A very large power generation plant purchased an engineered fire protection system for the additional coal/gas burning turbines that had recently been installed.
The project got a green light and was then passed on to the company's diverse, or should I say motley, gang of crack engineers. We've got all kinds: mechanical, fire, an acoustical engineer, an architect, and me, the only electrical guy.
Then came the usual rounds of coffee and meetings, revisions, another revision, revising the last revision, hurling blame back and forth, and too much coffee, until project completion.
Parts and plans are shipped/emailed to the installation contractor after the customer approved some ridiculously high rev lettered design. A few months pass and I get a message from the boss: "The contractor is having trouble with the fire control system network, call them."
I did call them, and their story that went something like this:
The contracting crew had pulled approximately 4,000m of twisted pair to link all the gas detectors, flame detectors, heat detectors, cut-outs, shut-offs, low level switches, high level switches, solenoid valves, bells horns, and flashing lights to the FACP (fire alarm control panel). The twisted pair starts and ends at the FACP. After all this effort, the network would not work. They thought, "Hey, this is an electrically noisy environment, let's use signal extenders," and indeed, they did. They even went so far as to use more than the maximum number of network extenders allowed by the manufacturer (eight, if I remember correctly). Even all this signal repeating horsepower couldn't take care of the problem.
I did not have any explanation. Nothing about the design was pushing any sort of limit. When I designed the network, I didn't say, "I don't know about this one, guys." Tensions were getting high in the office, and the blame for this nonfunctioning network was swinging in my direction. Then I thought, "What kind of wire did they use? Surely, they used what was specified." I felt like I was reaching, but at this point exploring the more unlikely explanations was all I had.
It turns out they did not use the twisted pair specified. The contactor was given a choice between three different makes of Belden wire, all chosen specifically for their compatibility with the network. What they used instead was speaker wire! Yes, they pulled 4km or 2.485 miles, of speaker wire.
In the email hailstorm which ensued, I asked why they would do something so unbelievably stupid. They responded with this: "It looked the same as the other wire." Meaning that because it was twisted, unshielded wire of the proper gauge, they thought it would work the same as what I had specified. I told them to pull the wire out and replace it. They refused, told me I was wrong, and demanded an alternate solution. I told them that there was nothing I or anybody else could do. Silence filled the air for a bit. Then they emailed me a release of some kind that shifted liability for the electrical portion of the install from them, to me.
Of course, I didn't sign that release, and the contractor eventually had to replace all of that wire, and when they did, the network functioned flawlessly.
CABE-- It's amazing to me how many times in my engineering career I have seen requests for "variations" when specifications were not followed. I think some people (generally management and/or unions) feel we specify components, processes, etc just to fill the day until we clock out. One thing that also scares me is product coming from vendors not on the "approved" list. I was asked to investigate a component from a "new low-cost vendor"--completely unapproved by our company, to make sure they met the specifications and had UL approval. In other words, I was asked to provide the "go-ahead" even if they were close. As it turned out, they were using child labor to manufacture the part; the part was NOT UL approve; the part had questionable fasteners from unapproved sources holding it together. I said no--I could not approve the component. In about 3 nanoseconds, I was called into the president's office. We had what he referred to as a "come to Jesus" moment. As it turned out, we had components being flown in to our facility, partial payment made and assembly lines waiting to produce. The solution--take me off the project, put a younger engineer on the job and push ahead. That's exactly what happened. I left the company about three months later.
They pulled 4km of the wrong cable. When you got them to admit they did this on their own, they then tried to get you to sign a statement saying it was your fault?!?!?!?
How could anyone imagine getting you to sign such a paper in such a situation.
Choice words for these clowns are not suitable for this website.
When issues such as this (incorrect component, not following dwgs etc) arise I tell the persons involved to follow Mil-TFP-41 (Make it like the fine print for once) and let me know the results. Very often the problem goes away.
Having designed alarm, fire, and security systems, I have seen this type of work shirking in many places. Sometime they luck out, and it works ok. Then when the above story goes down, I get blamed. It's very stressful at times. Especially when the workers demand I sign off on their work.
Wow, this really is scary. Presumably there were part numbers to choose from, so the contractors chose the wrong part number--why, to save money? Or because they really were incompetent? I can envision both. This makes me wonder about the general tendency I've heard of--and many have commented about on the DN site--to get less educated, less technically proficient people, who are also cheaper, to do supposedly less technical work--like installation--that supposedly doesn't require actual engineers since no actual engineering is involved.
Amazing how many "design problems" are solved by going back and using the parts that were originally specified by the engineer...not surprising that this happened but you would think that with such an arduous task (that was a lot of wiring!) they would have checked first...
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