Temp repairs and liability.

[220/221]

WWYD?

Where do you draw the line? Often a temp repair is required to get a building up and running while a permanant solution is worked out thru engineers, inspectors and POCO's.

No one wants to shut down a business or move to a hotel for weeks/months until everything gets done but what is the dollar value assigned to the liability in temp repair situations?

Last week I looked at an old commercial building (strip center circa 1960) with no AC to two of the units, occupied by the same tennant.

I found 2 services which had been cobbled together to make one. The AC breaker/bus was gone. Obviously there wasn't a quick permanant solution but there was a way to get AC back up as safe as it was before.

In the old days I would have just done it. Now days I am more concerned with liability. I was going to temp repair it but wanted to be compensated for my liability. About two hours of breaker/panel juggling and a handfull of breakers would have gotten the AC's back on (it's still 105+ here).

At T&M rates it would have been about $500 but I asked for $1025 and a promise that they fix it right, right away....by somebody qualified.

I didn't get a return call so I assume he is trying to find someone else.

 

[cschmid]

Only your' lawyer and insurance company can answer that question..

 

[Rewire]

Compensated for your liability? I do temp fixes all the time I use an in house form that the customer signs stating that the repair is of temporary nature and that a permanent repair is needed.I usually get the permenant repair job and if I dont here from them I follow up with a call.

 

[aline]

Another option would have been to charge the $1025 but state that they'll recieve a credit of $500 towards the permanent repair if they have you do it.

This would give them more of an incentive to have the work done and have you do the work if they'll get $500 back by having you do it.

 

[220/221]

Only your' lawyer and insurance company can answer that question..

They aren't qualified to answer the question. They don't know what kind of PHYSICAL liability exists. If they considered the general liability they wouldn't want me to do anything.

I do temp fixes all the time I use an in house form that the customer signs stating that the repair is of temporary nature and that a permanent repair is needed

Is it legal in your state? A LOT of temp repairs would not pass inspection. The temp repair I was considering wouldn't pass. There are 2 service, one abandoned at the top of the riser, then reconnected, then blanked off at the meter, then refed from the hot service with fuse panels inside the suites.

In the olden days it wouldn't phase me but now I'm afraid to take a dump without a waiver from a certified plumber saying that the toilet was in proper working order.

 

[Rewire]

They aren't qualified to answer the question. They don't know what kind of PHYSICAL liability exists. If they considered the general liability they wouldn't want me to do anything.




Is it legal in your state? A LOT of temp repairs would not pass inspection. The temp repair I was considering wouldn't pass. There are 2 service, one abandoned at the top of the riser, then reconnected, then blanked off at the meter, then refed from the hot service with fuse panels inside the suites.

In the olden days it wouldn't phase me but now I'm afraid to take a dump without a waiver from a certified plumber saying that the toilet was in proper working order.

Why the fear?Get insurance cover yourself as best as you can cross the Ts dot the Is and do the job.You can limit your exsposure within the framework of the laws of your state,Nothing can keep myou from being sued but what you do can let you prevail.

 

[Sparky555]

Why not contract for the full repair, but do a temp as part of the contract?

Dave

 

[growler]

No one wants to shut down a business or move to a hotel for weeks/months until everything gets done but what is the dollar value assigned to the liability in temp repair situations?

I'm even more paranoid than you are. The dollar value I assign is whatever it would cost to do the job in a correct and safe manner. If they want to give a contract to do the repairs then I will temp things up after I have permit to do the job. At this point it becomes a job in progress. This way I know it will be repaired correctly as soon a possible.

I have done temp repairs and the owners don't care if it's temped or not it's working and that's good enough for them.


Edit: What Dave said. I'm a little slow.

 

[charlietuna]

i have been involved in some major emergency repairs and never given it a thought--to me it's all in the trade -- got the inspection department involved with the situation--got the permits as soon as possible and always did the repair job. had a 4000 amp-480 volt vault bus stubb fail at 2:30pm and had the building temporarily on line the next morning at 7:00am. required running eight 500mcm cu cables per phase on the floor of the switchgear room and through the power company's vault door. a 166 foot 480 volt-4000 amp extention cord. then building a plywood floor over the top of the cables to protect them. asked my inspector what type of permit i needed--he told me "when you get done, come by the office and get a circus permit"! another building's bus duct fire occured the wednesday before Thanksgiving and the original building contractor told the building owners he was not allowed to do anything temporary? he could order the required new parts and install them--four weeks delivery-but could do nothing more! they called us and we rigged it-and did the repair when the replacement parts were available. got to the point that we had a collection of bus duct jumper plates for most manufacturers!!

 

[220/221]

Why the fear?Get insurance cover yourself as best as you can cross the Ts dot the Is and do the job.You can limit your exsposure within the framework of the laws of your state

Insurance is not the problem and fear is not the subject.

I probably rambled on but my question was, would you charge more for a temp repair like this which posed extra liability (as opposed to a repair that was code compliant)?

Or...would you even DO a non compliant temp repair?

i have been involved in some major emergency repairs and never given it a thought--to me it's all in the trade

I USED to be like that. The internet is making me skeered.

 

[charlietuna]

Actually-if you leave your service truck parked in your driveway and do not go to work--you are fairly safe??? you will soon be out of business but SAFE. everything we do carries some degree of liability weather it's new material on a new install or used material on an emergency install...

 

[LarryFine]

Actually-if you leave your service truck parked in your driveway and do not go to work--you are fairly safe??? you will soon be out of business but SAFE. everything we do carries some degree of liability weather it's new material on a new install or used material on an emergency install...

"A ship in the harbor is safe ~ but that's not what ships are for."

 

[ohm]

"A ship in the harbor is safe ~ but that's not what ships are for."

That's good! Would you please sign a rlease for me (in triplicate) so I may quote you?

 

[Rewire]

I guess the question is when you do a temp fix is it safe.I have done safe but not code compliant temps

 

[mdshunk]

I guess the question is when you do a temp fix is it safe.I have done safe but not code compliant temps

I've always just used the working premise that there are additional safe ways to install electrical wiring that don't seem to square with the code, only nobody's figured out a good way to word it yet to be placed in the NEC.

 

[growler]

i have been involved in some major emergency repairs and never given it a thought--to me it's all in the trade -- got the inspection department involved with the situation--got the permits as soon as possible and always did the repair job. had a 4000 amp-480 volt vault bus stubb fail at 2:30pm and had the building temporarily on line the next morning at 7:00am. required running eight 500mcm cu cables per phase on the floor of the switchgear room and through the power company's vault door. a 166 foot 480 volt-4000 amp extention cord. then building a plywood floor over the top of the cables to protect them.

Yes, but you wouldn't have done this job and just left them with a notice that it needed to be repaired would you? You got the inspection department involved and ordered parts to finish the job correctly.

220/221 is talking about doing a non-compliant job and leaving it up to the building owner to find someone to finish the work when they find it convenient. I know where there is a temp. job that was done six years ago for the city and still hasn't been made permanent. I'm glad I had nothing to do with that mess. It's still there and someone could get injured or killed and I'm not sure who would get the blame. Temping something up for a short time is one thing but a lot of temp jobs become permanent repairs unless you have a contract to finish the work.

That job in the switch gear room sounds reasonable. A switch gear room is not open to the public and can be secured. Not much risk. How would you feel about open cables running in a suspended ceiling for 6 years. Sounds a little more risky doesn't it.

 

[ceb58]

I was doing a large remodel on a 1915 home, I had temp. wiring going every where keeping things going as I tore out and replaced. Circ. were in boxes with covers and placed out of the way of traffic and such. Unbeknown to me the plumbers had called for rough in. I was working when the inspector walked in, he completed his insp. of the plumbing and was looking at my new work that I had installed. We talked for a while and I mentioned the temp. power I had ran thinking I would cut him off at the pass before he said anything about it. He then made a statement that has always stuck with me. "You are the electrician on the job. As long as you make it safe so no one gets hurt and I can tell it's not part of the permanent install you can do what you want".

 

[Buck Parrish]

Why not contract for the full repair, but do a temp as part of the contract?

That's what I would do. I just tell them to fix it you will need to up grade your service and it's going to cost $xx,xxx.xx . After I have the signed contract. Then I will give a temp fix if it's feesable.

 

[220/221]

Why not contract for the full repair, but do a temp as part of the contract?

In THIS case, repair would have taken 2 or 3 hours, business is up and running.

Just to quote it properly would have taken several days...probably a week. No AC, no business in the AZ summer. 105 with 30% humidity the past couple days.

Contact owner, tennant, city, POCO and EE and suppliers based on they way YOU would do it. Leave voice mails and the game begins.

It would be WEEKS before an actual contract could be signed.

A couple months ago I was convinced NOT to repair a six pack (one of 20) on an apartment project. The bus was burned to one of the units and I picked up some copper stock to fashion a new one.

I decided based on the replies here NOT to repair it and I am glad I did. It turned into a fiasco that, as far as I know is STILL not resolved. Apparently AC's had been added to all units and new feeders and upgraded services needed to be installed. If I would have helped them out, who know what kind of stuff I could have gotten us into.

 

[charlietuna]

i would never consider an emergency repair with the idea of another contractor finishing the repair. and i don't think the inspection department would allow such a deal? to take over my permit they would need my signature along with the approval of the building department. although the emergency repair is far from code complient --my responsibility is to keep the installation safe. in all these cases we are back on site the following days/weeks gathering demensions and information for the manufacturer along with monitoring amperages and assuring the emergency install is safe and remains that way. the vault bus stub expolsion required a three day weekend to replace existing damaged switchgear that had to be replaced by removing the original gear piece by piece and then replacing it by rebuilding the new gear in place since the room had no access for the assembled switchboard. it was G.E. gear and we hired two factory assemblers to assemble the new gear. it was quite a feat! and i was not a big contractor, but gutsy! this service was on a55 story building.