Site management and building supervision in Mönchengladbach
Someone on your Mönchengladbach site who has actually read the drawings
A building project rarely fails on the design. It fails in the week nobody noticed that something was built differently from the plan. We take on site management for houses and apartment buildings across the city and record what is actually built.
Two sentences are enough for a first assessment.
Site board
- Service
- Site management and building supervision in structural engineering
- Buildings
- Houses, apartment buildings and structural engineering works
- Authority
- The building authority of the independent city of Mönchengladbach
- Office
- Smoku eG, engineering office Konrad Smoczynski
Chamber of Engineers NRW 730097
What happens on a site with nobody managing it
Nothing dramatic. That is exactly the problem. The deviations that become expensive later look harmless at the moment they happen, and they only become visible once they are covered up.
Nobody compares it against the plan
The trades work cleanly and still miss the structural design, because each one is right on its own and none of them has the whole drawing in front of them. A recess dimension, a bearing length, a layer of reinforcement.
Nothing is written down
Without a record there are later two memories of the same conversation. Who ordered which change and when decides the invoice and the warranty.
The client decides alone
Building work throws up questions that have to be answered within hours. Whoever answers them without technical knowledge carries the result in the building for good.
Site management replaces neither a contractor nor a tradesman. It makes sure the work of the trades fits together and that in the end somebody can say how the house was built.
The cycle on site
Site management is not attendance, it is a sequence that repeats until the building stands. Four steps that run in the same rhythm for as long as work continues.
01Step
Inspection
On site, with the current drawing in hand. What has been built since the last visit is checked, and checked before it is clad, backfilled or concreted.
02Step
Record
What was seen, what was agreed, what has to be done by when, and by whom. In writing and to everyone involved. This is the part that counts in a dispute.
03Step
Sign off
Concealed work is signed off before it disappears. Reinforcement before the concrete, waterproofing before the backfill, services before the screed.
04Step
Report
You get the position without having to ask: what is finished, what is next, where a decision from you is needed, and what that means for the programme.
How tight the cycle is depends on the stage. Facts are created faster during the structural phase than during the fit out, and the inspections sit closer together accordingly.
Tell us where your building site stands
One sentence about the project and one about the stage is enough. We will tell you what site management can still achieve at this point and what it would cost.
- Telephone
- +49 2432 907 93 00
- info@ks-ingenieur.de
- Office address
- Leichweg 3, 41849 Wassenberg
- Main site
- ks-ingenieur.de
- Callback
- Reachable on working days. A short phone call is enough for a first assessment.
It is a good enquiry even when work is already under way and something is not right. The earlier somebody with technical knowledge looks at it, the more can still be solved without taking anything apart.
What we look at
Every inspection has points that cannot be checked later, because by then they sit behind concrete, screed or plaster. Those points come before everything else.
Dimensions and axes
Measurements against the drawing. Axes, openings, clear heights and recesses, while a deviation is still settled with a phone call rather than a chisel.
Reinforcement
Position, diameter, laps and concrete cover before the pour, against the structural calculation and the working drawings.
Waterproofing
Junctions, transitions and penetrations on the parts in contact with the ground, before the excavation is backfilled.
Thermal performance
Insulation thicknesses, junction details and thermal bridges against the thermal calculation, so that what is built matches what was calculated.
Work against contract
What was tendered against what is delivered and installed. Deviations are not always wrong, but they belong in the record and need signing off.
Variations
Every extra is checked on both grounds and amount before it reaches the invoice. A variation without an instruction is not one.
The work stages in which we are on site
The German fee scale for architects and engineers divides a project into nine work stages. Site management sits in the later ones, where drawings turn into a building. We work in every stage, in structural building work and in structural engineering.
Stage 6
Preparing the tender
Bills of quantities, so the offers can be compared and each contractor is not quoting for something different.
Stage 7
Assisting with the award
Checking offers, comparing prices, finding the gaps in the scope before they come back as variations.
Stage 8
Supervision of construction
The heart of site management: inspection, record, sign off, programme, checking invoices, handover and chasing defects.
Stage 9
Aftercare
The period after handover. Defects that only appear later, and the periods within which they can still be claimed.
Which stages we take on is agreed beforehand. Site management can also be commissioned when the design and the permit came from another office.
Photographs from the site
Pictures from residential construction, of the kind an inspection sees. They stand for the stages this page is about, not for individual projects of the office.
Inspection with the drawingA site manager records the state of the fit out on a tablet before the next contractor arrives. Reinforcement before the pourStarter bars standing ready on the slab. Placing and cover are checked before any concrete arrives. Masonry in the structural phaseA bricklayer setting blocks on the rising wall. The stage with the most concealed points. Facade in the scaffoldScaffold lifts with timber decks in front of the facade. Insulation and junctions are still reachable here. Work on the masonryMaterials and masonry on a residential site, at the stage between the ground slab and the floor above. A finished houseA house ready to move into. What no longer shows here was decided months earlier.
Mönchengladbach, four boroughs, one building authority
Mönchengladbach is an independent city. Between your site and the authority that grants permission there is no district administration, only the city building authority itself. For site management that means short routes whenever something has to be settled while work is going on.
- City
- Mönchengladbach
- Administration
- An independent city with its own building authority and no district above it
- Office
- Leichweg 3, 41849 Wassenberg
The office is in Wassenberg, a good half hour from the city. Close enough to be on site at short notice, and long enough in the region to know how buildings are put together here.
Four city boroughs
- Nord
- Ost
- Süd
- West
Districts where we look after building sites
- Rheydt
- Odenkirchen
- Wickrath
- Rheindahlen
- Giesenkirchen
- Neuwerk
- Hardt
- Eicken
- Holt
- Venn
- Hehn
- Lürrip
- Windberg
- Bonnenbroich
And the towns around them
- Korschenbroich
- Jüchen
- Viersen
- Willich
- Schwalmtal
- Niederkrüchten
- Wegberg
- Erkelenz
Who comes to your site
Smoku eG is the engineering office of Konrad Smoczynski. What is designed and calculated is mainly houses and apartment buildings, alongside structural engineering works. Site management and building supervision are taken on as a service in their own right, including for projects designed elsewhere.
- Degree
- Master of Science RWTH in civil engineering, 2012
- Chamber
- Voluntary member of the Ingenieurkammer Bau NRW, 2017, membership number 730097
- Structural design
- Qualified structural engineer, authorisation number QT1542, 2019
- Building applications
- Authorised to submit building applications in North Rhine-Westphalia, authorisation number V3693, 2019
The office works with freelance staff, partners and building companies from North Rhine-Westphalia. On site that means the structural design, the thermal calculation and the working drawings come from the same house as the site management, and a query needs no third firm.
Questions that come up before an appointment
What clients want to know before they bring somebody onto their site.
What is the difference between site management and building supervision?
Building supervision checks whether the work matches the design and the permit. Site management does that too, but also takes decisions on the client’s behalf: it issues instructions, signs work off, follows the programme and checks invoices. Which of the two you need depends on how much you want to steer yourself.
Will you manage a site that another office designed?
Yes. We work into the existing drawings and the permit and say beforehand what is unclear to us in them. Somebody else’s design is no obstacle; an incomplete set of drawings is, and we want to know about that before the first site visit.
How often are you on site?
That is agreed before the appointment and follows the method of construction and the stage. What matters is not the number of visits but that they fall where something is about to be covered: before the pour, before the backfill, before the screed.
Are you liable for the work of the contractors?
No. The firm that carried out the work is liable for it. We are liable for our own service, that is for supervising, recording and stepping in on time. Professional indemnity insurance covers that service; the details are in the legal notice.
Do I need site management if I have a main contractor?
A main contractor provides its own site management. It represents the contractor’s interests, not yours. If you want to know whether you got the work you are paying for, you need somebody on your side who prepares the handover on technical grounds.
When should we bring you in?
Most effectively before the contracts are awarded, because that is where what the trades owe you is fixed. It is worth doing at any point where something is still about to be covered. Even in the middle of the structural phase, most of it can be settled without taking anything apart.