Nightmare job

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I'll tell you what most owners I encounter would do in this situation.

Cap the plumbing, remove the sink.

Get electrical inspection finalized.

Re-install sink.
 
kwired said:
I'll tell you what most owners I encounter would do in this situation.

Cap the plumbing, remove the sink.

Get electrical inspection finalized.

Re-install sink.
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Key difference: this is a commercial establishment. In NJ, they would be subject to a fire inspection once a year or so. If the fire inspector happens to spot that, he'll gladly pass that along to the building department.
 
kwired said:
I'll tell you what most owners I encounter would do in this situation.

Cap the plumbing, remove the sink.

Get electrical inspection finalized.

Re-install sink.
Click to expand...


That's what I would advise if they didn't want to pay a considerable amount to get the panels moved.

That sink really isn't rquired so they can probably find one that is small enough to be out of the way. If they need some sort to table space they can use something that's portable.

You always have problems when you work with/for idiots.
 
gadfly56 said:
Key difference: this is a commercial establishment. In NJ, they would be subject to a fire inspection once a year or so. If the fire inspector happens to spot that, he'll gladly pass that along to the building department.
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I understand, some places you will get caught eventually.

Here you mostly only get caught on something like that if you do some construction, maybe change owners on some types of occupancy, or have a fire or injury incident.

Fire marshal apparently doesn't come into places like schools as much as one would thing they do outside of inspecting new construction. Had one nearby in recent years where a concerned patron of the district got fire marshal called in to look things over, came up with a huge list of things that needed attention, many were things that should have been addressed years ago if they were in there doing any kind of annual inspections, and I can tell you many surrounding schools have many similar issues, they just didn't have a whistle blower yet.
 
ggunn said:
You would advise them to willfully and deceptively violate code? I wouldn't.
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Yeahhh...I'm not sure if that would constitute an act of malfeasance and grounds for pulling your ticket, but I'd let someone else test that situation.
 
ggunn said:
You would advise them to willfully and deceptively violate code? I wouldn't.
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You would probably be surprised by how little I care about what people do on a job after I have passed inspection and leave a job.

As I said they can find a small sink and be legal or they can reinstall this sink and create a violation but the choice is theirs.
 
Fire marshal is the building owner's brother and is the go to contact for all construction questions or getting keys etc... He doesn't care about anything... As a matter of fact when demo first started there were a bunch of fake sprinkler heads in the ceiling not attached to anything just for show and when I asked him he said it was no big deal

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
 
Eric23 said:
Fire marshal is the building owner's brother and is the go to contact for all construction questions or getting keys etc... He doesn't care about anything... As a matter of fact when demo first started there were a bunch of fake sprinkler heads in the ceiling not attached to anything just for show and when I asked him he said it was no big deal

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
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OK, so where exactly are you so I don't ever move there, work there, or let my kids do so either.
 
Of course the problem is that it makes it unsafe for the next electrician whom has to work on that panel. Lucky the sink is plastic.

I provide electrical maintenance for an apartment complex in Indiana. You wouldn't believe it, ALL their electric panels are in a closet behind a water heater. One of them you have to use a stubby screw driver to get the bottom panel cover screws off. All whilst standing on a step stool and laying on your chest on a metal water heater with copper pipes touching your arms. None of them have standing room in front of the panel. Because the water heater is their.

If I had to do much to the panel. I would tell them will have to move it. Lucky most of the calls evolved something other then a breaker or panel problem. This complex is only ten years old.

I have told them in writing. That for safety they need to meet the clearance code for the electric panels.
 
Buck Parrish said:
Of course the problem is that it makes it unsafe for the next electrician whom has to work on that panel. Lucky the sink is plastic.

I provide electrical maintenance for an apartment complex in Indiana. You wouldn't believe it, ALL their electric panels are in a closet behind a water heater. One of them you have to use a stubby screw driver to get the bottom panel cover screws off. All whilst standing on a step stool and laying on your chest on a metal water heater with copper pipes touching your arms. None of them have standing room in front of the panel. Because the water heater is their.

If I had to do much to the panel. I would tell them will have to move it. Lucky most of the calls evolved something other then a breaker or panel problem. This complex is only ten years old.

I have told them in writing. That for safety they need to meet the clearance code for the electric panels.
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I see much entertainment value in the future.

Fire Chief: "Man, we had a hell of a time with that electrical fire in Apartment 10."

Fire Inspector: "How's that?"

Fire Chief: "Freak'n water heater was right in the closet in front of the panel. Had to chop it out to get to the last bit of the fire in the wall. I heard from the electrician all the apartments were like that."

Fire Inspector [in an evil tone]: "Oh, really.....?"
 
growler said:
You would probably be surprised by how little I care about what people do on a job after I have passed inspection and leave a job.
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I might not care but I wouldn't counsel anyone on how to get away with code violations. In a worst case scenario I could be putting my PE license in jeopardy.
 
ggunn said:
I might not care but I wouldn't counsel anyone on how to get away with code violations. In a worst case scenario I could be putting my PE license in jeopardy.
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For a PE, that's a minimum case scenario.
 
gadfly56 said:
For a PE, that's a minimum case scenario.
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I meant if there's a fire or something followed by an investigation, but even if not it's something that I just won't do. A couple of times in the past I have been asked to stamp a drawing that was in violation because "they will never check". Um, nope, sorry.
 
Eric23 said:
The problem is after they fail this I'm going to have to fix it.. the customers already said that if the inspector doesn't like it she'll have me spin the panels around to face the room on the other side...
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So many people seem to think that doing that is a "duck soup job". It'a real PITA including electrical "down time". You'll probably have to do it at night.
 
Eric23 said:
To be honest the inspector.......opened up one box to see and then left. He was there for 5 Minutes
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There's a little joke among several EI's that I've met over the years. When they come out to inspect your jobs they don't want to spend an unnecessary amount of time actually doing the inspection. They tell me "If there's a song I like playing on the radio when I pull up, I want the same song to be playing when I get back to my car".:p
 
kwired said:
I'll tell you what most owners I encounter would do in this situation.

Cap the plumbing, remove the sink.

Get electrical inspection finalized.

Re-install sink.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't you think any inspector would pick up on the fact that there are water feed lines and a drain line in that exact spot so that a sink could be installed some time in the future ? Do inspectors have a right to come and inspect a commercial building at any time ?
 
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