From an installers viewpoint, the list is endless. It seems like every single day I am cussing out some college educated designer/engineer for doing something stupid. It's usually something very simple and if they actually assembled/installed on unit in the field, they would regognize and change the design. They figure, "it works on paper so let's ship it out".
College educated does not mean perfect. It means we were dumb enough to spend an ungodly amount of money to start a career with very little true experience. I learned NOTHING in college that has honestly helped out with my career (of course my degree is Industrial Engineering and not Electrical Engineering...)
As far as your specific job, I would suggest that you do not specify a fixture without at least taking it apart and actually looking at it. Better yet, install one. The crap the designers and architects specify from catalogs is astounding. They assume that the product is good because it's expensive. Wrong.
View any new, untested product with skepticism.
I would love to have the time and resources to do that ...
But alas I don't, that's why I asked this question to begin with (and had another thread asking about a specific product that I'm interested in specifying but have never used).
PS.
Don't put lights above stairwells. No one like to set up scafflod to change a light bulb.
Working on stairwell lighting right now ... I can't come up with another more efficient means of lighting. Scaffolding once a year to replace all the lighting (max) will just have to be the way to go.
Don't put photocells on rooftops unless absiolutely necessary and spec out a simple Pcell override switch for maintenance purposes.
Where else would the photocell that controls the exterior lighting go? I do like the Pcell override switch ... thanks for the idea!
Don't put light pole in grass areas.
Why wouldn't you want light poles in grassy areas? My experience has always been to put them in islands and in the grassy perimeter. Less chance of a pole being hit by a car.
Don't put wallpacks over canopies (again, maintenance access)
That's understandable, I need to remind myself often to look at elevation drawings as I place exterior wall packs.
PPS.
Limit your cut and pasting. At least read it and understand it before you spread it around. I can't believe the amount of BS that gets put into plans this way.
I am guilty of this and have been embarrassed by it more than once. Heck ... I've been embarassed by the notes I wrote myself more than once! :roll: Eventually I'll learn ....
That's funny...the design meetings are about the same. We go through the drawings from front to back, so the E-sheets are always last.
By the time the architects go through everything right down to exactly what type of pulls go on the cabinet drawers, everyone is asleep.
I'm lucky if I get 10 min. to cover everything from power to lighting, to fire alarm, to communicatiions and systems.
Steve
Been in both positions. By the time they are too the elec division in design mtgs we are out of time because other divisions ran over their "alotted" time. A couple of architects I'm working with have recently gone to time "slots" for all divisions so everyone doesn't have to be there all day ... but I've still managed to get squeezed out of time. <shaking head>
The actual design time (not mtg time) is very similar as well. The due date is 3/1 ... the mechanical folks won't have given their info to me until 2/27 ... guaranteed ... no matter how much I've pestered them! But yet it all has to be done.
Luckily I'm now doing schools and most of the equipment is similar from job to job. I'll put everything in as placeholder early and, theoretically, I just have to update loads and double check locations prior to final print.
