Thinking about the next guy, running conduit

[George Stolz]

Lol .................

 

[ohm]

And the lack of mandatory language makes that section the equivalent of a definition of an item that is not required.


Ha ha ha - if by "sole-source" you are saying the customer wouldn't fire someone of Mule's conscience for someone as good and 5? cheaper, then I can't agree with that. It's a cutthroat world out there.

I wasn't talking retail here. The companies I've delt with wanted first class results and they were not afraid to pay for it.

 

[Mule]

Ok, Im going against my better judgement here, but I cant resist this question....

So if you were hired to do, say a KIA job....would the conduit bends be plus or minus 1" being plumb and level or not in a workman like manner, and maybe shoot across the ceiling at a angle with no straps?.....then

Say if you were hired to do a Impala job...would those same conduits be plus or minus 1/2", and only occasionaly blocking off future planned unistrut space?.

Then finally if you were hired to do a "CADDY" job, then and only then you would you place your conduits plus or minus a 1/8" and your job would be like sparkys on the pics showed earlier?

I dont think so.....

I think this is all a lame excuse to support oposition to me. I think most of you do construction and know exactly what Im talking about and agree...If you read the thread responses everyone but one agreed with my original direction... but when I replied to one whom didnt, Things went down hill quickly, as I was attacked, and next I got labeled by two prominent members and that's what threw me...when I look up to those whom moderate and offer such positive influences to this great forum...

If the tables were turned and this thread had been started by other veteran promenent members with the same question, I guarantee you things would have been different.....Only when someone wants to knock you down a notch or two for being different, for what ever reason does this happen??.

For anyone to come to the conclusion that I think that Im better than the next guy, you are reading something from my verbage thats simply not there. In fact Im a guy that has spent 30 years in maintenance not construction, so Im way behind you guys in that requard and have alot to learn. I was just expressing some thoughts as I had to deal with a sloppy installation that day and it caused me to have bend several three bend saddles over and under anothers person installation and it frustrated me. So I thought it would be a good topic for discussion , but NO

So...If I've offended ANYONE, I personaly apologize for my verbage, and I hope that you will remind me in the future so I can catch myself before this gets to this ridiculus conclusion that happened today.

I only want to learn from this forum, and sometimes my age and years of experience might be construed as being judgemental but I assure you that's NOT the case, because I no different from any one else ..especially as I've fell way behind not being in construction all of those years.....

Sincerly Mule....

 

[George Stolz]

I think every single run is unique. I can honestly say that I've seen specs call for an extra 50% of available strut left available for future use, and honestly (gasp) had to ignore it. Sometimes you simply can't pack five pounds of product in a one pound sack. It's all well and good to point at the electrician in some circumstances and say they went against the specs, but it was within the designer's power to lower the ceiling a couple feet (or even 6") and if they refuse, then they share the blame, IMO.

Now, if we are talking about someone installing a 150% large rack, and then direct-90?ing off the rack without a kick to knock it out of line of future pipes, then that's pretty stupid.

Now, here's something I want to point out - all the talk about Kias, Pintos and Cadillacs misses something that Mule is probably trying to point out in his last post. With the same material, the same time involved, then the outcome should be the same. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say perhaps Bob & Marc are talking about a job that you'd love to pipe (Cadillac) but the customer only wants MC or even NM installed (Kia).

Do you fellas who are talking about Kias actually bid a job with reduced labor, but the same material, for the net effect of saving a customer some money and have a less-than-professional-looking installation in the end?

 

[Sparky555]

All jobs get my "A" game & I don't get frustrated by having to do a few saddle bends.

 

[gra electric]

wow!!

wow!!

I guess i really opened a can of worms huh? I meant no disrespect of others, but i feel worrying about the next guy is back seat to getting my own work done. I would never intentionally "screw" the next guy. Heck, sometimes i thought i was helping the next guy, only to have one of my guys look at it different, and I WAS actually screwing the next guy. You ask 5 different guys how they would lay out a job, and you will get 5 different layouts. I appologize for starting all the trouble mule. Everyone stay safe out there.

Gerry

 

[ohm]

Much of the work I've done is "grass roots" multi-million industrial where me and as many as 300 like me design a job in 3D CAD for 2 or 3 years. We all work on the same set of drawings but each discipline is allocated a number of layers. The final set on one job required an 18 wheeler to haul.

We usually all use layer 0 (the building footprint) but turn off a lot of the other disciplines, as needed. We then run an "interference check" to make sure our work is not messing up with another guys stuff. If there is a problem we work it out. We do this every week or so.

Therefore, future work can be planned years ahead of time. Basically it's the same as driving a car...if you want to turn to the right you get in the slow lane long before making the turn.

When the job goes to the field for another year or so you don't want to be the EC, MC, etc. who deviates from the plan.

I realize this may not fit everybodys business model, but tha same principles apply to any scale.

Running four pieces of MC cable to the same spot is usually less cost effective than one conduit run and takes up a lot less footprint.

 

[petersonra]

A big part of the answer is how much is the customer willing to pay now to make posisble future work easier.

 

[peter]

"that has spent 30 years in maintenance not construction,"
Having a maintenance background when in the construction field is a handicap. I would say that 95%+ of the guys in the field have no concept of the long term implications of their handiwork as far as reliability, ease of repair or the subtle quality of craftsmanship. Example: try tracing a particular MC cable that is interwoven into a tangled bundle of such cables.
One aspect of this topic [thinking about the next guy] is realizing that the next step is to pull wires through it. Obviously, minimizing the number of bends is the first thing that comes to mind. Usings super bends [large radius] in the appropriate positions should help. Avoid 45* bends. Use 22.5* bends instead of 30*. Locate pull points [boxes, LBs, etc.] in accessable locations. In other words, don't put them 20' up in the air when there is going to be a drop ceiling at 10'.
Is it easier to do three 3/4" inch saddles over a 1/2" conduit or a 1/2" saddle over three 3/4" inch conduits? I was faced with this situation once and it might have been easier to just rip out that 1/2" junk which was just laziness.
I totally agree about not running on the bottom of the red bar joists.
A lot of people are stupid. They just look at the initial price and not the long term costs such as ease of repair, shut downs and so on.
~Peter

 

[ohm]

A big part of the answer is how much is the customer willing to pay now to make posisble future work easier.

True Bob, if the owner takes no interest in the job or is a renter etc. all he wants is the light to light for as little time & money as possible.

I try to walk away from these guys.

 

[Greg Swartz]

A lot of people are stupid. They just look at the initial price and not the long term costs such as ease of repair, shut downs and so on.
~Peter

If you have ever done work for the state or local governments, you may be familiar with bidding wars.
If you are 1 single penny less than I am, you just beat me out.

And, if you forgot something on the bid, then you are eating that cost.

So, if there is no room in the bid for any of the items you listed... sorry.

I bid a job recently, and was the low bidder (by about 1/2%) until the last 30 minutes of the bid deadline. Then someone underbid us all by nearly 30%...

The customer did not question why. They took his bid. And if he had some super awesome way to do work, then great for him. But if not... then he just lost money on that job. And a lot of money too. (And as I followed the job, there were several other areas that fell short too).

Too often we run into this thinking by our customer: Everyone will wire it the same way.
That puts us all on an equal playing field. All things considering, we're not all equal. We all have strenths and weaknesses. We all look at things differently.
So, do we change our customer?
Or do we adjust our product to fit the customer?

As long as the NEC is not compromised, I have no problem giving the customer exactly what they want.

If you want cheap... I can do that.
If you want quality... I can to that too.
But the two cannot be combined.
(I asked a customer recently if he wanted cheap or quality... he responed that he wanted some cheap quality!) :roll:

Again, not breaking the NEC.

 

[ohm]

If you have ever done work for the state or local governments, you may be familiar with bidding wars.
If you are 1 single penny less than I am, you just beat me out.

And, if you forgot something on the bid, then you are eating that cost.

So, if there is no room in the bid for any of the items you listed... sorry.

I bid a job recently, and was the low bidder (by about 1/2%) until the last 30 minutes of the bid deadline. Then someone underbid us all by nearly 30%...

True Greg, I suspect the last minute bid was deliberate just to ensure if his first price was leaked and just barely underbid he could come back and win it.

The customer did not question why. They took his bid. And if he had some super awesome way to do work, then great for him. But if not... then he just lost money on that job. And a lot of money too. (And as I followed the job, there were several other areas that fell short too).

I put a bid out on some pressure relief valves..one bidder was under everyone else by 50% so I recommended him. He called back in about an hour..said he didn't notice the operating temperature was over 800 deg F and needed to be a chrome molly body (twice the bucks). We let him off the hook that time.

Too often we run into this thinking by our customer: Everyone will wire it the same way.

True, I did a bid on an office remodel...everyone was talking EMT but, none of the wiring went in the same direction. I was low but the owner let others in on my plan and allowed them to rebid..now I lost.

That puts us all on an equal playing field. All things considering, we're not all equal. We all have strenths and weaknesses. We all look at things differently.
So, do we change our customer?
Or do we adjust our product to fit the customer?

As long as the NEC is not compromised, I have no problem giving the customer exactly what they want.

If you want cheap... I can do that.
If you want quality... I can to that too.
But the two cannot be combined.
(I asked a customer recently if he wanted cheap or quality... he responed that he wanted some cheap quality!) :roll:

Again, not breaking the NEC.

I've never had anyone actually say they wanted it CHEAP the usually say inexpensive.

 

[growler]

I've never had anyone actually say they wanted it CHEAP the usually say inexpensive.

You must deal with a better class of customer because I have herd the word cheap many times ( Sometimes I think I'm living in an aviary, what did the little birdy say? ).

If you ask a remodeling contractor to make a decision on a product you will invariably hear, whatever is cheapest. I'm sure they mean best value but the word cheap does come up a lot. :grin::grin::grin:

What the little birdy say? cheap, cheap,cheap!!!

 

[Fulthrotl]

I've never had anyone actually say they wanted it CHEAP the usually say inexpensive.

of course not... inexpensive is what they say, cheap is what they are.....

 

[LarryFine]

Why does Ohm's quote of Greg's post include text that Greg's post does not have? Specifically, about the bid on pressure relief valves. Where did that text come from?

 

[petersonra]

True Bob, if the owner takes no interest in the job or is a renter etc. all he wants is the light to light for as little time & money as possible.

I try to walk away from these guys.

There are two lines of thinking. One is that you try and figure out what you might need down the road and accommodate it.

The other is that no matter what you decide today about what you might need tomorrow, you will be wrong so do the minimum required for what you actually know about today.

Most of our customers are firmly in both camps.

 

[ohm]

Why does Ohm's quote of Greg's post include text that Greg's post does not have? Specifically, about the bid on pressure relief valves. Where did that text come from?

I was trying to mix my comments into specific portions of Greg's post but forgot it should have been in italics...so much for being cute.

 

[Rockyd]

Watching Greg on the commentary on a couple of threads last day or two...Starting to believe the guy is "stuck on smart". Capturing a bid within a 1/2% is being "in the club" for the neighborhood, takes a pretty sharp pencil.

 

[petersonra]

how many of you guys have done the internet bidding where you bid live against other bidders until the other bidders panic and drop out?

 

[ohm]

how many of you guys have done the internet bidding where you bid live against other bidders until the other bidders panic and drop out?

Does e-bay count?