Use case · Coring letters
Draft your coring review letters in Fermito.
A sealed letter with hole by hole judgment on coring through a slab. Each location reviewed against the structural drawings, the engineer's site observation, and the contractor's intended use, with assumptions and limitations bounding the opinion.
Drafts today
The coring letter shape drafts end-to-end today. Firm-specific template polish (cover, header, signature block) lands in 2 to 4 weeks per firm during onboarding. Sketch attachment for marked-up slab plans is on the near-term product roadmap.
The recurring scenario
What this letter solves on the ground.
The mechanical sub has a list of 14 proposed core locations across two slabs to route a new chilled-water riser. Some are clear of structural reinforcement on the original drawings, some sit close to the column line, some are in a band the original engineer flagged as post-tensioned. The contractor needs a sealed letter the foreman can give to the coring sub before saws come out tomorrow morning.
A coring review letter is not a one-line approval. It is a tabular hole by hole judgment: location, slab thickness, proximity to reinforcement, proximity to post-tensioning, recommended action (cleared, relocate, scan first, do not core), with the engineering basis in the body and the limitations bands at the close.
Fermito drafts the letter from the engineer's voice notes against the proposed core list, the structural drawings and reinforcing plans attached to the visit, and the firm's prior coring letters as the voice reference. The engineer reads, confirms each per-location call, and seals.
What Fermito drafts
A draft, in your firm's voice, in the structure your reviewers already trust.
Below: the shape of the document Fermito assembles for this use case. Headings, sequence, and limitations bands are encoded against your firm's house template, not a generic schema.
Sealed letter, draft preview
Re: Proposed coring locations, levels 3 and 4 slabs.
Documents reviewed
Existing slab construction
Proposed coring (per location)
Assessment
Limitations
Where the engineer stays in the loop
Fermito drafts. The engineer decides.
Sealed work belongs to the licensed professional. The list below names what Fermito does not decide for the engineer on this letter type. The engineer reads, edits, and seals.
- Every per-location call. Fermito drafts the table from the engineer's notes and the drawings; the engineer signs each row, not Fermito.
- The do-not-core bands. Whether a location requires GPR scanning before cutting, or is cleared outright, is a professional judgment the engineer owns.
- The assumption bands. Slab as built per drawings, reinforcement and PT layout as drawn, no post-construction modifications, contractor's continuing obligation to verify on site. The engineer confirms each band fits the work.
- The seal. Fermito will not export a sealed Word file without the engineer's explicit attestation. The seal stays with the licensed engineer, every time.
How Fermito drafts it
Four mechanisms, on every draft.
The same four mechanisms apply across every sealed letter Fermito assembles. Each card links to the matching section of the longer How Fermito Thinks read.
Voice-in
The engineer talks through the visit on the phone they already carry. Fermito holds the live transcript on-device and resumes through dropped signal.
How it worksPhoto-anchored
Each photo is captioned by Claude Vision and grounded in the draft. If the text says concrete and the photo shows steel framing, Fermito flags the mismatch.
How it worksFirm-template-aware
Cover, header, footer, distribution, signature block, and the firm's standard phrases are encoded once and reused on every draft. Output reads like the firm wrote it.
How it worksEngineer-attested
Fermito will not export a sealed document without the engineer's explicit confirmation. The seal stays with the licensed engineer, every time.
How it works
Read the primer
Sealed opinion letters: the daily-habit doc category.
Long-form read on the short sealed letters that make up roughly a quarter of a structural firm's output. The coring letter shape is one of the highest stakes letter types because the per-location calls are read by trade workers in the field, not by other engineers.
Try Fermito on a letter you have already issued
Audit a sealed letter you have already issued. You get a peer-reviewer read back: what holds up, what a reviewer would flag, and the questions a careful reviewer would ask before sealing. Independent, no signup, no product pitch inside the read itself.