The manufacturer's test piping in controlled environments with people getting paid by the hour or on salary and are not competing with other subcontractors in the rain, heat, cold, mud, sweat, oil, sawdust, concrete dust and real world of imperfect conditions. They do not have other trades pulling, shoving, nailing, cutting, shaking, removing and bending their piping when they are not watching.
They don't have people hanging sheetrock on Saturdays and Sundays when they are not around after the other trades have done their aforementioned deeds to the pipe after you have tested and gotten your inspection, but before you have constant water on the system. So do you want to put hundreds of gallons of water on pipe you cannot see on a floor in a building where if it floods will leak down to multiple floors below and damage all of that sheetrock as well? Do you want to make trip after trip after trip back to jobsites 3 hours away because the Teflon only scenario doesn't work and the leaks show up one at a time over the course of months? Do you want to pay for the damage to someone's heirloom antiques desk or photos when these mystery leaks show up? Do you want to replace someone's carpet because the blue dope dripped down and stained the very expensive light colored floor? To keep it in perspective, one leak on one job for less than 15 minutes can cause $12,000.00 in damage because the water finds holes in the slab and runs down 3 floors before it is discovered? Ask me how I know! We just replaced a section of pipe that had 2 nails in it from the trim carpenters. The situations I am listing are real life. We have had pipe cut multiple times and covered up so whoever did the cutting did not have to be responsible. I have told the Spears representatives as high up as I could go that the tape only or dope only scenario has not worked for us or one of our biggest competitors in the area. I have pushed the issues to my partners and fitters to the highest level. We have purchased the expensive blue dope and only used it. We have then replaced many of the heads after the blue stuff got hot and ran down the heads and stained the plates and heads. We have returned and fixed the leaks. Today we are fixing leaks on a job where we used tape only, the building is CO'd and the leaks are showing up one at a time day after day. They may know better in theory, but who knows more about your car; the engineer who designed it or the guy who has the bad parts in his hand and says these always go bad, I would replace this with.....? BTW, do you change your axle fluid, transmission fluid, power steering fluid (and flush) when the manufacturer recommends it? Sorry for the tirade, Greg Living Water Fire Protection, LLC 1160 McKenzie Road Cantonment, FL 32533 850-937-1850 Fax: 850-937-1852 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jim Kettler Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 1:10 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: survey pipe dope vs teflon tape The Blazemaster technical specifications very clearly indicate that tape and dope together are a problem. http://www.blazemaster.com/DESIGNSPECIFICATION/dodont.asp As a Township in PA where we had our fair share of leakers, this was one of many suspected factors. Given the response of some on the forum and my question earlier in the week on air testing of CPVC piping, I have to ask and in the most polite manner: who knows better, the contractors or the pipe mfg? I received several responses indicating that air testing is done regardless of the mfg specifications and many are using both tape and dope. As an AHJ, I have always tried to put great weight on the mfg's specifications. Jim Kettler _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field) _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
