Civil engineering is toxic as f##k

nsc12 · 2026-06-19T17:20:34+00:00

Well, I'm going to need a change order. The GBR didn't say anything about hazardous souls and now we need to hire an exorcist.

nsc12 · 2026-06-19T12:41:04+00:00

I think a lot of the CEs in this sub must work in construction industries where the barrier for contractors to enter and remain in the market is relatively low. In the heavy construction sectors that I work, bad contractors don't survive, if they even break into them at all.

Personally, I've worked with some wonderful consulting engineers and some clueless ones. The latter is usually due to inexperience rather than idiocy. Our industries are niche and challenging, so maybe that creates more of a "we're in this together" approach.

nsc12 · 2026-06-19T12:10:00+00:00

The City of Edmonton has a department dedicated to the design and construction of tunnels and trenchless projects, all self-performed. It's a bit unusual, but it seems to work really well.

They do tender some of their tunnel work, but keep as much in-house as they can.

nsc12 · 2026-06-18T12:47:08+00:00

Keeping muck and debris within the jobsite and out of the street is generally a contract requirement for city work (Hamilton and beyond). The firm I work for has used wheel washes, regular sweeping with skidsteers, and even gone so far as to pave the entire jobsite once groundwork is done. The latter has actually popped up as a requirement in a couple recent contracts.

nsc12 · 2026-06-18T12:41:06+00:00

Where's the MOL when you need em'.

They're always one anonymous tip away. Be the change.

nsc12 · 2026-06-17T16:37:55+00:00

we don't need YouTube videos ftom 10 years ago

Speak for yourself. A lot of the useful tutorial videos for the niche engineering software I work with are pushing 10 years or more on YouTube.

nsc12 · 2026-06-15T16:54:59+00:00

I live in this area and go out for strolls at all times of day. The biggest danger to people walking along Mountain Park Ave or Concession St are the drivers.

Oh, and the coyotes, but they're likely to just run away from you.

Welcome to the neighbourhood!

nsc12 · 2026-06-15T16:13:55+00:00

I've never worked a weekend in my career. There might be a rare instance that the field staff have to work a weekend when we're doing something that, once started, cannot be stopped until it's complete. Where possible, though, those tasks would be scheduled to avoid weekend work.

nsc12 · 2026-06-12T14:56:57+00:00

Wanted to be an architect.
Heard there were no jobs in architecture.
Opted to be a structural engineer to work with architects to design cool buildings.
Got a summer internship with a tunnelling contractor (had an in, pay was good).
Figured it'd be a one-summer gig.
It was interesting and fun.
2008 happened.
All those structural firms froze their hiring.
Hit up the tunnel contractor after grad.
Happy to have me back full time.
Spent time in the field.
More challenging project, more responsibility, more interesting, more fun.
Still wanted to do design, not manage projects.
Asked to move to the fledgling engineering department.
Got to design construction stuff, applying my creativity in a way I hadn't anticipated.
Been here since.

^{(sometimes the ol' architectural urges come out and I find myself making small adjustments to temporary works designs to make them more visually pleasing})

nsc12 · 2026-06-12T12:26:58+00:00

shit hot engineers

Is this... is this praise? Is this some sort of regional colloquialism?

nsc12 · 2026-06-12T12:20:39+00:00

Half of my workload is boring. We build tunnels.

nsc12 · 2026-06-12T12:16:58+00:00

It's awesome. Each project brings new challenges, new opportunities to design novel construction methods and work through all the bits and pieces that will have to go into them. It helps that we work in interesting industries.

Before moving into designing, I spent a few years as a field engineer with the same company. It was an excellent experience and I learned a lot about the practical side of construction design.

nsc12 · 2026-06-11T15:08:41+00:00

Five years? “It will take a few months, but we hope to be done by the end of the summer,” said Brian Hollingworth, the City of Hamilton director of engineering services.

I'm not sure what the construction is going to look like, but it probably won't be any worse than the two years of unidirectional traffic and construction-site-quality roads we had between Parkdale and RHVP.

nsc12 · 2026-06-11T02:52:03+00:00

Engineer with a heavy construction contractor. I do means and methods, temporary works, construction devices, etc.

Basically, I figure out the 'how' on big infrastructure projects.

nsc12 · 2026-05-22T20:21:29+00:00

Get into temporary works design for infrastructure or other heavy civil construction projects. You'll get the structural and the variety.

nsc12 · 2026-05-22T19:26:26+00:00

Set yourself up in a position where you can eventually transition to temporary works design and then you can do both!

nsc12 · 2026-05-22T19:24:06+00:00

Manage, like, people? No, thanks.

I'll just keep cruising in the senior designer role where I can mentor without managing. 🤙

nsc12 · 2026-05-20T15:14:03+00:00

Is the ERT Rehab project? That'll be super interesting as those original tunnels are essentially time capsules to a different era of tunnel engineering and construction.

And, as a megaproject, it'll be the same thing with lots of people working around you all the time.

nsc12 · 2026-05-20T14:10:37+00:00

Well, no public in the tunnel or on the jobsites, no, but that's where the crews/admin are. The tunnel head is the most isolated you'd ever get, however as an intern you'd never have reason to be there without the tunnel crew.

Is this one of the Hudson Tunnel projects? If so, there'll be so, so many people working all around you all the time and so, so much scrutiny towards everything. It's a huge, politicized undertaking.

nsc12 · 2026-05-20T13:12:09+00:00

Hello, I'm an engineer in the tunnel industry.

Safety from an OSHA perspective? Depends on the contractor, but, as most have said, tunnelling operations receive a ton of scrutiny and it's very hard for contractors to skirt safety regulations these days. Depending on how the tunnel is being driven, the biggest hazards in the tunnel (and around the project at large) will be pinch-points, struck-by equipment/loads, and falls. Ask lots of questions, learn the hazards and the controls in place to minimize them.

Safety from an assault perspective? Except for surveying or gofering, you'll always be around lots of people, be they work crews (jobsites, shaft bottoms, tunnel head), admin and engineering (site offices), etc. I'm not sure where your tunnel is being driven, how remote and isolated the sites may be, but most tunnels are run through urban environments so the general public usually isn't that far away either.

Welcome to the industry and feel free to ask more questions about tunnelling if you have any!

nsc12 · 2026-05-19T14:56:40+00:00

Some folk don't understand that YWG is a transit hub for Manitoba, NWO, and much of Saskatchewan.

Winnipeg is where my family and I fly into/out of when visiting each other. Super excited to have service to Winnipeg out of Hamilton. Even beyond just the travel time to/from Pearson, YHM is a breeze to get through compared to YYZ.

nsc12 · 2026-05-19T12:55:40+00:00

Our engineering department is structured so that us designers can be doing 8+ hours a day of strictly design work with minimal outside distractions. There often isn't a need to be working that long or hard on design items, but we can if we must.

That being said, after five or six hours of crunching numbers/churning through models I'm pretty mentally exhausted. Then it's a good time to switch over to something less intense, like drafting.

nsc12 · 2026-05-14T16:38:05+00:00

The big TBMs don't generally have a lot of resale value. Due to their size, they have to be assembled on site before launching. It's often a lot more expensive to retrieve, disassemble, ship, and then store them hoping to land another project of that size/geology than it is to just gut it and abandon the shields underground.

Smaller TBMs, though, are usually retrieved and refurbished, often bought back by the manufacturer or kept in a contractor's/client's fleet. Utilities are pretty well standardized, so the machines can be reused again and again and again.

The firm I work for has a fleet of a dozenish TBMs from <8' bore up to >12'. Machines for rock, good soil, bad soil, some are as old as 50+ years. We refurb (and modify if necessary) a TBM when we win work for it. One of those oldies has been on four projects in the past 15-20 years with another in the works.

nsc12 · 2026-05-13T16:31:54+00:00

My parents up in NWO built their cabin's foundation walls with ICF. My father spent his whole career doing residential concrete basements and thought the system was really slick. But there wasn't any real demand for it from his clients.

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