It was approved
Is EMT a conduit?
- Thread starter WirenutNH
- Start date
- Status
It was approved
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
Well no I don't do many large jobs, but I do jobs that have been designed by engineers. Most of time for customers I already know. For what ever reasons they have had engineer drawn plans, when asking for price they may get 2 prices from me. One is per the design specifications, the other is for my design specifications that I would have done in absence of any other plans. Guess which plan usually gets installed. What is engineers liability? Probably none if not done to his specifications. What is my liability? Likely same whether I installed to engineers plan or not. If something goes terribly wrong everyone involved in this project will be subjected to being blamed for something.
And I really don't understand what you are trying to say. I consider jobs less than 250K small jobs, 250 to 700K decent size jobs and jobs above that large. (some others may consider these numbers small) On a recent job my first wire PO included 129 one thousand foot spools of 500 KCMIL.
With that said, I sit in meetings where designs are disscussed and savings are negotiated on a regular basis. If the owner is offered a savings and the option is not detrimental to the product, the engineer of record will do a change to the design and all is good.
If the designer and the customer think the contractor has not followed the intent of the contract documents they can ask for a credit and then if it is contested things go to arbitration ond further up the road.(see John Bonamassa and Eric Clapton
)Roger
Exactly.
For example, usually one of the first things VE'd out of a job is Lightning Protection.
The Engineer has specified it, but owner takes the dollar credit thinking, hey, this is a Church.
Lightning will never strike this building
At that point the Engineer has no liability
Sorry to get off on a VE tangent.....Back to tubing
- Location
- Massachusetts
Many of the prints we get specify EMT, which quickly gets value engineered to MC.
twoelk
Member
- Location
- USA, West Coast
If you didn't know before you submitted the bid, you should have sent an RFI. If you assumed, but put it in your clarifications why would you give a credit?
We don't know if the OP clarified it.
The claim for credit is after completion.
We still don't know if the OP got a marked up submittal back.
The way I see it is,
1) the Engineer had lousy documents,
2) the EC didn't RFI when a) EMT wasn't drawn, noted, specified, b) didn't question when the submittal didn't come back (it could have come back rejected or approved..who knows?)
3) the Engineer didn't check the progress of the job vs his so called documents.
3) the GC, who is in charge of review and compliance of submittals, didn't question it. A good GC has coordination meetings that flush out these things. Even a question about EMT in a meeting would have been documented and addressed.
Sloppy all around.
But guess who gets to take it in the shorts?
weressl
Esteemed Member
Legally he is correct, but his timing is off. He should have stated this when you submitted - I presume you're talking either about your bid, or installation plans during Constructions. He should have asked for the credit at that time.
twoelk
Member
- Location
- USA, West Coast
So is thin wall conduit or tubing?:lol:
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
And I really don't understand what you are trying to say. I consider jobs less than 250K small jobs, 250 to 700K decent size jobs and jobs above that large. (some others may consider these numbers small) On a recent job my first wire PO included 129 one thousand foot spools of 500 KCMIL.
With that said, I sit in meetings where designs are disscussed and savings are negotiated on a regular basis. If the owner is offered a savings and the option is not detrimental to the product, the engineer of record will do a change to the design and all is good.
If the designer and the customer think the contractor has not followed the intent of the contract documents they can ask for a credit and then if it is contested things go to arbitration ond further up the road.(see John Bonamassa and Eric Clapton
Roger
I am saying that my large jobs are small jobs to you. There are still some similarities just on a different scale and the work and money is not split as many ways. Projects still in general have services, feeders, branch circuits, utilization equipment, etc. Engineering is still done on some of those smaller projects.
I get your point alot of us are not doing projects that size which means you have learned alot of problems that can occur with these type situations, trial and error. There is no doubt that if I had done the same project as OP I would have made same mistake. Thanks to this thread I will be looking for this type issue. OP has no choice but to negotiate.
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weressl
Esteemed Member
You're falling into the same trap as the Obamacare plan did. You're arguing not the dispute, but what you percieve to be the case, but even arguing that will/would not win your case. (The Government argued that its policy does fit under the Commerce clause and the majority ruled that it is not a Comemrce clause, but a Taxation 'right'.) You're arguing the in trade language tubing is understood to be conduit - and you're correct - but in the NEC there is a different description and section for each. Nowhere in the NEC tubing is identified as conduit.
The engineer will still loose though as the contractor claimed to have 'submitted' that he will be suing EMT and the engineer did not raise objection at that time, only after the job was finished, or near to it, did he tried to extort credit. If that is the case I would only have one stipulation. If the Contractor only submmitted the EMT substitute after the bid was awarded, he should have offered some credit, usually split the profit. That would be integrity........
weressl
Esteemed Member
What we have here from the beginning is either a failure of an Engineer to clearly specify his job, or a failure of tha Contractor to properly review his construction documents. The code has nothing to do with it.
I am not sure your argument can sell.
The NEC has everything to do with it. In it there are several different installation material identified as 'conduit'. Based on the engineers documents it would have been acceptable to install ANY of those and nor argument can be raised, however using something that is identified as 'tubing' certainly opens up this question.
However, the installer 'submitted' that he will be using EMT in some places as 'conduit' and the engineer's opposition to it shouold be raised THEN.
So it appers that the installer is correct, but not for the argument you present.
weressl
Esteemed Member
If it was approved and no credit was asked for it then, you can safely tell the engineer to take a hike, or the legal equivalent of it.:lol:
If it was submitted AFTER you were awarded the Contract, you should have offered some credit. (You can still do that. It is never too late to do the right thing.....
)
- Location
- Massachusetts
Approving an item in a submittal does not mean you can use the product in a way that varies from the specifications.
We often submit SER and NM because we use those for temps, the approval of the submittal does not mean we can use NM and SER for everything on the job.
weressl
Esteemed Member
I agree, of course, but read the OP: "We submitted on EMT and RMC, used RMC where it specifically called out for it. but where plans stated conduit not RMC we used EMT." Even if he did not spelled it out "we will use EMT where 'conduit' is specified and RMC where it say so, if the Owner did not asked for further qualifications, he may won his case.
If it was approved and no credit was asked for it then, you can safely tell the engineer to take a hike, or the legal equivalent of it.:lol:
If it was submitted AFTER you were awarded the Contract, you should have offered some credit. (You can still do that. It is never too late to do the right thing.....
It was submitted on and the only response from engineer was conduit shall be used, not RMC also the EMT was accepted was not noted not accepted or resubmit
Well now...there's a tidbit of info that took 8 pages to get.
So what do you think the Engineer's beef is?
Or is there some other tidbit you're not sharing, like say....a spec?
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
Im only on page 2 - but with display set for 40 posts per page the next one will be on page 3.
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