|
Last week, we posted results on what sprinkler contractors need as part of a set of biddable construction documents. One of the top needs that sprinkler contractors expressed was whether the owner had any insurance-driven criteria that applied to the project. THE SURPRISE This likely isn't a surprise if you've encountered it on a job: a building is designed, bid specs are applied, bids are collected, the contract is awarded, sprinkler shop drawings are created and submitted, and then out of the blue [BOOM!], a review comes in from FM Global. FM Global? Did someone know that this was an FM Global job? No discredit to the FM Global team whatsoever - they do an excellent job in establishing a higher level of excellence and have propelled our industry for years - but shouldn't we all have known that FM would be a part of the project from the beginning? That answer, of course, is yes. CHALLENGES WITH INSURER-DRIVEN CRITERIA It can be tough to grapple with if you've been on a project where that's been a surprise. It can also put a building owner in a difficult position of mediating what their insurer wants them to provide against the increased cost of doing so via change order. As we've discussed, delegated design is one key area where a consultant provides tremendous value in coordinating and pre-planning these asks well before bid day, which would create a smoother project experience. Instead, missing or ignoring insurance criteria altogether can set the project back in schedule and cost. From the consultant's side - it's not always easy to get a straight answer from a building owner. VARIABILITY AMONG BUILDING OWNERS Big developers or large corporate clients are often very informed on their design standards; they may even have a complete set of standards themselves ready to distribute. Smaller or first-time building owners are often less likely to carry insurance criteria that stipulate much in terms of fire protection above code minimum. But what about the projects in between? What about the corporate client building in the area for the first time? The regional grocery chain? The distribution center? Mid to large retailers? Restaurants? Healthcare? Manufacturing? Hotels? Anything in this range could carry insurance that mandates a standard above NFPA 13 in certain areas, including critical ones like sprinkler design criteria. Just because an insurance company isn't FM Global doesn't mean that FM Global Standards don't apply; many other carriers could still follow FM Global criteria or even have a more comprehensive program like XL GAPs (or something similar).  Insurance criteria and owner standards play a critical part in a set of fire protection bid documents and can be a costly surprise too late in a project. But what's the best way to get the answer from the right person?
BEST PRACTICES FOR GETTING THE INSURANCE QUESTION ANSWERED What I'm most curious about is what has been your most successful process for getting this information from a building owner. As a consultant, I had my best luck when we'd have a design meeting, and the owner or owner's representative was in the room, and I could ask directly about any insurance mandates above code minimum. The line I used often sounded like, "Do you carry any requirements or standards above code minimum, like FM Global?" If the owner or owner's representative was familiar with FM Global, there'd usually be a quick yes and they could confirm fairly quickly. Honestly, all other cases would get a blank stare. I'd explain that the insurance criteria above the code were not the norm but that we'd want to incorporate it if there were any that applied. In most cases, this was enough information to work from, but I never liked the inexact nature of going by a mostly uninformed answer. I found it to at least elicit a response, unlike emails, which tended to never get returned, but still - there's got to be a better way. THE BIGGER QUESTION: WHAT WORKS BEST FOR YOU? From last week, we know that insurance criteria are a major factor in determining what should be in the bid documents. So my question to the consultants here is: What have you found to be the best approach to getting this information from an owner? What method has worked to (1) actually get a response from the right person and (2) get a response that's usually accurate? Let us know in the comments here. I have my lame approach but I'd much rather collaborate and share ideas on what works so that, as a whole, we can do a better job of creating a quality set of bid documents. Thanks for continuing to advocate for the industry. Hope you have a great rest of your week! - Joe
5 Comments
Perhaps the biggest elephant in the room of the fire sprinkler design industry is the problem of delegated design. It's not the concept, per se, but its execution that leaves so many projects in bad waters ripe with change orders. I'm looking specifically at projects where little to no effort was put into the fire protection bid documents, and as a result, the bidding contractors are worse off than if no fire protection bid documents had been provided at all. BAD DELEGATED DESIGN Bad delegated design (1) makes bidding and estimating far more difficult, (2) performing the work more difficult, (3) can create costly change orders for the owner, (4) can actually get in the way of code compliance, and (5) hurts bidders, building owners, and the practice of fire protection engineering overall. Fire Protection doesn't have to be a "necessary evil." It doesn't have to be the bane of every architect and building owner. We don't have to be the bad guys: this is an issue we can do something about. And make no mistake - I'm not immune to putting out sour projects. I can improve just as much as I like to soapbox. Personally, I think this should be the central focus for any fire protection engineering organization. It's the #1 issue I hear about from the construction side. Cleaning up the practice and improving the building owner's experience with a smooth, streamlined process with far less adversarial friction can put fire protection in a warmer "thanks-for-looking-out-for-us" light rather than what it is today for many. HOW TO FIX? I don't get the impression the issue has much of anything to do with those who are fire protection people - those inside the industry who learn, read, push themselves, get educated, engage online, ask questions, go to the fire protection conferences, get their CEUs in fire protection, or get credentialed in fire protection. I don't get the sense that the problem is from those who are plugged-in and are invested in fire protection. But, that doesn't mean we let it slide. This is a topic that we're not going to let go until it's far better than what it is today. If you want to read more on this, see these pieces: - The Delegated Design Problem - FP Engineering Documents: What Goes In? - A Practical (Real-World) Design-Spec Checklist - The "Lanes" of Fire Protection Pre-Bid Consulting - Why Isn't All Sprinkler Design Done Upfront? WHAT MATTERS IN A SET OF BID DOCUMENTS? We're working on material to help build up the consulting side - what we need help with today is identifying what it is that actually matters to sprinkler contractors in executing a project (estimating, bidding, managing, designing). IF YOU WORK IN SPRINKLER CONTRACTING, WE NEED YOUR OPINION HERE: Yes, this is a survey - it should take about 120 seconds - but it's one where we're looking for specific scoring data so that we can relate, score, and real, helpful give feedback to consultants on how they can create better documents. This is an opportunity to be heard and help us deliver something tangibly helpful in improving the industry. We'll follow up with the data we collect and give that back to you as a big thank you for your time and input. I hope, in time, to put together entry-level educational material on exactly these topics but have your voice in as part of that process. Plenty more to come on this topic. After you've had a chance to take the poll and score what matters to you, come back here and share your take in the comments below. Your take is always appreciated! Thanks as always for being part of this community, and have a great rest of your week! - Joe HOW DO WE FIX BAD SPECIFICATIONS?
Last week I touched on a concept of using large language models to instantly review a series of specifications. Thanks for the comments! I’ll write up the step-by-step and incorporate that in a how-to video for posting here and on YouTube. A special shout out to Kimberly Olivas, Brian Gerdwagen and Casey Milhorn on their comments in that thread – very helpful and insightful. The discussion brings me back to two questions I may have inadvertently skipped right over –
A PROBLEM WE CARE TO FIX? If part of a bidding contractor’s value proposition is using their expertise to sort through bad specifications and give an advantage; either in exclusions or clarifications, or change orders later in the process due to inaccuracies, scope not meeting code, or scope gaps. In other words, based on a bidding contractor’s position – there might not be any incentive for them to play their cards for competitors to see through the Pre-Bid RFI process other than a smoother project experience for the owner. A bidding contractor is not a representative of the owner; the consultant is. Ultimately the consultant is responsible for protecting and supporting the owner – which is why they were hired in the first place. Perhaps many contractors don’t look at it that bluntly – but I can understand the sentiment not to tip a hand at project issues when it could mean losing a bid. WHAT’S THE ANSWER? If Pre-Bid RFIs are not the cure-all in today’s pace of estimating – and contractors are not incentivized to be correcting consultant issues – then do we care to actually fix it? For estimators – are bad specifications purely an annoyance for you – or do they cause issues on your projects? Would you prefer that specifications actually be well written? I’m not being facetious – I’d love to know your take on this. ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES If better specifications (and plans) are something we deem better for the industry – and we collectively want better plans and specifications – what is the approach to get there? More specifically, how do we encourage those who don’t really care about fire protection to put a little more effort into their plans and specifications? This was last week’s idea:
Here are some alternative from-the-hip ideas that I’d love to kick around with you and see if you find any of these might be viable: IDEA #1: PUBLISH AN OPEN MICROSOFT WORD FILE BASIC FIRE PROTECTION SPECIFICATION
IDEA #2: CREATE AN AI TOOL FOR CONSULTANTS TO QC THEIR OWN SPECIFICATIONS
IDEA #3: PROMOTE OR CREATE A LOW-COST SPECIFICATION GENERATOR
IDEA #4: HAVE A FORMAL THIRD-PARTY REVIEW PROCESS (A GROUP) FOR SPECIFICATIONS
IDEA #5: PUBLIC HUMILIATION
IDEA #6: YOUR IDEAS
Do you (1) think this is a problem that should be fixed, and (2) what concepts do you think could make a difference? Comment below – would love to foster a deeper discussion on how we might solve this problem before skipping ahead and creating something that might not be impactful. How do we solve the systematic problem we have with fire protection bid documents? Some, if not much of the plans and specifications that go out for bid are generally helpful. A quality set of fire protection bid documents:
These types of bid sets do happen. But far, far too often, they don’t. It’s systematic, and makes every step of the design and installation process far more difficult and far more costly than it could be. NOT FAULTLESS I don’t even want to pretend I’m not at fault here. I’ve designed poor projects. I’ve slacked on coordination, and detailing. I’ve glossed over parts of a project that I shouldn’t have glossed over. It’s been painful. But this is something that we can change. WHAT CONTRACTORS SAY For some years now I’ve spoken with sprinkler contractors, architects, and consultants about this. If you’re a contractor, especially if you work in estimating - you could provide countless examples of terrible bid documents. Bid documents that actually get in the way of you doing code-compliant, efficient work. You could speak to this far better than I can. In these conversations, over and over, I’ve heard one key feature that I think many consultants in the MEP space miss. It is far better to have no fire protection bid documents, than to have bad fire protection bid documents. NO FIRE PROTECTION BID DOCUMENTS? That’s important, and counterintuitive. It is far easier for a sprinkler contractor to look at a project and define their own scope, and put a price to it, than it is to try and bid a set of documents that:
If that sounds too far, ask your closest estimator friend. They see this all the time. How many projects do we see underground feeds piped 20-ft before rising up? How many times do we see Star, Central, or Gem still specified today, in 2024? How many times do we see projects wanting a fixed-price bid yet have zero information about the water supply? How are those documents helpful to a bidder? They’re not. MY ANALOGY The analogy that I’ve had in my head and finally am able to bring to life a little is the road, showing the different tiers of fire protection bid documents:  1 - NO FIRE PROTECTION BID DOCUMENTS
There’s the sidewalk on the left, where we have no fire protection bid documents. Let’s say we have a single-family home with an NFPA 13D system. Scope is simple, perhaps we have no specific owner needs, and it’s unambiguous. That type of project probably warrants no upfront, pre-bid fire protection involvement. It wouldn’t have to just be a single-family home though. What about an add & relocate job for a small retail space. Or a small office building. Those can, and often do, work just fine without any upfront fire protection bid documentation. Design-build all the way. 2 - QUALITY "PERFORMANCE SPECIFICATIONS" Then we skip ahead to quality “performance specification” documents. These do all the things we’ve talked about. They don’t necessarily show pipe or sprinklers, but they clearly define the scope, they communicate clearly, they answer major scope questions, they address and alleviate major issues or coordination challenges upfront, and they make it easy to put a price to the job. That’s a quality set of “performance specifications”. 3 - QUALITY "FULL-DESIGN" For high-end jobs, or high-hazard jobs, or critical function or high-visibility or unique jobs – perhaps we’re looking at a full-upfront design prior to bid. Full-design isn’t free, nor quick, and isn’t necessarily the answer for every job. But, as we’ve talked on this topic before; if it’s done well, and thoroughly, then fully-detailed plans can be a tremendous asset to a project. They can eliminate ambiguity and really dial-in exactly what work needs to be done. AND... THE DANGER ZONE What about the DANGER ZONE? There’s a gap, and it’s in-between no bid documents and quality “performance specifications”. And that is the Danger Zone. This is the lane of bad bid documents. These are all the bad things. Inconsistent, boilerplate, confusing, inaccurate, unachievable, irrelevant, or not actually code-compliant. What happens when we live in that lane? We get hit by the proverbial bus. Change orders. Litigation. Or much worse – a fire happens with major loss. This is not the spot to be. WHY DO WE STAY IN THE DANGER ZONE? I’m fairly confident that those who live in that space don’t want to be there either. They feel compelled because the client asks for fire to be included. They feel pressure because competitors are offering to do fire protection. They feel they can’t spend enough time on fire because there is hardly any fee there. Honestly – these are all poor excuses. If there isn’t enough money in the job to put together a quality set of fire protection bid documents – then don’t do them at all. It is far better to have no fire protection bid documents, than to have bad fire protection bid documents. HALF-BAKED DOESN'T HELP Bad, sloppy, half-baked documents don’t help. They don’t solve anything. They get in the way. If you’re the MEP who finds yourself in this area, having that conversation with an owner or architect and there’s just not enough fee to do quality work – then just exclude it entirely. If an architect insists that it get thrown in or done on a microscopic budget, then just ask them to hire a fire protection consultant separately. Half-baking a set of documents is not worth the hassle or the liability. It also doesn’t actually help. When you do take it on, do it well. We all benefit from that. YOUR TAKE If you’re a sprinkler contractor or architect – I really want to hear from you. Where do you land on this? When projects have gone south or had major change orders – what happened? Would being in a different tier have changed the result? Comment below, would love to hear your take. And, thanks, as always, for reading and being a part of the community here. We will get this right. The majority of bid documents for fire sprinkler work is some form of delegated design. A consulting engineer frequently does not provide all of the detail about a system (pipe locations, size, hanging methods, hydraulic calculations, etc). Why is that? In other disciplines, the opposite is common. Mechanical Engineers regularly selects a system type and lays out ductwork in a one-line or two-line configuration on a plan before a contractor bids the system. Electrical Engineers commonly size up, calculate and provide power and lighting locations on plan with an overall one-line diagram. Even plumbing often has plans for domestic water feeds and sanitary waste. Why doesn’t that happen for fire protection? First, the biggest disclaimer today, I’m not advocating for all design to be upfront. Or even a majority of it. I do see many applications where a quality FPE consultant can provide a tremendous amount of value to a project. I explored this a bit with The Delegated Design Problem and in A Practical Design Spec Checklist. But I would like to start the conversation and get your ideas on why we are where we are today with why designs are not done upfront. Here is why I think all sprinkler design is not completed upfront, before bid time.  #1 WE DON’T WANT EVERYTHING UPFRONT
Overwhelmingly, the sentiment I hear from sprinkler contractors about ‘full-design’ fire sprinkler drawings is that they wouldn’t want upfront designs for all projects. Why? Because in some (or many) cases, sprinkler contractors feel that upfront design either limits their flexibility or is of very poor quality, or both. A design that doesn’t coordinate with other systems, or ‘leaves coordination’ for the sprinkler contractor, is problematic. It’s difficult to bid and difficult to work with after a project has been awarded. How much needs to be ‘coordinated later’? How ‘real’ is the design? Is it less efficient than the contractor could have laid it out? Many who have designed on the contracting side feel that real-world “fit” and doing the sprinkler layout are one in the same. You can’t ‘rough-in’ a layout without thinking about conflicts and making it actually work in the real world. As an extreme example, I think most could agree that a basic NFPA 13D layout does not need upfront involvement by a consultant. Could they help? Perhaps. Could they provide value? Perhaps. But it does not need a high level of involvement. Now there’s a big counterpoint to this. Just because we don’t want upfront design on all projects doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be beneficial on some projects. Projects that have very specific needs, unique needs, high-visibility challenges, coordination challenges, or that require a specialized set of expertise could very much benefit from upfront involvement. Maybe it’s a retrofit in a high profile historic museum. Maybe it’s suppression for an automated storage retrieval system. Maybe it’s a unique storage configuration that is outside the bounds of NFPA 13. In these types of situations, involvement from a quality FPE consultant can address code concerns and clearly define the scope. It can help mitigate a lot of risk for contractors by doing so and help everyone bid apples-to-apples instead of a wide-open, ill-defined scope. #2 INADEQUATE WORKFORCE (INDIVIDUALS AND COMPANIES) Perhaps the alternative reason is the lack of expertise in the workforce. We simply don’t have enough people, nor expertise, to take on every project. Even if we wanted upfront involvement to a high-level of detail, we as an industry couldn’t pull it off. We don’t have enough bodies, nor enough qualified expertise. Is it an issue? Absolutely. Does the lack of people affect how well we advocate for fire protection itself? Absolutely. Could the construction experience for architects and owners and contractors actually benefit from more and better individuals working upfront on project? Absolutely. But until we catch up on the quantity of our own workforce, we simply can’t take on more involved work. #3 LOCATION OF THE EXPERTISE Another reason we don’t perform highly-detailed layout work upfront is the location of where expertise for layout technicians often falls – and that’s in contracting. Anecdotally I know far more layout technicians in contracting than I do in consulting. In our survey of nearly 500 industry professionals in 2022, of those who had roles as a designer or layout technician, 68% of them worked for contractors (another 4% were self-employed). That’s different than other disciplines where there is plenty of design and layout expertise embedded in consulting. #4 DOWNSIDES: COST, INFLEXIBILITY, & SCHEDULE Involving expertise upfront isn’t free. There’s a cost associated with it. We mentioned it before and stipulating a full layout upfront also set some parameters in place that can limit the creativity and efficiency of a contractor-provided layout. Lastly, there’s time needed to do that work upfront. Having a high-degree of involvement may not be a positive impact to overall project schedule. SO CAN WE KILL-OFF UPFRONT INVOLVEMENT? It sure feels like I’ve put out a hit piece on any upfront involvement in fire sprinkler design. The question is – does all design need to be done upfront? By an engineer or consultant, or someone other than a contractor? That answer is no. All design doesn’t need to be upfront. We couldn’t pull it off anyways, but it could also be costly and obstructive for many small or simple project applications. Is there value to having upfront involvement? Absolutely - when it’s done well. Consultants provide tremendous value, all-around, when:
Do consultants need to be doing fully-detailed layouts to accomplish this? Often no, though sometimes it could help. HOW DO WE RESHAPE THE WORK? In an SFPE Magazine Article in 2022, Thomas Gardner wrote “There is a happy medium between no delegation and full delegation of the fire protection system.” Count me in that camp. Many times when the subject of “Delegated Design” gets brought up, we instantly jump to extremes. Either all design should be by the EOR, or no design should ever be by the EOR. On one hand we have many military projects that specify the Qualified Fire Protection Engineer (QFPE) to be in direct charge of the layout upfront, if they don’t perform it themselves. On the other hand, we have an ever-growing amount of residential projects in North America that have no FPE or consulting involvement whatsoever. Both of these situations are not necessarily at odds. We can strike the balance between the two, and we can do “Delegated Design” better than what’s being done today. We can improve the quality of upfront documentation that defines scope and goes out for bid, and at the same time, still provide flexibility for the contractor and an overall lean project delivery. Part of solving that puzzle is looking realistically about what different approaches mean – how they look – seeing good and bad examples – and moving forward to introduce, educate and advocate on what better “Delegated Design” means in the future. For literally the past two decades there has been growing momentum to bring light to the issue. We’re not far from having more resources to define what “better” looks like and how we can easily get there. WHAT'S YOUR TAKE? We had a great dialogue about the problem of Delegated Design before, that's here. But what's your take on why work isn't provided upfront? Is it just tradition? Just the way things always have been? Is it any of the reasons I've cited? Why is our delivery method so different from Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing or Structural? What separates us from other disciplines? Comment below - would be happy to hear your take. Last week I wrote on the Delegated Design Problem we have in the fire protection industry. The big ugly elephant that looms over us all. And wow – what a response! It’s a good thing (I guess) that so many others are as agitated as I am with the state of delegated design as I am. GOOD DELEGATED DESIGN ≠ FULL-LAYOUT One big and important point I’d like to make about the issues with what I’m calling delegated design; the answer is not full layout drawings by engineers. Some fire protection engineering firms can, and do, excellent detailed layout drawings for fire suppression systems. In some cases (unique, high-risk, location-sensitive clients), full-layout fire sprinkler documents can help convey exactly what the owner needs to all bidding contractors. It can be well done. But that’s not what we’re talking about when we’re talking about good delegated design. A set of engineering documents go by plenty of names:
I’m simply calling them “Engineering Documents” and that process being “Delegated Design”. A good set of high-quality of Engineering Documents is helpful to contractors, helpful for pricing, helpful to define and communicate the scope, and helpful to the owner as it conveys what the owner wants. In my opinion, that doesn’t have to mean a full-layout. In most contractors’ opinions (we’ll get data on this later), my guess is the far majority don’t believe that quality engineering documents means a full layout. If done poorly, they’re actually worse for a project. WHAT SHOULD ENGINEER DOCUMENTS INCLUDE? So what criteria exists today? We wrote on this a few years ago with a checklist for things to consider in a set of Engineering Documents. That’s our go-to on what to include. But what does everyone else say? Ten different leading organizations in the industry addressed just that. In a joint position statement originally created by SFPE and endorsed by everyone else (ABET, AFAA, AFSA, ASCET, FSSA, NCEES, NFSA, NICET, NSPE, SFPE), the paper identifies what it is that Engineering Documents should include. A link to the position statement is here: https://www.nspe.org/resources/issues-and-advocacy/professional-policies-and-position-statements/sfpenspenicetascetncees This is an important piece of information that (just my opinion) seems to be met by those who care about fire protection, and completely ignored by those who don’t. I would go so far as to think that most of the players who don’t meet the recommendations of the white paper probably don’t know it exists. There’s a major disconnect there. STATE MANDATES In some states, much of this same criteria is formally adopted into state law. Three that I’m personally familiar with (Florida, Illinois, and South Carolina) overlap much of what the joint position recommends. These state mandates have teeth. If an AHJ has installation drawings without upfront engineer involvement, they have the authority to reject and require upfront involvement (Illinois is slightly different in that the specific requirements are less defined). Other states have mandates too. If you have a tip you’d want us to add to this, comment below here. SO, WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR ENGINEERING DOCUMENTS? Below is a table to compare the main elements of the joint position paper and a sample of state mandates. Now, fire protection is not just fire suppression, but I wanted to start on the fire suppression side and look at this in detail since it’s the suppression side of delegated design that seems to be the most pervasive issue today.  A comparison of the joint-position statement (ABET, AFAA, AFSA, ASCET, FSSA, NCEES, NFSA, NICET, NSPE, SFPE) and several state statues for minimum requirements of fire protection engineering documents. In this list we find a lot of should-be-obvious things. Identifying the scope of work. Ask your favorite contractor – how many drawings have you seen for a renovation or an addition that doesn’t cleanly identify what work is actually supposed to be done? Are we scrapping everything? Are we going in all-new? Are we just add and relocating sprinklers? Hazard Classifications & Design Criteria. This one is the hammer to the head. It’s the most-important decision for the design of a suppression system. What is the hazard? What design criteria do we need to protect it properly? Again going back to your favorite contractor – how many times have you had projects where hazard classifications weren’t even identified? Or, the only place it is addressed is with a paragraph about Light Hazard and Ordinary Hazard in the specification while completely ignoring the huge storage area that’s part of the project? Water Supply. Every state and the position statement all agree that water supply is an upfront, engineering document responsibility. Ask your contractor – how often do they see it? ASK YOUR FAVORITE CONTRACTOR As an industry – as a collective – we’re failing right now. And I don’t want to pretend that I’m above scrutiny. Ask someone who’s looked at my documentation. It’s not perfect. I’ve failed to meet this mark. But I can be better – we all can. This has to improve, and I think we can build up the support and resources around this topic to make it happen. YOUR TAKE This is the first look at simply “what should be in a set of fire protection engineering documents”. What should they be? If you have input – tips, comments, thoughts – join the discussion below. If you work in other areas – Louisiana, Arizona, wherever – that have state-level mandates for fire protection engineering documents – let us know below! Having a representative summary helps everyone. Thanks for reading – hope the research we’ve compiled this week helps you think about how we as a whole can improve the way we practice. |
ALL-ACCESS
SUBSCRIBEGet Free Articles via Email:
+ Get calculators, tools, resources and articles
+ Get our PDF Flowchart for Canopy & Overhang Requirements instantly 
+ No spam
+ Unsubscribe anytime AUTHORJoe Meyer, PE, is a Fire Protection Engineer out of St. Louis, Missouri who writes & develops resources for Fire Protection Professionals. See bio here: About FILTERS
All
ARCHIVES
September 2024
|
RSS Feed
