Thing about is you can't always point the finger at the EOR. As a contractor I did a some of our own design work and saw things installed by MY company that didn't match MY drawings. Fortunately I could roll some heads over the screw up and get it fixed, unfortunately the fix cost ME money, but at least I knew it had been put in right. Some guys just don't read and some think their little change isn't significant.
So moral of the story is that even if their was an EOR, you can't lay the error completely on him. For the most part the fire protection engineers and designers rarely get permission by their employers to visit job sites once their drawing has left their office. (bigger AE firms are less likely to grant someone like fire prot a plane ticket to visit the job site) So they have no input on the installation. Acceptance of installations are often left to the discretion of some General Contractor's field superintendent or the local inspector. Craig L. Prahl, CET Fire Protection Group Mechanical Department CH2MHILL Lockwood Greene 1500 International Drive PO Box 491, Spartanburg, SC 29304-0491 Direct - 864.599.4102 Fax - 864.599.8439 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ch2m.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark Sornsin Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 3:04 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Do you look up? When I "look up" at work that is incorrect, I always wonder if there was an engineer of record involved on the project. Then I wonder how much money they were paid to be the "engineer of record." Then I wonder how much time they actually spent on their "performance spec" that included no performance criteria outside of references to code. Obviously, mine is a cynical perspective of my colleagues in the engineering world. I certainly understand the reality that there aren't enough skilled engineers to be involved on all sprinkler projects. To say the typical "performance spec" is criminal may be excessive (maybe they couldn't get enough fee to do the project justice...?) But I do know that all engineers who rely on their blanket statement about systems "meeting code" (but don't have the ability to verify compliance) to are teed-up nicely to lose the litigation battle should a fire ever occur. As Chris has reminded us, there seem to be an inordinate number of screwed up systems out there, so it's really a wonder why more engineers aren't brought to task through litigation. Sometime I wonder if it is because of the ironic fact that "everyone" knows the mechanical engineer is not the expert - it's the sprinkler contractor. So engineers are forgotten when problems arise...??? Don't mean to tangent into another PE-bashing thread, but it just peeves me that there are "professionals" getting paid for being lazy fools. Mark A. Sornsin, PE Fire Protection Engineer Ulteig Engineers, Inc. Fargo, ND 701.280.8591 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chris Cahill Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 12:29 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Do you look up? I imagine, like me, you all (ya'll for some of you) on the very rare occasions you are not working look around at sprinkler systems where you live, shop and play. It's a very rare occasion I don't see something that appears deficient. For example, in a grocery store the one head on the back side of the main is missing over HPS and a mess of piping creating a ceiling without heads under them, at a Home Depot 190 psi on the wet side of an auxiliary dry valve, or the local high school with sidewall heads about 15-20' down from the peak of the very large skylight. This is all in the last two days as an example but see similar all the time. The sad part is I'm not really trying. What if I had the plans and calcs, how much more would there be? Or really looked at the whole building instead of a casual look at where I happen to be? Or the scary part what if I actually considered the hazard vs. the design? I also realize two issues - most times what I see probably won't cause the system to fail in a fire IF that is the only thing wrong. There is a "probably" and an "if " in the last sentence which means there are cases that will fail, just not many IMHO. And second we make mistakes too. The heads at the peak - just because an AHJ didn't call it a deficiency doesn't mean it's OK. Certainly it is possible there is a documented and proactively approved alternate method out there on this but I strongly doubt it. Now I'm sure the missing head has a perfectly rational explanation of how it got like that. The W.O. is there and it must be plugged or the system is off. It's not a TI thing long after the original construction; this is a very new building. Can't rationalize how you get 190 psi by accident or approval. MN is more regulated than most (but not all) areas. Do you see this stuff too? What if anything can you really do about it? Chris Cahill, P.E. Fire Protection Engineer Sentry Fire Protection, Inc. 763-658-4483 763-658-4921 fax Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mail: P.O. Box 69 Waverly, MN 55390 Location: 4439 Hwy 12 SW Waverly, MN 55390 _______________________________________________ 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) _______________________________________________ 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)
