Engineers and Contractors

By Debbie Mann

I would think that in a recession, the contractors still working would be the best. But, I have had the biggest string of non-compliance to drawings ever.

I have a lot of respect for contractors – at least some contractors. I frequently ask advice as to how to do things best in terms of all criteria. Frequently, we engineers create designs that add expense without benefit, and I try to avoid that by using the expertise of the contractor.  A number of them will call me and tell me that if I just change to a different wire insulation, that they can buy it by the roll and save a lot of money. If the insulation is appropriate, I will change.

Today, I discovered that a contractor had installed 2 outdoor pole lights on one circuit and 11 on another. There were a lot of conflicts underground. And the 11 lights amounted to about 15A. This contractor had even tried to use the Mike Holt voltage drop calculator – but he didn’t understand it.

I had every light labeled with a circuit. The lights alternated circuits, which is of course more expensive, but the owner had requested this. The wiring in the original design was sized for voltage drop at #8. This unauthorized change would result in the wiring being #4. Or in a voltage drop that was double that allowed by code.

Do the contractors think that we engineers are mad? Arbitrary? What?

Are the drawings supposedly just some sort of general idea of what the customer supposedly wants?

Do they think that the customers are wasting their money on engineers?

I’ve wondered how we get underbid on design jobs – maybe other engineers just don’t design the parts that they figure the contractor will ignore anyway.

As far as watching the contractor – I don’t get to bill much of my time on these jobs as it is. We do go out to the sites. But, trying to follow an underground installation closely enough to find all the ways in which we are being ignored would be more than my business could possibly afford. And it would irritate the contractor to no end to have to wait to cover things up until we got someone out there to look – particularly when that isn’t in our job description and we don’t have that authority.

And, by the way, I am highly respected by those who know me. We had a series of incidents for one customer where contractors were bidding the jobs very low. There was a series of 4 jobs that bid close to the same time and were very similar. After two came in way too low, the good contractors failed to bid.  It was quite a problem.  I spent an enormous number of hours on one of these low bid jobs inspecting everything. I started out spot checking, but every spot had at least one thing wrong. So, I checked everything. It cost me a fortune. But, the next time one of my jobs bid for that customer, only good contractors bid it and the job went so well.

I ask for suggestions and I probably approve 2/3 of the resulting requests for change. On existing construction, there’s a lot we engineers don’t know about what is behind the walls. But, I expect to be respected and not ignored.  I don’t assign circuits randomly. I balance panelboards and calculate voltage drop and think about whether motor starting will cause flicker.

When a contractor messes up my plans and I make him clean it up, I feel like he is cutting his wrists with my knife. I know when he bids a job at 65% of what it costs. I know that making him clean up his mess will cost 125% of what should have been the job costs and that this is nearly double what he bid. I know that he is paying the customer for the privilege of working when that happens. I know that the extra money has to come from somewhere and that somewhere may be his retirement or his house. It tears me up. I brought it up to my Bible class. They told me what I already know:

I have a job to do. And right is right. Code is code. The customers have the right to get what they ordered.

Mutual respect would make for much better installations.