Dan's recent P M article

Todd S_8

Do you have a link to this article?

Mad Dog_2

Bravo!!!!

Thanks Dano, your old friend is 100% correct...and no one can turn up the heat and have the company brass pay attention like you can do. Walking around at the recent ashrae events.....seeing all the executives, engineers, wholesalers and salesmen mulling around it struck me how important the end-users of all THEIR products are and how poorly we are often treated and regarded. Of course there are some exceptions, but The Johhny Whites, Glenn Stantons, and Bill Wolfe's are few and far between. Mad Dog

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DanHolohan

Thanks.

That one wrote itself. All I had to do was eat dinner and listen.

Josh M.

A relavant article indeed!!

Dan, I really appreciated your article as well. It needed to be addressed.

I worked for contractors then a rep and then went into contracting for myself.

I can say first hand that the rep is there to sell. They don't care how well the system works. In most cases the guy designing the system has less than a couple months experience in hydronics. The only difference is that he went to a few crash courses by the manufacturers.

Reps look down on contractors too. They feel superior because of their specific product knowledge. What they fail to realize is the contractor has to know so much more on a universal level and has seen what works and what doesn't.

I agree Dan that reps shouldn't be responsible for design. However I don't necessarily think we should hire engineers either. I think we need to educate heating contractors better on design. When marrying the practical with the technical you end up with a well balanced equation.

The Brad Whites of this world are few and far between. Most engineers don't really understand the "it depends" part of the hydronics equation. They like to think of hydronics as more cut and dried like forced air.

They seem to only work with "magic water" as Siggy says. You know water that only works on a 20 degree delta?

I think everyone right down to the guy stapling down the tube should understand how to calculate a head loss. Plumbers need to know how to size pipe, why shouldn't hydronics guys?

My goal is to be able to hand a job lead a heat loss and spec and forget about it.

The only obstacle at that point is the ever shrinking mechanical room. I propose we ban interior designers!! Last week we had one give us a CAD drawing of how we were to mount gas infrared patio heaters. Luckily I'm a nice guy and waited for the customer to leave before telling her that at 7' above floor level we might give a few people permanent orange Afro's!!

Mad Dog_2

Its a shame Brad lives in Mass...for alot of reasons.......

Mad Dog

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Steamhead (in transit)

Dan's Article

Resonated with me, also.

Here's to ya, Mike!


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Paul Pollets

Relevant

I liked the story, and have dealt with most of the complaints mentioned over the years. I don't let reps design my systems...never have and never will. I believe it's the contractors' responsibility to know what he's doing...and know it well. I realize this is a rarity in today's world.

I've learned that to do the larger jobs, one must be prepared to do battle to make it fit and work. Those "battles" get old. I look for the certain signs that tell me the project has been under-engineered or influenced by the 'interior desecrators' before I'll submit a bid. Charging for the proposal and design also eliminates most of the problems. The client suddenly realizes that there's a professional who should have input, and is not to be treated shabbily.

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DanHolohan

It's

here

Josh M.

Paul, I wonder sometimes about east coast vs. west coast mentality. You and I clearly view the contractors responsibility the same.

I would be really curious to spend a week with an east coast installer and see how things are done.

Maybe a good PM article? West coast vs. East coast?

jackchips_2

Excellent, Dan

as usual.

Maybe someday we can have a little sit down and talk and I'll give you one more side to this industry.

I'm bidding a 200 million dollar school and the plumbing should go for around 8 mill. Not a bad job if we land it.

Only one problem. There is so much information missing it's almost impossible to estimate. Engineers just are not given enough time and architects and owners don't want to hear it.

We fill in the blanks as best we can, put a number in, hope we get it with our competition's number within sight and turn it over to our project managers with a great big "Good Luck".

I can not imagine what the HVAC drawings are like.

Sorry for the rant, but your great writing brings this out in a guy.

Jack

Paul Pollets

The same...

Contractors are very similar on both coasts. The issues seem to be more with having control over the project and a relationship with the GC. GC's come in all shapes and sizes, just like the subs. Some don't get "it" and never will. Executing any project tends to have some compromise. Poor design makes any work compromised from the beginning.



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Larry Weingarten

Nice!

Nicely put Dan. Another approach might be design-build. Of course, that would require coordinating things from the start. Our system pits one against the rest most of the time. Seems we can do better. Who likes ulcers?

Yours, Larry

Mad Dog_2

Ulcers.........................

Only the pharmaceutical companies...I suppose. Mad Dog

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Darin Cook_5

Control

A very large reason that a I stay 99% residential installation is so that I can design things the way that I know they will work properly and efficiently. Most of my customers that I have surveyed about about charging for an estimate said that they would have chosen someone else if all the other contractors estimates were free.







Darin

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mtfallsmikey

If it's OK, i'll beat the dead horse again

Do a search on "value engineering". I've mentioned the sloppy workmanship, poor system engineering items before. I agree that there are reps who are descendants of the Einstien family, and engineers like Brad who are few and far between, but also some contractors are to blame as well, bidding too low, hoping to make up the lost profit from change orders, performing shoddy work, inspectors who for some reason cannot see obvious code violations. Now we are expected to take our sloppily constructed and engineered office buildings and transform them into something "green", but no one is willing to spend the money to make them into something they were never designed for.

Tekkie

I blame the architects. They promote themselves as the "know it all - overseers" Do they ever talk to an engineer PRIOR to design? I doubt it. Maybe after the design is done and they call their people in and say "what do you need?" TOO LATE. I n my case it's schools. Every design we get is like it is the firms first job. Where are data closets? Huh? Slack jaws. I won't comment on the engineers much but it seems like even if architectural firms are switched the same engineers involved and another case of huh??? I mean this is NOT the first time you have worked/designed for us, why are you repeating the SAME mistakes? I guess it's a fact of life that poop flows downhill and we/I are the fence that catches it.

Maine Doug_74

And of course this building

will continue to require baskets of cash for the ongoing problems and required mitigation. We all have been in buildings like this. The college where my wife used to teach built a new science building. If not for user (facilty) intervention the problems would have been far greater. Years later the exhaust hoods in one lab still do not work correctly. You would think that simple stuff could be built to work these days.

No wonder bridges fall down. It is probably a good thing we do not build ships anymore.

Wayco Wayne_2

Good article

Having an engineer depends on the size of the project. I work fairly small stuff so I can do the design myself. I was discussing this with Dan Foley at Wetstock. He was bidding a job where the designs had mistakes. He dropped the bid off with the corrections listed, and got the job. The design had been done by an engineer. Ack! On the other hand I recently got called in on a rescue job for a residential radiant floor designed by the local supply house. I was way over designed with 2 pre made panels from Uponer and a mod con boiler. The system had 3 weather responsive controls....on a one temperature system. All it needed was 5 zone valves and a circ. Why is some guy selling product making designs for 5 digit jobs with minimal training and experience? This article touches all of us. WW

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