THE IMPORTANCE of PROFESSIONAL

ENGINEER LICENSURE for PLUMBING

ENGINEERS.
ASPE is working on expanding licensing for Plumbing
Engineers to increase the professionalism of the industry.
October 3, 2022

A Professional Engineer (PE) license means a lot of things to a lot of people. For
many engineers, it’s a rite of passage and a career-defining achievement that opens
up opportunities and solidifies their professional reputation, much like tenure for
someone in academia. It allows them to stamp and seal engineering drawings for
approval by a public authority.

For many employers, it’s a sign of seriousness about a career in engineering, a

justification to bill more for services and a marketing tool to win projects. For
many clients, it’s a reassuring indication of competency in a given engineering
discipline. And for the increasingly competitive building design and construction
industry, it is becoming an expectation of those who practice engineering.

In my experience, PE licenses are prevalent among most disciplines needed to

design a building — the civil, structural, HVAC, electrical and fire protection
engineering fields are well-represented with licensed professionals. However,
plumbing engineering seems to be lagging behind its counterparts.

I have no real data on this, but my observations are that, at best, 20% of plumbing
engineers hold a PE license. A group within the American Society of Plumbing
Engineers (ASPE) is tasked with changing this, as I’ll discuss later. Still, as the
industry evolves, it will call for more engineers to become licensed.

Plumbing Design Evolution’s Effect on Licensed Engineers

There are several reasons for the low number of licensed plumbing engineers, but
much of it stems from how the discipline evolved. For many years, plumbing
engineering was viewed as uncomplex. Much of the work involved connecting
common plumbing fixtures to domestic water, sanitary waste and vent piping
systems, then determining how to combine and route them to the site utilities and
source equipment.

Codes, rather than engineering methods, determined pipe sizes. Legionella and
siphonic roof drainage were mostly unheard of, sustainable design was
nonexistent, nuances of medical gas and pure water systems were not well
understood, and plumbing systems shared many of the same concepts as HVAC.
As such, a common opinion in the engineering industry was that anyone who could
understand HVAC could also understand plumbing.

Therefore, the responsibility of sealing and signing plumbing drawings was often
given to an HVAC engineer with a PE license, while their counterparts in
plumbing did not see a need to go through the rigors of obtaining their own
professional registration.

However, as the plumbing discipline evolved and the markets it served demanded
more specialized systems, plumbing engineers were faced with the increasing
complexities of industrial, medical and laboratory gases; highly purified water;
laboratory and kitchen wastes; reclaimed water; waterborne bacteria concerns; and
others. The public health risks associated with these systems were more realized.

The discipline’s evolution gave it a complexity of its own; it became more distinct
from HVAC, and it became much more difficult for licensed HVAC engineers to
maintain the legally required competency to stamp plumbing drawings.

Professional engineers are bound by a code of ethics as a condition of their

licensure, mandating that they sign and seal only designs that are within their area
of expertise. State licensing boards include legal language to this effect. It should
go without saying that engineers who do this can assume a huge liability for
themselves, their firm, their clients and especially the public.

A number of past lawsuits around plumbing system design flaws found fault with
an engineer of record (the one who stamped the drawings) who was not competent
in plumbing engineering. With these challenges, the industry has begun to
acknowledge the complexity of modern plumbing design, but there is still a lack of
registered engineers in the plumbing discipline.

One of the reasons for this is the historical responsibility of a licensed HVAC
engineer to oversee plumbing systems. Another is there is no professional
engineering exam that specifically tests for competency in plumbing design.
The PE Licensure Process

Requirements for obtaining a PE license may vary slightly by state, but nearly all
require the following:

 A degree from an ABET-accredited engineering program;

 Passing the Fundamentals of Engineering exam;
 Gaining acceptable work experience (four years is typical) under the
supervision of another professional engineer;
 Passing the Principles and Practice of Engineering exam.

The PE exam is administered by the National Council of Examiners for

Engineering and Surveying (NCEES), and it tests for a minimum level of
competency required to practice a particular engineering discipline. Test formats
for individual disciplines vary slightly, but the mechanical discipline consists of a
morning and afternoon session, each lasting four hours and containing 40
questions.

The morning session contains the same questions for all mechanical examinees and
tests for a breadth of foundational knowledge in that discipline. The afternoon
session tests for depth of knowledge in one of three modules — Machine Design
and Materials, HVAC and Refrigeration, and Thermal and Fluid Systems.
Examinees can choose whichever most closely applies to their practice.

Notably, there is no depth module that specifically tests for knowledge in plumbing
system design; the topics in the Thermal and Fluids option are the closest match,
but even they require knowledge that most plumbing engineers will never use and
may never have even been exposed to.

The lack of a plumbing system depth option in the mechanical PE exam is perhaps
the biggest obstacle in getting more plumbing engineers licensed today. Seasoned
plumbing engineers are less likely to put themselves through the time commitment
and rigors of an exam not tailored to their expertise.

Additionally, younger engineers are less likely to see plumbing as an attractive

career path — this is a growing concern in the profession as more experienced
engineers are retiring with not enough incoming ones to replenish the ranks.
However, a group in ASPE is taking steps to change this.

ASPE’s Professional Engineer Working Group

ASPE’s Professional Engineer Working Group (PEWG) is a team of plumbing
industry professionals, many of whom are licensed engineers who are dedicated to
developing a plumbing depth option within the mechanical discipline of the PE
exam. They modeled some of their efforts after some of those of ASHRAE, which
successfully created the HVAC and Refrigeration depth exam a while back. The
group began this effort for a plumbing module about six years ago, and while there
is still more work to do, it has made significant progress.

The group’s first task was to petition and convince state licensing boards to support
the addition of a plumbing depth module and recognize it as an acceptable exam to
obtain a PE license. NCEES requires that 10 state licensing boards request and
demonstrate a need for this before they will authorize the development of a
plumbing exam.

The PEWG wrote letters to and got in front of boards in almost all 50 states and
very recently gained the support of the required 10. The state boards will need to
prove to NCEES that there is a definite need for an additional depth module and
that the existing exams do not adequately test for knowledge in plumbing, and the
PEWG has already supplied them with convincing arguments.

Several representatives from the PEWG recently visited NCEES headquarters in

Greenville, S.C., to further state the case for creating a plumbing depth exam. This,
combined with the endorsement of 10 state licensing boards, convinced NCEES to
allow the next step of gathering 400 signatures of licensed engineers supporting the
creation of this exam.

We anticipate this signature-gathering phase will begin in fall 2022. After we

obtain the required signatures, the PEWG will begin developing the exam.

A Call to Action

While the PEWG is doing the bulk of the work in making the plumbing depth
exam a reality, we need additional support from the engineering industry. When
the signature-gathering phase begins, we will look to obtain them from licensed
engineers throughout the industry, not only those who practice plumbing design.

In the meantime, we are spreading the word of this to our colleagues, persuading
them to support our effort and asking them to do the same with their peers. When it
comes time to gather signatures, we will spread the calling for them through this
established network of
supporters.
Developing the actual exam is another monumental effort we do not expect to
begin until late next year. It is one of the final steps in what has been a marathon of
an undertaking and one that more and more professionals see as worthwhile.

When the plumbing depth option is finally available, it will mark one of the biggest
developments the industry has seen in decades. It will be a major milestone in
earning plumbing engineering the credence, respect and recognition it deserves.

Aaron Bock, PE, is a senior plumbing engineer at ERDMAN, where the engineering
department boasts an 82% licensure rate. He is a past president of the Wisconsin ASPE
chapter, a member of the PEWG, and a graduate of the College of Engineering at UW-
Madison.