Well, seems you've thrown a stone or two at a major manufacturer, while saying you'd trust it more if it came from a reputable engineering house.
Ok, can you define reputable engineering house? 90% or more of the "engineering houses" issuing sealed FP dwgs for us to bid from could be used as evidence to take away their licenses for practicing outside their area of expertise. There's a large, and some would say "reputable", engineering house I've heard others describe as "gun for hire" since the results of their studies seem to echo the needs and desires of those that hire them. What empirical criteria could we develop to measure "reputable". If we were writing code, we'd call that unenforceable language. Maybe the one experience I have with a firm you believe to be reputable because you deal with their Dallas office (full of all-stars) and I dealt with a trainee from NJ office who screwed up. Are they reputable? As I say about a major competitor, with 12,000 employees, they can't all be all-stars. (btw, I own stock in that company and compete against it, so I guess I can still say things about it since technically I'm an owner?) Any of us whom employ humans are going to have errors. Remove humans and rely on Hal and the pc instead? Don't think that's the answer. So we set a metric for accuracy? How determined, what track record, etc??? Just like the new technology data sheets, unless we're going to replicate the testing or try a new wrinkle, we're going to put faith in the UL listing or the FM process, we really don't have a choice. Making decisions by the seat of your pants may- or may not- be a better solution. The fluid delivery software for dry systems is not limited to Quell Licensees, its available and Tyco may again be running calcs for folks on a system by system basis, so you don't need to buy the software, just pay em to run the calc. We've occasionally run calcs for others although we usually don't have the time to spare from our main focus- our jobs. The Quell version is modified for "stuff" but anyone can buy the plain-jane version for dry systems. Understand I'm a capitalist and support the concept of being able to take an idea, invest resources in it, bring it to market, and if it succeeds in the market, you profit from it. I like to think its what we did with our firm. Every other sprinkler manufacturer could do the same thing. Nothing was preventing reputable (or not) engineering houses from developing the same thing. That manufacturer also has the rest of their suite of software for sprinkler work, and they compete well against Hydratech and others day to day. So this is not their only software offering, just one that's currently an exclusive. glc -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Thom McMahon Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 5:38 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: DRY SYSTEMS FOR DUMMIES Sorry but that sounds both Snooty and Arrogant. Have you verified the engineering used for any other products you may spec. by any MFG of fire protection products? How about if this PHD. Happened to be the one who taught you engineering? Would you then accept his work? If it really bothers you since you work for what I assume is a "Reputable Engineering Firm" Write your own program. You could work on it nights, and then you'd have a nice cushion for retirement. If it wasn't by us it can't be any good! I don't pretend to know the math, but I put faith in UL and TYCO and their Insurer's. (Wonder if they are an AIG company?) In which case your tax dollars are what's backing up this program. Thom McMahon, SET Firetech, Inc. 2560 Copper Ridge Dr P.O. Box 882136 Steamboat Springs, CO 80488 Tel: 970-879-7952 Fax: 970-879-7926 Not so sound snooty or arrogant All I am saying is I would have a lot more faith in a water delivery time program if it came from a reputable engineering firm rather than a manufacturer of sprinkler equipment. Jim Johnston, P.E. field) _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field) _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
