it. What areyou, you know, again, we kind of touchedon earlier, but likewhat, what are typical RFIsthat you're that you were personallyissue. And here's thecaveat. What's the worst RFIthat you've seen that you had to issuebecause it just wasn't there for theworst RFI? I don't know.I was trying to think of this and I can'treally think of one. I canthink of one of the worstjobs for RFIs that I worked on. I was adetailing manager at thetime and we had a subcontractordetailer. Yeah. And for the AISC manual,it says that we're onlyallowed to ask one question at atime. Unless the request, unless themultiple questions deal withone thing. So like if I wastalking about a stare, I can ask multiplequestions about that stare,but in an RFI, I shouldn't beasking a question about a stare, acolumn, a ladder, because they're alldifferent things. Andif I ask about just the stare, thearchitect engineer can focuson just the stare questionsand get those answers without having todig into everything else. Somight be able to get answersback more quickly. Right. Now, a lot ofdetailers don't do that because, youknow, now we're goingto start racking up RFIs. So we had ajob, it was at a aluminumplant and we had 160 RFIs on it.Just on steel detailing. Just on thesteel detail. Wow. That's crazy. Do youknow how many RFIs werefor the whole project? I do not. At thetime I could have lookedin Procore and seen, butI don't have access to Procore anymore.And I'm happy about that. Alot of architects are too.They're not, Procore is not a funprogram. It's not just Procore, just anyof those types of thesoftware. I think they are great. Theyhelp the GCs out and I'mwith part three, I'm sure helpsout the architect. But as once it getspast the GCs, it's like it'sbeing forced on everybody else.Like typically in our contract, itdoesn't say anything aboutProcore, but then we get told,well, you have to do this in Procore. Andit's like, I don't haveto. I can be nice and do itin Procore. But technically that's notpart of my contract. My jobis to get you the informationand the GCs project manager is todisperse it. Right. Well,that's a great kind of point too,like with RFIs and communication, how youguys are doing it, whatyou find is working. Is thereany kind of tips that you've seen overthe years? Like, yeah, youdon't mention Procore and youtypically probably email it. Like how areyou guys even tracking yourRFIs? I have a spreadsheet thattracks all my, I don't know how myproject manager does it.And I know other detailers,they just send in an RFI to their projectmanager and just let it go.From there on until they getanswered, they don't think about it. Butme coming from being adetailing manager, I want to knowwhere every part of the job I'm workingon is. And that's just probably fromyears and years of doingit. How long has that RFI been out? Whyhas that RFI been out for 54 days? Yeah.Yeah. That lets me go, Hey, why is thisRFI I've been out this long?And then my project managergo, Oh, it slipped through the cracks onme. Let me check on it. So it's justredundancy of knowingwhere things are. And like, as us, again,from the architecturalpoint, we have monthly sitemeetings and that's a check-in and youknow, it's basically the wholepoint of a site meeting is togo over the issues of the day-to-day joband, you know, look at theoutstanding RFIs, look at allthose things. And that's kind of our, ourkind of, you know, qualitycheck and everything. And ofcourse, you know, like I said, to dealwith issues. Do you guys as a steeldetailer, like again,you've got your RFIs that you're givingto the contractor and thenof course he's supposed topass that along. Are you guys, you mustbe doing your monthlymeetings with the contractor andgoing, Hey, like contractor, we've gotall these outstanding itemsyou're doing that weekly orwhat's kind of your, your plan of tack? Iusually, when I created RFI, Isent it to my project manager.I don't know how he handles itspecifically. I know whenI was a detailing manager,every time I would send an RFI, I wouldhave a list of all theoutstanding RFIs on there. I wouldsay RFI number 23 was sent on this dayand then, you know, just have it. Soevery time they got myemail, they would have a checklist to go,okay, so you guys are stilllooking for all these RFIs.Right. Yeah, exactly. Well, ultimatelyyou're chasing clarity inthis design intent to makethis happen. Yes. You're just trying todo your work because thattimes into the response impactand you kind of touched on it, you know,jobs can get shelved ifthey're not, if the architect orthe GC or wherever these kind ofslipping, because at the end of the day,you're at the bottom,that sense of you're trying to get thisinformation and get out. And if someone'snot given it to you,you're not going to sit on your thumbs.Right. And, you know, like a lot ofdetailers and myselfincluded, like if I could speak with theengineer, a lot of these RFIs could justbe done over a phonecall. Right. We're willing to have thephone call, the conversation,and then we will even follow upwith an email to everybody that's on theproject saying this is what wasdiscussed, but a lot ofgatekeeping is done. Interesting. Soyou're not really, yeah, you're notgetting that interactionwith the structural engineer because he'sthe one that you're trying to please,you're trying to gethis clarity on it and the architect'sjust, you know, like Isaid, just so there's no massiveplate sticking out in the floor orwhatever, but you're finding that moreand more is there's a lotof gatekeepers that you can't go right tothe source. It's prettymuch kind of been that waymy whole career. Some detailers arehaving more luck getting in because thefirst thing we do withdrawings is when somebody gives me a setof drawings, I'm notjust starting detailing it.I'm spending two days going through thedrawings, finding all thesetup for my 3D modeling softwareand looking for any questions that I knowneed to be asked. So let'sget those out before we evenget going on the job because that's whatneeds to happen so we canget the answers and it doesn'tslow us down. And this is where I want tokind of really kind ofshift the gears. We kind of talkabout the challenges, the pains, thefrustrations, what's tickingus off and, you know, and itgets old, it like impacts money too. Likethat's the big ultimatething. At the end of the day,we're doing this to make a decent wage,we're trying to getthere. And it's frustrating ifthings are a collaboration andcoordination is just not working out. Itis extremely frustratingbecause like I said, it all ties in andtimes into timelines anddelays and it's not just youbeing affected, it affects everyone afteryou because you've gotthe mechanical, you know,all like you name it. So like shiftinggears here and going, allright, we're the ones that arelistening is how can we like, we'll callthis a big milestone. Maybethis will be a big milestonemoment and making history here is like,how can steel detailers and other subtrades and everything,but how can we start working together ina better way, more proactive way toensure that we don'tare littered with what, 134? What wasthat magic number yousaid? But like a lot ofart, can we eliminate that to a point?We're always going to have RFI's, I getit, but can we do itbetter? I know there are some firms and Ithink where I work, we haveoffered this to some of ourclients also. We will look over yourdrawings before you submita forbid. So you can have adetail or look over them and it wouldn'teven, yeah, there would bea cost associated with it.But, you know, would a thousand dollarsfor somebody to review allthat from a different lensto look over your drawings and save 60RFI's. Would it be worththat thousand dollars to paya steel detailing company to look overyour drawings? Right.Whether you've got the bid ornot to, you know, fabricate and do it,but just as, you know, asa, you know, upfront costs,we'll take a look at it. We'll critiqueit. And yeah, even if theydon't end up with the jobbecause it went to somebody else, maybethey're not the lowestbidder, but they could still bethe ones that reviewed the drawingsbefore bid. Right. And like,as far as tools, what are youguys using? Just steel detail. Like Iknow it's Revit and Tecca. We use SDS2.It's made by Allplan.It's a 3D modeling software that hasconnections designed, built in. It's areally good program,but I know a lot of people that are usingTecla structures. Notmany people I know use Revityet. They use advanced steel, which Revitis slowly, it looks like they're slowlyimporting into Revit.So I think advanced steel might go awayand then just detailing done insideRevit. And then there'salso programs like BoCAD and there's anew one called HiCAD, newto the States called HiCAD.And then there are still some detailersthat are using 2D basic autoCAD. Right. No, okay. Yeah.Because we were way back in high schoolwhen I was playing, I gotto do a little work program.It was with Tecla and I was playing and Idrew a kind of thing. Ittook me all day to draw,like something that would probably takeyou like a minute to do andeverything. But it was fun.It was, and like even back in highschool, like I was using architecturaldesktop people, I'm datingmyself. People can do the math and kindof figure out how old I am.But yeah, it was neat kind ofdoing that world. But I always didbelieve in 3D, like in my early days,again, even drafting nine,I was kind of playing with a 3D auto CADdoing it. And thenarchitectural desktop, I think I got myhands on grade 10 and grade 11. Andthat's what I did all duringschool while everyone was justlearning simple 2D. And I was alreadygoing forward with that because it'sjust, it is so cool to,the way I explain it to my clients when Iwas doing my own littlepractice back in the day. Andit's like, you benefit from the prettypictures, but I appreciate thecoordination. And that'sexactly what it would allow you to do andpush forward in withthat. And yeah, my experienceworking with the steel detailers is yeah,you guys would give us a.ifc file. We would importthat to Revit, go for coffee, because ittook like good 45 minutes orsomething just to open up thefile and convert it. But it was so coolbecause we would drop whenwe did, when we got our steelshop drawings, we would always request,can we get an ifc file orRevit file, whatever you couldprovide. We got it. We drop it in there.And then, you know, I'dbe at the end of the day,the structural engineers reviewing thatshop drawing, but Iwould review it in terms ofthe collisions and the conflicts withmechanical electrical. And wewould, you know, we would justtake a section box and Revit andbasically do these sections every twofeet and just going good,good, good. Oh, shoot, this beam'spopping through. Take a screenshot andcoordinate and that. It was,it worked. But the question is, and it'skind of what you'realluding to is could we start atthe beginning of the process? We workduring the design stage andare you doing that right now?There are some, some detailers areworking straight withengineers. And there is, you know,if an engineer is using Revit, they canexport their model and Ithink most of the 3D softwarescan bring in that model. It might have aconversion to it, but I canbring in a Revit model intoSDS2. Yeah. The problem is I can buildthe model faster thanI can check them offbecause we have found that a lot of timesthe model's done, butthen all of these fielddimensions came in, but we don't havetime to fix the model.Just change the 2D drawing.Right. Right. Now you're sending me aninaccurate model or we geta model and they're like,well, here's the model, but don't use itto scale anything off. AndI'm like, then why even give methe model? Right. And that's right. AndI've, I found that withlike, again, with our youngerarchitects, I've talked about it in theprevious is like, they justdon't want a dimension stuff.And it's like, guys, like it is what itis. If it's a horribledimension, well, that's what they'regoing to build it as. So at that point,when you dimension thisstuff, take a second and scale itback, you know, and it would always, Ialways, my personalexperience would be is, you know,do your grid lines, get your grid lines,bang on to the exactdimensions you want, nice and clean,looking good, drawing your walls,everything else is going to fall inpretty good. And then startparrying down to the next thing is allthe interior walls andall that, and then start,you know, snapping them too. And then weget to that final leveldetail where we are calling outthose details and those parapet detailsand all those, you know,all those little things andtaking account because it is what it is.Like you just can't get awaywith it. So can we make thosedimensions clean? Let's do it. Andsometimes like architectural wise, wecould use a little moredimensions. Like if you have a canopythat has polycarbonatepanels on top of it, I don't knowhow thick those are, but you'redimensioning to the top of thatpolycarbonate panel. Well,how far is it from the top of that paneldown to the still that Ineed? Because, right. And eventhe engineer is telling me it is thereis, you know, the one big issue I thinkwe need to get rid of isC structural and C architecture. Becauseusually when you see that,neither one of them have theanswer. We had a, you're touching thenerve on this one because wehad a policy in our office thatwas very much about that. We didn't sayC, we said refer in that, buta lot of it was, it was such adangerous word. And one of the colleaguesand the partners of thefirm, we would walk into themeeting and that's exactly what the firstthing we said. There isnone of that. There is no C,there is no refer because if thestructural engineer calledup this and said refer toarchitectural, well architectural missedit, it's a hundred percentextra. We can't do anythingabout it when it came to the contractor.But if we, if structuraljust said, you know, beam orarchitects say the architect said, youknow, you know, you know,structural beam or architecturalbeam or something, at least then thatsomething accounted for. So thecontractor couldn't sayit was like, agree with that, disagree?Like, is that kind of howyou're hoping to see it?In the architectural runs, if they, ifthey point in and saystructural beam, C structural,that's fine. I don't have a problem withthat. But like on,sometimes you get C architecturalfor dimensions, but then the dimensionsaren't on the architectural.So now I have no dimensions.Or another big thing we see is grid linesshown on one plan, but thenevery plan past that there'sno grid lines. Oh, that's odd. Yeah. Youshould always, yeah, it'snot that hard to copy thegrid lines to the next plan. Well, andthis rabbit too, like, and, you know, andgiven one neat thing,like, because we had like, if I foundwhen I was doing kind of like high risesor like multi-family,right? Because you had your parkade gridlines basically. And thenyou had your first floor andthen you had, you know, you know, floorsup to one to six, or depending on howhigh you were going togo with the wood frame and that. And likethe grid lines, I would showthem on that first floor aswell. And you could do that rabbit,because you could pull the 3dextents and kind of bring it upthere because it was nicest to see on thefirst floor where the gridlines were basically levelone and then the parkade and then leveltwo at that point doesn'tmatter because in technicallywhen you've been building it, you'vealready got level one built and thenlevel two is all aboutthat. And, and you're right. Like, whynot show it? Even if they'regrayscale, why not bring itonto the plans? Like I can get it on apretty good soapbox on theissues I want to see change.This is what we're trying to do. I don'twant to be a reallynegative podcast. You know, I,I love the industry, but there are somethings that I would like tosee change. And a lot of itis probably drawing wise, like, yeah,like, and we don't see thisarchitecturally, butstructurally we get a lot of sectionseven on S 3.2 similar.What's similar? Like you go to itand like, well, where seven was cut, youhad a Joyce. There's nojoystick in this section.Yeah. There's nothing similar here, butyet I'm supposed to gothrough and be able to figure outwhat you meant by similar. Is it theleast resistant? What do youthink? What do you think it is?For not to be mean, but it almost seemslike laziness. Yeah.Path or is this, you know, but, and weget that. And then sometimeson sections, it's like referto this other section for the rest of theinfo, which isn't that badif it's one. But like I haveon a job where I have referred to sectionD refer to section A refer to C on another sheet and referto F on another sheet. I have a picturewith no information on itexcept for refer to these fourdifferent sections. Right. So I guess themessage for everyone that'slistening to this right now isis just do your due diligence, cut itthrough, invest the time,look it back and double checkyour work. Is this actually a similarone? Is it, it doesn't have anything majorly different. Like yousaid, it's well the beam or the column orwhatever the case is,maybe it is different. Andunfortunately, you just got to drawanother detail. Yeah. Andit's like, it's bad, not bad,but you know, sometimes when you drawthat detail, yeah, ittakes a little more time. Butfor us as still detailers, I always lookat it from if it takes me 30 minutes to do it in theoffice, it's saving four hours in theshop. Yeah. Yeah. So from theengineering and architecturalstandpoint, if it's taking you guys 30minutes to do it, it couldsolve 15 RFIs. Yeah. And we didthe numbers. An average RFI was somethinglike 1000 bucks from anarchitectural, you know what Imean? Because it's not just a simplething. And, and like you mentioned the dimensions that again,yeah, that's the thing. Like I was goingto kind of pop a questionfrom my mind. I thought,is there too many dimensions on a plan?Is there a point whereyou're like, hold on. I know thatI asked for dimensions, but I'm sorry. Iopened up Pandora's box. And anotherthing, architecturallywise, dimensionally, what are wedimensioning to? Like I, you know, a lotof times I don't ever seea dimension coming from a grid line. Some trying to tie a wall to a grid line, so I'm like, okay,a wall to a grid line so I can find whereanother wall issometimes becomes a challenge.And then are we dimensioning to thedrywall? Are wedimensioning to the stud? Are you know,we've had some drawings that say alldimensions are to the stud.I'm like, oh, great. That's whereI believe all the dimensions should gobecause the drywall is notgoing to be there when you'rebuilding the wall. You're going to builda stud and then you'regoing to slap the drywall on it.Exactly. Yeah. It's afinished finish. Yeah.Work on other ones where it's to thedrywall and it's like, okay,now I have to do the math totake off five H drywall on both sides tofind out that that's asix inch stud. And you know,it's all part of my job, but it's alsosomething that everydetailer is going to complain about.And that's again, like how can we helpthe architecturalcommunity and all that kind ofstuff, especially someone new and they'relistening to it and you're right. And I,and it's tough because a lot of guyshaven't had, you know, guys,gals haven't had the hands-onexperience of building something, right?Like, thankfully, like myself, you know,grade 11, you know, my summer I walkedout to a construction siteand said, I want to build,I want to frame you, whatever you can do.And that's when like, itjust emphasized. So like,when I'm drawing a wall, I visually buildthe wall in my mind andit's great in that sense.And then I worked, and then in thefollowing summer before I went to school,I worked at a millwork plant. So I gotto, you know, really havethat passion. And I loved it.I love being hands on and seeing thatbecause when we draw allthese, these millwork details,it's one thing that draw everything insuper, oh, that lookseasy. Well, the moment you go,I'm going to physically build this. Andagain, I'm speaking from experience whenI renovated my home,you know, I built it, I mapped it out, Iestimate it, went andgot the materials and,and then I started building it. And rightaway, you're just kind oflike scratching hair, you'regoing, what, where do I start? And thatkind of stuff. So there isa craft to it and seeing,and when you have that attention todetail in that mind's eye,like you said, when it comesto simple stuff like dimensions, you'redoing it at the right placebecause you're thinking howthe guy in the field is, how is he goingto deal with this? Yes. Like,you know, I'm sure we've allheard draw for the dumbest person you canthink of. Right. And that's,that's what I was told whenI started. And I would draw it like that.And then my boss finallycame up to me and said,all right, think of somebody a little bitsmarter. Okay. Soand, you know, find thathappy medium, but being in the industryso long, like when Istarted was just a firm,we didn't have a shop. So everything Iwas told was gospel. This isjust how they do it. I don'tknow why they do it this way. This is howthey do it. Then I had friends that wentinto the fabricationside. So I would start asking questions.And then my next job was with thefabricator. So I was,I'd go out in the shop and I would seehow they're doing. So theway I started detailing iscompletely different than the way Idetail now, because I havethe real world experience ofbeing out there, having a shop form andcome into my office andchew me out because I've mademistake. And I'm just sitting theregoing, uh, like I'm completely fabricasked and I don't knowwhat to say back. And he just walks offand I'm like, and then whathappened? I'm like, I don'tknow. Like, and, but found out what waswrong. And in my head, I'mnever making that mistake again.Like, I don't want to be hollered at. Ohyeah. And that's, andyou're right. Yeah. Same thing.There's what I've made mistakes and I,I've got defining moments, my brain,they're all categorizedin that sense. And yeah, you look backand you're like, I'm never going to dothat again. And that'sgood. You know what I mean? Like I sawagain, that construction job that Iworked on and the framingand their handbook basically said, youknow, it was, I don'tremember anything about the handbook,but the last page was just veryintrigued. It was a picture of one ofthe, I guess the president upon the stage. And the theme was you'reallowed to make one mistake,you know, we're all going tomake mistakes. Just don't do it again.And that was kind of the attitude for,and that's, you know,clearly it's resonated with you there,Adam. And, and, um, you know,not going to do the same. Andvice versa. Like we had a couple extrason jobs and I was like, I'mnever going to do this again.Or like, like I told you about the extralayer of all the fire spray andeverything. We had astrap. So we just doubled up our studseven bigger, right? Cause itwas just, we never wanted to seeit again. It's a, it's a shame that ithappened, but we're human. We makemistakes. It's what youdo with the mistakes afterwards. Is itreally defines kind ofgoing forward? Yes. Like I walkinto buildings, I look up, that's justme. I look at the still whenI go in a building. Yeah. AndI look at stuff and I go, Oh, I wouldn'thave done it that way. Oh,they shouldn't have done it thatway. But it worked. It's there. It'ssafe. You know, yeah, thatwell looks horrible. Did theyget enough penetration? You know, that'swhat matters. We all worktogether. It for, it takesa team to build a project. So all the wayfrom the owner to thejanitor sweep in the floor when thejob is done, it, nobody bringing anythingextra value than anybodyelse to a job. You know,I'm going to tell you, if you read myLinkedIn post, my job's the mostimportant one out ofeverybody. But the architect's going tosay that the engineer is going to saythat we're all goingto say that we are more important thanthe other person, but in reality, we'renot, you know? Yeah,it's still detailers. We have to read allkinds of drawings of elevator, HVAC,architectural, you know,all of them, the full spectrum, but weare coordinated. Yeah.The architect and engineercoordinate and they get all the stuff.But then when it comes down to thatdetailed little part ofit, it's in the name. We're stilldetailers. It's the detail part of it. Wehave to make sure allthe bolts are in the right place.Everything fits through the joist.Everything, does that beam needa big hole cut in? And if we cut a holein it, what do we need to doto make that beam where it'snot going to collapse and we put weighton it? That is, that wasgoing to be an RFI that we'regoing to send off because I can tell youthat what it needs to be, but I can'tprove that's what itneeds to be. After a while, you can lookat a job and be like, well,that beam connection is notgoing to work because you've just seenthousands and thousands ofconnections. So when I seesomething that doesn't work, I'm going toRFI or something doesn'tmatch. I'm going to RFI it.And a lot of it is the eyeball test. Ifyou go into a building andyou see something that justlooks bad, you think it's bad, but itcould look good and still be bad, but itpasses that eyeball test.Right. And it's a pass. Yeah. And withthe RFIs and going back astep when you talked about,you were working with structuralengineers and architectsearly on and before kind ofcompiling. Have you seen those? I don'tknow if those jobshave matured at this pointwhere you can go back and be like, hey,we only got a third ofthe RFIs or we got oneRFI. You got a kind of a track record onthose examples, how itdidn't work out better.When I was working at the engineeringfirm, we also had adetailing firm. So we weren't alwaysworking on that engineer's drawings. Butwhen we did work on theirdrawings, we had no RFIsbecause we could just walk down the halland go, hey, what'dyou really mean by this?Yeah. And I still have friends that workthere. And when I do seeone of their jobs come across,I skipped the RFI process. I call myfriend who drew thedrawings and I'm like, hey,what'd you really mean by this? And thenI sent an RFI app or anemail out saying, hey,I spoke with this person at this firm andthis is what we just cameup with. That is going to be,in my opinion, the key to getting rid ofRFIs is communication. Letme speak to who is in chargeof the not in charge of the job, but whodid the drawings? Letme talk to that person.Yeah. Especially like you said, if youcan get it early,early on before it becomes,you know, a contract, because that's thething when it becomes acontract. And if you have togo through that system on them, becausethat's why the RFIs trigger.We can get around the gatekeeping. Soit's not, I call the GC and I go, hey,can I call the engineer? And some will belike, yeah, go rightahead. Some will be like, no,everything has to go through us. I'veworked on one job where the engineercalled me, skipped theGC. The engineers directly called me andwas like, can we talk aboutthese things? And I'm like,I would be happy to. And that engineer,like if somebody was to askme about her, I would tell himone of the best engineers I've everworked with. Once we got rid, kind ofkicked the GC out of thepicture a little bit, everything justwent so smooth and the GC wasn't aproblem. It was just,we took out that layer so wecould get this done quicker.Yeah. Yeah. I worked with one structural,it was very, didn't like, you know,they would, the contractor position inRFI is basically where it'scoming from you in that case.And they were just very, you know, it'son the drawings, it's onthe drawings, very stubbornabout it. It was frustrating. And it'sjust like, just give them acall and find out. And then theyended up doing the call and they goteverything resolved overthat call. And I was like, oh,great. That's awesome. Right. And thenthat saves everyonetime. It saves me as the CRP,the one I have to deal with RFI's, but ithas nothing to do withme, but it's going between,I'm the middle man trying again, thatgatekeeper to control it andcoordinate it. And it's justanother thing if we can just kind ofeliminate and work together incommunications key, you got it.Yeah. I have a friend that every job thathe does, that his companydoes, they go through thedrawings, maybe a week going through thedrawings, mark them all up.And then they contact theircustomers like, can we have a videomeeting with you, the engineer, thearchitect? Let's just geteverybody in here and we're going to goover what we do. They use Bluebeam towhere they can show iteverywhere. And he can, all right, sohere's our question. And then he willtype it so they can seewhat he's saying. Like, so everybody cansee his responses. Andthen he forwards that mark thedrawing out to everybody. So everybodyhas a copy of it. And he's like, itsolves so many problemsjust being able to do that. Right. Soyou're, yeah, exactly. You're screensharing, you're doingyour stuff, you're showing the challengesand the frustrations andwhere this needs to be resolved.Yeah. Like the technology we havenowadays, there's so much we can do withjust screen sharing.When I make an RFI, I don't redraweverything. I use Bluebeam, I clip thepart I need so I canjust mark it up. So I go, this is yourdrawing. You can see what you did andwhat I'm questioning.Yeah. Yeah. That's a big thing. And Ithink even the way we ask RFIsneed to be done in a specificway. Like if I see your connection is notgoing to work, I don't wantto just send an RFI that says,hey, this connection doesn't work. Pleaseadvise. I want to senda question that says,your connection doesn't work for thisreason. How about we do itthis way? That way you can look atwhat I think and go, oh yeah, that willwork. Let's follow your way.Because I know what's goingto work in the field. I know it's goingto work in the shop because I've dealtwith all that. And Ican, you know, that's part of, onceagain, the still detailer'sjob is to know that stuff. Soif I can push a solution that will workand everybody's happywith, why wouldn't I do that?Yeah. I appreciate that. Like that'sexactly what we'd say to the GCs. Likedon't just come to aproblem, you know, like come, you know,bring a couple of ideas and we'llbrainstorm, we'll worktogether. Maybe we're on site, we'll walkaround and, you know, kindof stand around and stare.But we'll come up to the resolution andyou're right. Again, it'sall about being proactive.The more proactive that you can be withthis stuff, the betterit's going to flow, the betterthe communication is going to go. Andthen at the end of the day, we can allcelebrate because wedid an amazing project together. Yeah.And you know, the thingwith doing it that way is I askthe question that way, I go ahead and dowhat I said that I wanted todo and I'm continuing to work.So when I get the answer back, it says,yes, that's great. I don'thave to jump back to that partto finish it. I already did it. Yeah. Andbecause one, I did itthat way so I could actuallyget a snapshot of my model and send thatso I can go, Hey, look, Iwant to do it this way. That way,you can see all the beams, not in a 2Dversion. I'm going to send you, we cansend a 3D RFI out ofour software, the SDS2 software. I don'tknow if the other onesdo this. They probably do,but to where I can send it to you and youcan spin it around andyou can see everything in itin a 3D picture instead of just going,okay, I'm looking atyour 2D flat image. No,spin it around. Let's see what it alllooks like. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. No,absolutely. I think younailed it. And that's, you know, ahundred percent. I think this is just,this has been awesome. Andyou know, we're coming up to the hourhere, Adam in that sense. Butyeah, key takeaways, I thinkdimensions, communication, what are yourfinal T-ways? What's yoursoapbox moment here? You got30 seconds. What does the industry needto hear to be better atthis? Well, if you look at any ofmy LinkedIn posts, I have a hashtag onthere that says work better together.That's pretty much it.We all got to work better together. I'mstill going to complainabout you. You're going tocomplain about me, but we just need towork better together.Hashtag work better together.That's awesome. That is really cool. Youknow, let's see an uptickof and people tagging thatbecause yeah, I think that's absolutely Ilove it. Oh, thank you somuch for being on the show.Where can we find you? I don't like youmentioned LinkedIn, but where can we,where can we find you? It's probablygoing to be my biggest one. Like,that's where I share everything. I'm onFacebook, but it's, I don'tever get on Facebook. I don'tuse Instagram, TikTok, any of that stuff.I like to share the stuffon LinkedIn and I have beencontemplating YouTube to share how tovideos, but I haven'tdelved into that yet. So if youwant to get ahold of me, LinkedIn wouldbe the best. It's just my name. Youshould see a pictureof me. Yeah, that's awesome. And yeah, Iknow. I yeah, I'll post iton the site and post it onthe description and all that stuff. Sowe'll definitely check itout. And I'm expecting tosee that YouTube channel request andcheck it out in the future. But no,again, thank you so muchfor being on this. This was awesome. Thisdefinitely gave, you know,even gave me some insightof kind of the whole process and kind ofwhat happens behind thescenes. And I'm sure forlisteners that this really opened uptheir eyes of just how do you detailingworks and the challengesthat face and what we see at site. Andagain, let's try and start eliminatingthis at the beginning.If we can get this all wrapped up, we'renot going to havesurprises on the site because wedon't ever want to be surprised in thatsense. Right. And I hopethat this informs people alittle bit more of what still detailingis kind of dying tradebecause, well, nobody knows whatit is and it's not taught in schools. Soif somebody sees it and is like, hey,that sounds like it's fun.Contact me. I have a lot of networkingthat if you want to be a detailer, I canprobably help you outbecoming one. That's awesome. No, Iappreciate it. And appreciatehow you're giving back to thecommunity in a sense. And absolutely.100%. So yeah. Well, thatkind of wraps up this show here.Architects keep designing and contractorskeep making those blueprints reality.We'll see on the next one.

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Matt Brennan

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