No, there isn't and this is going to be my pet peeve until retirement. As a consulting and design firm we have some influence over how contracts get specified and broken out, so I have been trying for 20 years to change this practice but it's just insidious. The best way to get the UG all into one contract is to tell the owners that it's more expensive and there's greater liability if they split it at 5'-0 ... that's something they understand. Here in CA, because of code amendments there are only two ways to bring an UG into the building - either come out outside and penetrate the exterior wall above grade or sweep through the floor with a one-piece in-building riser. No joints are allowed under footings or slabs, this due to countless failures due to poor installation practices, absence of anti-corrosion preventative measures and threat of failure from earthquakes. Ironically, using the in-building riser creates more of a bias toward making the sweep and the connectin g piece part of the building system because the builder doesn't want that expensive stainless steel stub standing exposed while they build the building around it. We do succeed in getting the UG and Building Systems completely separated about 20-25% of the time, but standard industry practice is still heavily biased toward including the 5'-0 portion with the building.
To the speculative comments about how we got to this practice, I don't believe it has to do with insurance (at least not directly) or union labor scope or politics - I think it's more along the lines of civil engineering scope going back to a time when sprinklers were not in the code. Often a building was required to be sprinklered outside of the work of the architectural team and jurisdictional permit process. If the owner decided to or their insurance mandated sprinklers, the civil engineer would show a fire service to 5'-0 and leave it for the deferred design/build contractor to pick it up from there. Hopefully, as 3rd party designers become more common and firms like mine are delivering more new projects to the market, this can be better coordinated between civil, architect and fire protection and a more logical scope and construction sequence will evolve. Steve L. -----Original Message----- From: Sprinklerforum [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Todd Williams Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2016 1:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: UG 5 ft outside building Is there a rational explanation why the sprinkler contractor should bring in the last piece of underground from 5 ft outside the building? Todd G Williams, PE Fire Protection Design/Consulting Stonington, CT 860-535-2080 (ofc) 860-608-4559 (cell) Sent using CloudMagic [https://cloudmagic.com/k/d/mailapp?ct=ti&cv=6.0.64&pv=8.2] _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://lists.firesprinkler.org/listinfo.cgi/sprinklerforum-firesprinkler.org _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://lists.firesprinkler.org/listinfo.cgi/sprinklerforum-firesprinkler.org
