Please, please, please read the instructions.

DanHolohan

https://www.allpointbulletin.com/stories/two-lives-needlessly-lost,18622

Steamhead

Wow. You can't fix stupid- and stupid kills. Whoever did this should not be in the business. I hope the lawyers chew them up.

mattmia2

It sounds like the inspection process failed as much as the installer. The appliance should have been at minimum checked that it was listed for propane. It sounds a whole lot like the co detectors never existed either.

JohnNY

This is why there's so much talk about banning natural gas. There's too much to go wrong and we're losing qualified people in the field.

Paul Pollets

A lawyer's field day...another example of why licensing should be required and enforced.

Jamie Hall

Paul Pollets said:

A lawyer's field day...another example of why licensing should be required and enforced.

As you say. There were enough checks supposedly in place, but a lot of people clearly simply didn't care enough to do the job right.

JakeCK

This house was built by "professionals"?

I've been accused of being less than nice to people. The truth is I hold everyone in contempt until proven otherwise. I do not give the benefit of the doubt. And for this very reason. It is why I do almost all of my own work. At least if I screw up, its my own mistake. 

These people trusted the electricians, the hvac installers, the inspectors, and everyone else involved in building their house. And now they're dead because of not just one persons 'mistake' but because of at least four different mistakes made by four different people. And I suspect all involved actually knew better but just didn't care. Or were paid off to look the other way.

pecmsg

Jamie Hall said:

A lawyer's field day...another example of why licensing should be required and enforced.

As you say. There were enough checks supposedly in place, but a lot of people clearly simply didn't care enough to do the job right.

There “Should” be enough checks in place but Who checks them. 

It’s a good example of the breakdown of skills and integrity!
I always consider “Code” as the minimum standard. 

STEVEusaPA

I've been in the trades since the 80's. I've seen on many occasions, the contractor/buddy inspector relationship, where an inspector will walk in, and while talking to his buddy about everything but the job, slap a sticker on the panel, and they both walk out and talk in the driveway for a while.
Or they get a final under the guise of "don't forget to finish this or that..."
The article doesn't say the CO detectors were installed and removed.

A lot of people to blame here. But it already sounds like building inspectors are taking their usual stance of "it was right when I inspected it".

Had the heating contractor (probably subbed to the cheapest installer) performed a simple combustion test they would've know right away there was a serious problem.

SlamDunk

Classic Swiss cheese defense. All the holes lined up.

dopey27177

This amazes me.

All inspecting parties do not acknowledge that a proper inspection was done, they issued the certificate of occupancy regardless. The sheriffs dept alludes this to be accidental, to me this means that the accident that occurred was the attempted use of an improperly installed boiler fuel system and no smoke detectors as required by the state. In all fillings the higher State Government requirements generally are required.

What is interesting is that the architect is responsible for the specifying the smoke detectors and possibly the boiler. The architect although not a heating professional must require the installation of the boiler to be oil fired or propane fired and installed in accordance with the boiler manufacturers instructions.

Jake

pecmsg

The truly sad part is the insurance companies will settle out of court non disclosure agreements and No One is responsible!
too many balls got dropped to finally lay blame. 

Robert O'Brien

STEVEusaPA said:

I've been in the trades since the 80's. I've seen on many occasions, the contractor/buddy inspector relationship, where an inspector will walk in, and while talking to his buddy about everything but the job, slap a sticker on the panel, and they both walk out and talk in the driveway for a while.
Or they get a final under the guise of "don't forget to finish this or that..."
The article doesn't say the CO detectors were installed and removed.

A lot of people to blame here. But it already sounds like building inspectors are taking their usual stance of "it was right when I inspected it".

Had the heating contractor (probably subbed to the cheapest installer) performed a simple combustion test they would've know right away there was a serious problem.

Assuming they knew what the numbers meant!

EBEBRATT-Ed

Seeing they had CO from day 1 I wonder if the homeowner removed/disabled the Co detector(s)

Sad, talk about falling through the cracks everything that could go wrong went wrong.

With the lack of qualified people in this field this situation will get worse

SlamDunk

@dopey27177

In court, it wont be called an accident. It will be gross negligence.

If I had to define: PROFESSIONAL, it would be: someone who, at all costs, avoids being negligent or grossly negligent in their craft.

mattmia2

EBEBRATT-Ed said:

Seeing they had CO from day 1 I wonder if the homeowner removed/disabled the Co detector(s)

or the gc. not clear it happened on day 1 though.

JUGHNE

From reading the Wall for 10 years, with people telling of hack jobs and repairs, and watching Utubes on the trades, I could easily imagine some installers who do not know the difference between LP and NG.
You hook up this pipe (or CSST) and the gas goes in there to burn....works most of the time.

pecmsg

JUGHNE said:

From reading the Wall for 10 years, with people telling of hack jobs and repairs, and watching Utubes on the trades, I could easily imagine some installers who do not know the difference between LP and NG.
You hook up this pipe (or CSST) and the gas goes in there to burn....works most of the time.

So where is the company in all this? There not responsible?

JakeCK

JUGHNE said:

From reading the Wall for 10 years, with people telling of hack jobs and repairs, and watching Utubes on the trades, I could easily imagine some installers who do not know the difference between LP and NG. You hook up this pipe (or CSST) and the gas goes in there to burn....works most of the time.

I can't understand how anyone could be that inept. I've known there was a difference between ng and lp since I was in middle school/early highschool.

Nah this was pure lazy negligence. Burn em' all, no mercy.

JUGHNE

You grew up with that knowledge, I am aware of it because of being in a rural area.
But many in a city have only known of NG and never heard of LP and are unknowing of the difference.

mattmia2

How many people never saw a gas gril?

JakeCK

JUGHNE said:

You grew up with that knowledge, I am aware of it because of being in a rural area. But many in a city have only known of NG and never heard of LP and are unknowing of the difference.

But those people wouldn't be in a profession that works with it on a daily basis. Were these fools pulled straight off the street and allowed to install gas appliances unsupervised on day one?... I'm sorry I just can't excuse that level of ignorance. We're in an age where just about every human on Earth has the sum of human knowledge in their pocket on what would have been considered a super computer several decades ago

mattmia2

It seems there should be evidence to charge some of those involved with manslaughter

PC7060

The fact that the exact threat to life problem occurred previously and the company failed to take corrective action to prevent its reoccurrence is a strong case for criminal negligence.  

JUGHNE

Having a super computer in your pocket does not mean one might use it.

More than one posting here by home owners have revealed, for one example, that the "tech" checking out their system does not know what a thermocouple is....and that "these parts are not available anymore".

And then of course the solution is to replace the entire system (although this may be the training received, as a matter of course, from the boss.)

JakeCK

JUGHNE said:

Having a super computer in your pocket does not mean one might use it. More than one posting here by home owners have revealed, for one example, that the "tech" checking out their system does not know what a thermocouple is....and that "these parts are not available anymore". And then of course the solution is to replace the entire system (although this may be the training received, as a matter of course, from the boss.)

But is this mostly ignorance or greed? 

JUGHNE

I would say both.
Ignorance on the part of the installer in both examples of the thermocouple and the tragedy of the CO poisonings.

And greed (and a lot of ignorance) on the part of the "boss-owner" who hires those untrained for the job. Especially, having done this in the past, that should have been a wake up call.

IMO, problems started 20-30 years ago when public schools dropped classes like "shop" and manual arts. Everyone was supposed to go to a 4 year collage and not get involved in those "dirty jobs".
Most kids were pushed in that direction.
This took the bright bulbs out of the pipeline of the trade line of work.
Now there is a large gap of trade workers.

The country is starting to realize this and see the blue collar jobs can get you into the 6 figure income. Some truck driver position are offering about that amount.

There is still a stigma of the white collar people looking down at the blue collars
..... until they need them.... and especially when they have to pay them (maybe more than they themselves make).
IMO.

HVACNUT

I have a feeling a lot of weird things happen in Point Roberts. 

pecmsg

Similar Incompetence.

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/20/obituaries/vitas-gerulaitis-40-former-tennis-star-dies.html

DanHolohan

Vitas is buried very near my parents. Tragic indeed. 

Daveinscranton

I respectfully believe that you are right.  Shop classes were required.  Mechanical drawing class too.  The lack of such things horrify me.  At the risk of sounding my age (late 60’s), I see tremendous incompetence when it comes to common sense in the kids coming up now.  No clue as to how the physical world works and why.  The rules are harsh.  Screw up and if you are lucky, it is only money, and lesson learned.  In this case, harsher penalty which was the deaths of 2 people.

2 years ago the girlfriend called “Jumper Boy” to look at a boiler.  Cold house.  Jumper Boy (“handyman “) got the boiler to fire by jumping every safety feature.  Including the proof switch on the power vent/damper.  I insisted that she call a pro.  Pro was livid.  Didn’t say much (as the story was related to me).   But set everything right.  Girlfriend didn’t understand  that could easily have been the family’s fate until I forwarded the link to this current tragedy.  Jumper Boy has been banned from parts purchases at the local supply houses  as a result of the forward  thinking pro.

Needless and avoidable tragedy and 2 dead.

Jamie Hall

It's even worse than you folks are thinking. Not only were the shop and drawing classes eliminated, but the students are being discouraged from even thinking about pursuing a trade or agricultural. Not passive neglect, but active pushing. There are many young people -- some of the best and the brightest -- who would be much happier in the trades or farming if they even knew the opportunities existed.

And then pile on top of that that the instruction in the basic sciences or math, if not eliminated entirely, is being dumbed down to the point where it's simply useless.

JakeCK

I can attest that since at least the early 2000's college has been pushed very hard at the exclusion of the trades. My highschool did have shop and some of the other dirty hands on classes but they were not required in high school. We also had the vocational school. But anybody who was pushed that way was assumed not to be college material. We did have damn decent math and science classes.

Edit: Actually after thinking about it some more I can remember the teachers grooming and preaching the virtues of college even in elementary. So at least since the mid 90's.

pecmsg

Search
Mike Rowe
dirty Jobs

SlamDunk

I dont know....
The daycare on my employer's property has gears on a wall. Turn one and watch what the others do. Magnetic gutters of different lengths on a white board to move around with different slopes to get a ball into a hole.
A wind tunnel....so much more.

I find myself playing with them when I go over there. And this is for classes below preschool. You are either drawn to it or you are not.

As far as mechanical drawing....it is called Auto-cad these days and I know a lot of young people who are whizzes at it. i also know people with mechanical engineering degrees who can only sketch on napkins.

An old timer once told me that I wont be able to feed a myself and a family on passion alone. Given a chance to work a forty hour week and make 35000/ yr or forty hours per week for 135000/ yr, what would you chose? What would you choose for your kids?

I think we digress. The original post is about negligence and maybe greed.

DanHolohan

Mechanical drawing.

Some of you know that I went to school with Billy Joel. He was taking Mechanical Drawing, but at one point, he had enough of it. He quit and gave me his T-square. I gave it to my father, who used it for years to mark lumber as he worked around the house.

Billy had written his name on the top of the T-square, as did all the kids who took Shop. It was the only way to keep track of which one was yours.

That T-square got lost in the shuffle of life before he got famous. I wish I still had it.

pecmsg

DanHolohan said:

Mechanical drawing.

Some of you know that I went to school with Billy Joel. He was taking Mechanical Drawing, but at one point, he had enough of it. He quit and gave me his T-square. I gave it to my father, who used it for years to mark lumber as he worked around the house.

Billy had written his name on the top of the T-square, as did all the kids who took Shop. It was the only way to keep track of which one was yours.

That T-square got lost in the shuffle of life before he got famous. I wish I still had it.

Bill would have like it back but lost in time!

DanHolohan

It was around then that he told me in Mr. Criscola's class that someday he was going to be more famous than Herman's Hermits.

Hicksville. Go figure.

PC7060

DanHolohan said:

It was around then that he [BillyJoel] told me in Mr. Criscola's class that someday he was going to be more famous than Herman's Hermits. Hicksville. Go figure.

Wow @DanHolohan!  Every time I think you can’t top the previous “where I’ve been” story you prove me wrong  

EBEBRATT-Ed

@JUGHNE

and anyone else that watches HVAC u tube videos.

Try "antidiyhvac. I think he is in NC or SC. Anyhow. Hack hvac jobs are the norm down there. Mostly gas (natural or propane) or electric AHUs and some heat pumps furnaces in attics or real nasty crawl spaces.

Nothing is right down there IMHO.

CSST run all over the place and the wiring is just awful, lack of plenums and mostly all flex duct.

It's just the "normal trade practice" or the "way it is" down there"

I would hesitate to lay my head on a pillow in any of those houses


And I am not picking on this fellow's channel, it's just what he is faced with.

PC7060

I was a shop centered student who had no interest in going to college. Took electronics, auto shop, wood working and metal shop all through middle school and high school. 

That knowledge served me well when I went in military and even more throughout my career as a Aerospace engineer. 

And want to guess what’s the number 1 rule in aviation, space and defense production?  Read and follow the drawing and technical notes! No deviations allowed without written approval by the technical design authority.