Existing wiring code violations

Merry Christmas
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

majpe

Member
Location
i live in riverside rhode island and work in burli
i am designing a renovation to a public school. while the ceiling was down for fire protection installation, the town electrical inspector noted some junction boxes without covers and other code violations. Who is responsible for the repair? i expected the electrician to submit a rfi for repair, but he did not. the town is tell ing me that i am responsible. is this true? how can i defend myself?
 
Include the repairs in your design/bid. There is no way to make the original contractor come back and make the repairs; he will claim that they were obviously in place at one time since the job passed inspection. It is going to be hard to separate your work from the existing work, so you better CYA when you submit your bid either by covering these repairs are wording your contract to ensure that you will not be held responsible for these existing violations. The trick will be in protecting yourself and still having a proposal that the customer finds acceptable. Are you the electrician performing the renovation or the general contractor?
 
How can you guarantee that the missing covers, etc. were not removed in the course of your work, when the inspector (or a different inspector) comes back to final the job? All he is going to see is a violation and you were the last electrician on the job. The only other way is to document all existing violations prior to the beginning of the work and exclude them from your contract. It sounds like it may already be too late for that. Maybe someone else has a different experience. It may not hjurt to have a long talk with the AHJ to determine exactly what they are going to require as far as the existing violations.
 
Hey guys, you are missing something. The person asking for help is an engineer, not an electrician. His role was the design of a renovation project. The role of a design engineer does not include repair of existing problems.

If the engineer were to discover problems in the course of the design process, including preliminary site visits, periodic meetings, and walk-throughs with prospective electrical contractors, the engineer?s duty is to report the problems to the owner. The engineer does not ?own? the problem, the engineer is not responsible for the costs associated with resolving the problem.

If the engineer were to ?poke his head through? the ceiling opening (not a requirement, if none of the engineer?s design efforts will result in electrical work being done in that area), he might discover the problems. But the fact that this particular engineer did not do so, and did not discover the problems on his own, does not transfer responsibility for repairs to the engineer.

This is the owner?s problem. The owner can pay an electrician to fix the issues, and if necessary can pay an engineer to create a design that resolves the issue. But the engineer is not at financial risk for electrical code violations that he did not create, and that he could not have been reasonably expected to discover.
 
majpe said:
It was my stamp, and they are blaming me for missing it. my liability, and my boss is not happy.
Click to expand...
The application of your seal does not assert that everything in the building is up to code.

Your seal does nothing more than to assert that the work (as described in any drawings, specifications, reports, and calculations that display that seal) was done by you or under your supervision. But what work, exactly, does that statement cover? What was your scope of work? What were your design tasks?

If your work, the work covered by your seal, did not include anything above this particular ceiling, then the fact that there were existing code violations is not your fault.

Without reading your contract, and without reviewing your design package, I cannot tell whether you ?should have? noticed the problems. But I tend to doubt that there is anything in writing that could be interpreted as including, in your scope of work, an inspection for existing code violations. Absent such a clause in your contract, any attempt to ?pin this on you? is inappropriate.
 
majpe said:
this is already on the street thru a gc. i think i'm in trouble. my boss wanted to know why i did not stick my head above the ceiling. i told him i was not installing anything there, so why look?
Click to expand...

"i told him i was not installing anything there, so why look?"
That's right !

I agree with Charlie. . It's the schools problem not yours. . As long as your not interacting with the equipment that's in violation, it's not in your scope, it's not your problem or liability legally or financially. . It's the schools problem and between them and the jurisdiction building department.

David
 
majpe said:
is there a code article I can reference that states your reply?
Click to expand...
This is not a code issue. The code will tell you, for example, about junction box covers. If the code were to require them, and if they are not there, then there would be an existing code violation.

But the NEC has no interest in assigning blame for code violations. It does nothing more than to state the requirements. You need to look at your contract, and at any documents that you included in your design package. I suspect, as I stated earlier, that your work did not include an inspection of the entire building. But if, for the sake of discussion, the contract did require you to inspect the whole building, and if it required you to make a report of any code violations you discover, and if your report did not include these particular problems, then you might be called to task for ?errors and omissions.? So tell me, is that set of requirements in your contract? Did you sign and seal a report that stated that there are no existing code violations?
 
no i have not

no i have not

charlie, inspection of the existing conditions was not in our contract scope. our scope included only provisions of hvac, sprinklers, a fire alarm control system (not school of issue). in the school that the violations were noted was only installation of a new main distribution panel (in basement electric room), and powering duct/smokes of new hvac equipment.
 
majpe said:
Charlie, thank you for your reply. is there a code article i can reference that states your reply?
Click to expand...

I think you need to look at how building codes are setup. . Occationally you get a code article that requires an increase in scope. . An example of that is 2006 Residential Code of Ohio 313.1.1 which says:
"Alterations, repairs, and additions. . When interior alterations, repairs, or additions requiring a permit occur, or when one or more sleeping rooms are added or created in existing dwellings, the individual dwelling unit shall be provided with smoke alarms located as required for new dwellings; the smoke alarms shall be interconnected and hard wired."

You see specific language to force an increase in the scope of the work. . But this language used is rare and only applies to the specific situation that it details. . There's nowhere that it says that you take responsibility for every violation in an existing building if you perform any work on/in the building. . If a building code is going to increase your scope, it will say so specifically.

David
 
I did not understand that the OP was an engineer. His OP said that he was designing a renovation. If he was still in the design stages and was aware of code violations, he should probably include correction of these deficiencies in his design. Whoever ends up doing the electrical work on this project will need to be careful that existing deficiencies do not become his problems. After an electrician has been working in the ceiling it will be impossible for the inspector to know whether missing covers are due to thr recent work or have been missing for 20 years. I don't believe that there is any simple answer.
 
majpe said:
post #3
this is already on the street thru a gc. i think i'm in trouble. my boss wanted to know why i did not stick my head above the ceiling. i told him i was not installing anything there, so why look?
Click to expand...

majpe said:
post #14
charlie, inspection of the existing conditions was not in our contract scope. our scope included only provisions of hvac, sprinklers, a fire alarm control system (not school of issue). in the school that the violations were noted was only installation of a new main distribution panel (in basement electric room), and powering duct/smokes of new hvac equipment.
Click to expand...

"i told him i was not installing anything there, so why look?"
"our scope included only provisions of hvac, sprinklers, a fire alarm control system"
Maybe you weren't installing anything up there but do the contractors doing the new work have to interact with any of the areas in violation ?
I'll bet your specs require the bidders to physically view the site and include any issues they will encounter in their bid.

Even if the ELC did interact with something existing that is screwed up, I'll bet your standard contract language leaves him responsible. . I've talked to many ELCs that have gotten "bitten" by that language before.

David
 
majpe said:
Charlie, thank you for your reply. is there a code article i can reference that states your reply?
Click to expand...

This is not an NEC issue although you may have other codes that are applicable.

As much as contractors hate it, this is one reason engineers have the CYA statement that says the contractor must follow all applicable codes even if the engineered "missed" something.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top