Worst Tuesday I've had on a jobsite in years

Last month I was running conduit on a new retail build outside Phoenix and everything went wrong from the start. The prints showed a 6 inch gap above a drop ceiling but nobody accounted for the ductwork pushing everything down by 3 inches. Had to pull 200 feet of 1 inch EMT and redo all my bends because the offsets were off. The GC's apprentice grabbed the wrong bender from the trailer and I didn't catch it till I tried lining up the first run. Anyone else run into plans that just don't match the actual field conditions?

2 comments

2 Comments

james_butler19d ago

Why do prints always lie about ceiling heights?

hollyramirez19d ago

Question whether it's really that serious, I mean half the time people just glance up and guess. In my experience, those printed numbers on plans are more like a suggestion than a hard fact - builders fudge them all the time for aesthetics or whatever. Take your standard 8-foot ceiling, for example, if you actually measure it with a tape you'll get 7'11" or 8'1" depending on how the drywall went up. Your mileage may vary but I've seen plans say 10 feet and the room feels like a cave because the floor is sloped or the lighting is bad. Honestly, unless you're installing a giraffe in your living room, who's really counting the inches?

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