Under Section 471.025, F.S., the Board of Florida has outlined requirements for seals that are acceptable to use as the Florida engineer impression seal on professional engineering documents. An embossing seal or rubber stamp is allowed, but it has to be a minimum of 1 and 7/8 inches in diameter. Licensees are allowed to use a seal that leaves a permanent ink representation or opaque and permanent impression on the hard copy of reports. A CAD generated Florida engineer impression seal is only permitted on the hard copy of documents.
The licensees name must be on the Florida engineer impression seal, which may be in the form of their given name, a combination of initials, or the surname of the licensee that is registered with the Board.
The Florida engineer impression seal must be accompanied by the handwritten signature on all documents, which include:
- Final drawings, plans, documents, specifications, and reports
- All final documents provided to the owner
- Every sheet of plans and prints
Next, there are further requirements when using the Florida engineer impression seal when working in certain situations. For example, when an engineer is working for the local, State, or Federal Government, the person must write their name and license number, along with the address of the company, on all documents that are required to be signed, sealed, and dated.
An engineer may only seal documents and reports with the Florida engineer impression seal when they were in charge of the production and preparations of the documents or if they have expertise in the engineering discipline that was used. In addition, a document made of linen, sepia, or other materials that are easily changed may not be sealed with the Florida engineer impression seal.
Plans may not be sealed if they are not final documents, unless the engineer states the limitations of the information inside of the document. Some examples of this would be nothing “Preliminary,” “Not for Construction,” or “For Review Only.”
The engineer may use a digital signature instead the Florida engineer impression seal if the signature is unique to the person using it, capable of verification, and under the sole control of the person using it.
The engineer seal may be an embosser seal or a rubber stamp. When purchasing one, it is important to note the size specifications as well as the information that needs to be on the seal.
