jar546
Forum Coordinator
I had a rough, underground plumbing inspection the other day. Upon arrival to the job site I asked the plumbing contractor if there were any changes vs the prints. His response was "No, but we did not follow them to the T". Knowing that what is on paper does not always transmit to something workable, I assumed there were some minor changes that he took advantage of to save labor, pipe, etc. This was not the case.
The first thing that I noticed is that of the 10 FD's, only 2 of them were properly vented. Some, in groups, were over 30' from a vent that was a wet vent. Nothing was actually making sense but I was still trucking along in the inspection because the contractor was well mannered, answered questions without betting defensive and remained professional. I finally said we need to go look at the prints. I don't always look at the prints first until I get an idea of what was done first.
When we looked at the prints, it became obvious that not only did he change the venting, pipe sizes, etc., but also the locations of floor drains and clean outs. So rather than meticulously list all of the deficiencies with the installation my paperwork simply failed the inspection and stated "Not per submitted/reviewed drawings". Our verbal conversation covered the issues and I had to explain to him that an engineer took the time to design to design the system correctly and we were paid to do the review and agreed that the design met the minimum IPC standards. He, however, decided to change the installation and in doing so created multiple venting violations and clean out location violations.
Now the good part. What do you think he asked? Yes, you got it. "What do you want?" he asked me. I stated that I don't want anything but he needs to have a code compliant installation for inspection. I gave him 2 options. Option 1: Plumb it per the drawings. Option 2: Have the RDP redesign it to match what you did, seal the new drawings and submit for review. He chose option #1.
So, my question is: At what point do you simply document a simple statement like I did rather than list all of the deficiencies in the installation?
The first thing that I noticed is that of the 10 FD's, only 2 of them were properly vented. Some, in groups, were over 30' from a vent that was a wet vent. Nothing was actually making sense but I was still trucking along in the inspection because the contractor was well mannered, answered questions without betting defensive and remained professional. I finally said we need to go look at the prints. I don't always look at the prints first until I get an idea of what was done first.
When we looked at the prints, it became obvious that not only did he change the venting, pipe sizes, etc., but also the locations of floor drains and clean outs. So rather than meticulously list all of the deficiencies with the installation my paperwork simply failed the inspection and stated "Not per submitted/reviewed drawings". Our verbal conversation covered the issues and I had to explain to him that an engineer took the time to design to design the system correctly and we were paid to do the review and agreed that the design met the minimum IPC standards. He, however, decided to change the installation and in doing so created multiple venting violations and clean out location violations.
Now the good part. What do you think he asked? Yes, you got it. "What do you want?" he asked me. I stated that I don't want anything but he needs to have a code compliant installation for inspection. I gave him 2 options. Option 1: Plumb it per the drawings. Option 2: Have the RDP redesign it to match what you did, seal the new drawings and submit for review. He chose option #1.
So, my question is: At what point do you simply document a simple statement like I did rather than list all of the deficiencies in the installation?
