Tommy- I think the contents of the letter WRT plan review and hydraulics may become moot when the local AHJ reads the letter you were sent.
When the Chief actually reads the letter- I'm assuming he wouldn't have let it go out representing his office if he'd read it- I think he'll owe you an apology, and the question won't be who did the plan review; it'll be who's doing plan review from this point on since you have someone with some antagonistic, sarcastic tendencies doing plan review instead of laying on a shrink's couch. I recall my ex-brother-in-law making a similar comment in court once, when he said "at Penn where he learned law, they taught us this, I'm not sure what they taught at your law school" but he's known for being a prima donna anyway. I'd muster up (or simply retain) your righteous indignation and ask if this letter REALLY should have gone out to a "customer" since that's what you are to his office. glc -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tom Duross Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 10:44 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Hydraulics Thanks for the vote of confidence, I was somewhat taken back when I got home and opened this package. I've worked in plenty of small towns where they don't have trained plan reviewers. I've even had AHJ's confess they don't understand and asked if I can walk them through it. I once spent 2 hours with a Deputy on a lodging house retrofit and we became best buddies, did his first barrel test, patted each other on the back afterwards. I don't know if it was because the Owner and I were calling in for status one a week after waiting 6 weeks for permit or what. I plan to drive out and see the Chief and go over these with him personally and just ask him who did the review. I'm sure it wasn't the State, they have some rally sharp guys and also the resources of WPI in Worcester. I might ask for a re-review with them as I'm holding up a job in a bad economy and effecting many more people than myself. Not to mention I'm now LAST on the job, I have no coordination from other trades and have to work around everything. I almost started writing a reply last night but glad I didn't now. ;-) We change codes tomorrow, all current editions but at least the building permit was issued last November. Whew! Tom -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]on Behalf Of Parsley Consulting Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 10:20 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Hydraulics Tom, At first glance my thought is that the reviewer has some sort of mental problem. I'm certainly not the authority on how to conduct yourself in a business environment, however in the past 20 years I've performed close to 5,000 plan reviews and never have I even dreamed of making such an insulting remark on a set of comments. Whoever it is has behaved in an unprofessional manner, and such behavior has no place in that position. Of course, I've said a number of things like that while doing reviews just to get that thought out of my system, but I'd never dream of making my official review comments take on a personal nature. As to the accuracy of his remarks, I can only say that what you've described as your process sounds accurate to me, particularly if you've accounted for all the fittings where the water is making a change in flow direction. I don't understand his comment regarding where certain fittings have to be placed in various segments, perhaps because I don't have a set of plans to see what he's talking about. It does seem to me as though this is very heavy handed, almost as though something was under his skin before he sat down to look at your drawings and calcs. The one comment you've included which bothers me to the point where I think you have to raise a serious protest about it is the remark regarding the hose stream. It would seem that his remarks are ignorant of the process involved in adding hose demand to calculations, as noted in NFPA-13, sections 11.1.5.4 and 11.1.5.5(1-3). I can't even wrap my thoughts around why you'd have to take into account an inside hose demand when there are no inside hose valves. As for his comment regarding the demand from all your flowing sprinklers having to be based on the most demanding protection area there are no words which are vulgar enough to describe how far from reality this is. >From what you've described it sounds as though you're flowing the proper water for each coverage area for each sprinkler. Based on what you've described you're using residential sprinklers, and it sounds to me as though you've followed the two methods for establishing demand shown in 11.3.1.2 (1 and 2). I agree that you'll certainly have balancing in the calculations which will push up the flow from the lesser demanding sprinklers, but there's nothing in any text I've read which makes the claim he's nailing you with. Quite frankly, Tom, I'd insist on a meeting and go over this. The AHJ's I work with out here would never stand for me making remarks of that nature to anyone, and if I were to do so I'd be looking for another review client fairly quickly. Hey, maybe you could ask for the arrogant horse's butt to provide you with the name of the individual who taught HIM calculations to see if you could help him get his money back because that individual failed miserably at the task. Just some thoughts on a lovely March morning here in California. Keep us posted, huh? PARSLEY CONSULTING Ken Wagoner, SET 760.745.6181 voice 760.745.0537 fax [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> e-mail www.ParsleyConsulting.com <http://www.ParsleyConsulting.com> website Tom Duross wrote: > Preface: I'm a self taught hydraulic calculation dweeb and I always thought > I had a handle on the basics. > I also should take the hydraulics course on-line, not a plug but I'm sure > there's a lot I don't know. > > I got a written review of a set of plans and calcs I submitted by mail > today. > The AHJ's reviewer is anonymous and mails his reviews via the AHJ. First > for me and that's fine. > It's a 4 unit attached residential building. Full Basements, 775 SF/flr, 2 > floors with a small loft, attached garages. > Single 2" copper supply to a doghouse on the end, single zone system, steel > in the basement, cpvc upstairs. > Just a description of the system as it bears little to my questions, but > good for background. > > Comment #1 states my calculations are completely wrong. No citing of > section, just wrong. > He backs it up by saying that I include the downstream fitting in each > segment and I should be including the fitting at the start of the segment. > I've just opened this up and I'm stunned. He goes further to ask where my > training is in hydraulics and who (by name) taught me. Not nice in my book. > Let me explain how I do these and would you kind folks (and George too) tell > me if I'm off-base or not. > > My first segment is the underground. 2" copper, annealed, 1 piece from the > corporation stop on the main up into the doghouse. > I input 34' of type L, a gate valve and a 90 degree elbow with the tap as > the inflow. I know it's closer to 30' and the tubing is rolled and unrolled > so I really have a l o n g sweep but I usually go a little conservative. > He says I have to include the tee. I disagree in principle for now. My > next segment is the compression fitting (I actually braze a male adapter on) > to a 90 to a 2" horizontal backflow with ball valves (all copper because > it's still potable). I input a 1' of vertical, a 90, 1' of horizontal > copper, 2 ball valves and use 8 psi for the backflow non-linear loss > (guessing at the time but checked and adjusted for the basement demand of > 150 gpm) and put a 100 gpm (inside and/or outside) hose demand at the elbow. > He says the base elbow must be included but says the hose demand should be > after the backflow. There are no hose valves, why? Anyway.. Fast forward > to the last segments where again he says I'm incorrect, again. I show 7.5' > of 1" cpvc, and elbow and a head with 224 SF of area on it. He says I have > to include the branch tee feeding it but I included that in the segment > feeding that segment! Am I doing this all wrong? > > Another thing. I have a 4 head and a single head calc. (plus the basement > and garage). I always used to do this when they had separate demands and I > just still do but that's not my question. I have 4 heads with different > areas being served by each. 2 are in bedrooms, 212 SF and 224 SF, one in a > hall with 90 SF and one in a walk-in closet with 56 SF. He says they all > have to "provide the same density at similar dimensions". WTF! I have to > base all 4 heads (or all heads in the building for that matter) based upon > my most demanding head which is the 224 SF bedroom that is 16x14 using 16x16 > flow and pressure requirements for all 4 heads. I've got almost a gallon/sf > in the closet and that's incorrect according to my reviewer. > > I'm not going to start a reply now as I just poured three fingers of single > malt but more because I want to re-read his comments and see what you folks > think. > I submitted these on Dec. 10th and I'm getting angry phone calls because we > haven't started yet and I get home and find this monkey-poop (ok, I'm > sipping now). > Have I been doing these wrong all this time? There's some more but I'm > starving. > Dazed and confused. > > Tom Duross > Go Red Sox! > > _______________________________________________ > Sprinklerforum mailing list > http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum > For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] > > To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] > (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field) > > > _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field) _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field) _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
