Riding The Beam ?

dirtdiggencat

Have you ever had a bad day that just got worse for days?
What do ya do when your brand new pipe laser gets there, "guaranteed 100% calibration from the factory", eagerly but carefully do the "day 1" setup, ride the beam for several hundred feet, agree with the super that the elevation mismatch on the first few checks must be the problem you've been talkin about for weeks concerning the engineers goofing on the prints,,,, THEN you pull the shiny new device and {of course its right on,, it's top o the line!} you check it for grade accuracy,,,,,, OMG!!!!
O'course, no good "piper" would ever get caught with that kinda problem,,,, but anyways,, ego aside,, whadda ya do?

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SiD
________________ Everyone goes home, Every night. ___________________

Double-A

Wow that sucks.

Did you call the factory rep? They will usually drop everything to make something like that right.

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"My clients’ wishes are the center of my attention." -- David Guido, a contractor in Woodstock, N.Y.
New York Times, July 20, 2006

rino1494

Well, any good pipe crew will hand check the first few lengths of pipe and check every 5 pipes or so. If the first 3 pipes were hand checked, then you could see that the laser is off.

If the current grade of the pipe will not affect the rest of the pipe or you can adjust the manhole to fit the road height, then don't worry about it. If your inverts are off enough to affect things, then you have no choice but to dig it up and re-lay it.

I would definitely call the dealer and manufacturer and complain. There is no reason for a $5,000 tool to be faulty out of the box.

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Little

I agree with Rino, i always shoot the first pipe coming out, and most likely the 3rd lenght, from there on i will shoot every 5-6 lenghts as well to check and make sure we are spot on. Also if for some reason you have to run a pipe run from high point to low point, double check yourself that the guy setting the laser is def putting minus percentage instead of +.

dirtdiggencat

you guys are right on. i didnt do the initial elevation checks myself, {some parts of this mess i'd just as soon not make public} but anyway,,,, we gotta redo the thing. we railed on the rep immediately and got the royal run around for days. we pleaded to the manufacturer, and they sent an "outside" tech to our site to see what was up. He agreed there was somethin wrong with the device but without taking it with him he couldnt be sure what nor could he make legal documentation for us. our atty advised us to not let him touch it let alone take it anywhere until we had our own choice of a tech evaluate and document it, which we did. our guy documented that the thing was .25 and some change out of whack and also that it appears to be a manufacture flaw and can not be recalibrated unless sent back to the manufacturer. meanwhile the original rep, the one that sold me the thing, is aggravatin us to get it to him real urgent like.
And Rino, it cost me 6 grand instead of 5, and that was just day one cost , now lets see, nearly 300lf, 17ft cut under road, man hrs, more man hrs tryin to salvage 8in sdr35, fuel at near 3 per gal, .......

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SiD
________________ Everyone goes home, Every night. ___________________

rino1494

I know what you mean. One of our competitors was installing 8" SDR35 and I am not sure how much they got installed, but when it got air tested, every joint leaked. Turns out, the rubber gaskets were bad. The company replaced the pipe, but they had to dig them back up and re-lay them.

__________________
Life is hard. It is harder when you are stupid

Uncle Sam wants YOU....to speak ENGLISH

dayexco

you watching your airflow thru the pipe? ain't that a treat, last yr was buying 8" for 2.35-2.85 a ft....last semi load i got was 4.85 about a month ago. what's it at now in your areas?

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someday, i'll be as patient as Nick.

dirtdiggencat

$5.014 DayX, but the gravel is gonna be a killer, they want it all the way up to subgrade in the center of the road,,,,,,,,, again.

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SiD
________________ Everyone goes home, Every night. ___________________

rino1494

I hate it when municipalities want that. We ususally cheat and mix dirt in with it.

__________________
Life is hard. It is harder when you are stupid

Uncle Sam wants YOU....to speak ENGLISH

dirtdiggencat

rino

__________________
__________________
SiD
________________ Everyone goes home, Every night. ___________________

dayexco

laser's are a time saver, they're not bulletproof, we are....we have to plug in the proper slope, watch our air through the pipe. i know we all don't like these scenarios, but you know, sometimes the wages of being in business a long time, having any type of reputation means....."you know, i really fugged up"....i have to redo that to make it the way you anticipated, what you paid for. that's where repeat business comes in

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someday, i'll be as patient as Nick.

PipeGuy

Neither are even the best employees. That's why well published and understood installation procedures are important if owners are'nt going to be the installers. Even with good procedures in place mistakes and accidents will happen, but at least then ownership of the problem will be more obvious.
A lot of the sewers we lay are installed at the minimum grade allowed by the very strict local sewer agency (.50%). Even the smallest of errors can leave us looking at spending many thousands of dollars to fix lines that aren't laid with enough fall. Despite the steps we take to avoid such problems they still manage to happen about once a year. I track the cost of such 'warranty work' and include it in my overhead allowance.
You can't do work perfectly and ignoring the very real cost of warranty is a recipe for disaster.

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Fortunately I keep my feathers numbered for...for just such an emergency. -Foghorn Leghorn

rino1494

Hey pipe, can you elaborate a little more on what you call "warranty work" and how you incorporate it within your costs.

__________________
Life is hard. It is harder when you are stupid

Uncle Sam wants YOU....to speak ENGLISH

PipeGuy

I look at warranty work as any of our work that we have to 'go back' and correct in order to satisfy the requirements of our contracts. I have to admit that I should probably be considering as warranty work any work we do twice - but I don't.
Expenses that result exclusively from the need to 'go back' and fix our screw ups are charged to and tracked by an 'indirect cost' account for 'warranty losses'. They are not assigned to job cost. To the extent that trends are revealed by analysis of historical data, I have a 'real' look at the hard cost of installation mistakes and I'm able to determine a reasoned warranty loss factor for inclusion in my overhead expense calculations.

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Fortunately I keep my feathers numbered for...for just such an emergency. -Foghorn Leghorn

dirtdiggencat

Pipeguy is right on boys! put some fuzz in the bids. However you calculate it,,, you'll need it sooner or later.

This "do over" is wearin me out. SLOWWWW goin and short handed!
What u guys think about askin the laser manufacturer for some compensation?

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SiD
________________ Everyone goes home, Every night. ___________________

Double-A

You can ask, but, I'm not sure how far you're going to get. I think you need to see who that factory rep works for and call his boss. I've found that sometimes the guy that owns the rep company will eat his hat to keep a customer happy if one of this manufacturers screwed up.

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"My clients’ wishes are the center of my attention." -- David Guido, a contractor in Woodstock, N.Y.
New York Times, July 20, 2006

MC Excavating

Who is the manufacturer? I bet if you sent them an email with a link to this forum topic they might be willing to help you out a little bit. I think that would be great for public relations to show they stand behind there product 100%. Dont you guys gain more respect for those that make a mistake (as long as it isnt all the time) and then do there best to make it right?

By the way, this topic has 219 views!

The internet can be a very valuable tool. Use it to your advantage.

dayexco

were i a laser manufacturer, i'd be very very reluctant to reimburse a contractor for a situation like this. the manual shows how to calibrate the unit. i'm fully aware that you didn't do this, but i can see some contractors plugging in the wrong grade, catch their fug up after completed, and then play with the calibration after the fact in an effort to get some bucks outta the laser manufacturer....i am NOT implying you did that!!! but, if they deny your claim, it'd be my guess that's what their thoughts are

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someday, i'll be as patient as Nick.

Double-A

They are gonna have a hard time explaining why its out of calibration by .25 right out of the box. They just need to "Customer Service Up" instead of "Lawyering up", IMHO. When you're at that price point, and you make a crappy product or do crappy QC, you deserve to get "served" on the forums.

What I can't get over is how this factory rep wants you do send it to him, rather than get in his company car, for which they are prolly taking $0.44/mile in tax deductions, and drive is lazy butt over to DD and pick that piece of crap up, and drop off a loaner for DD to use in the meantime. For craps sake, if someone buys 6K worth of 1 item that can be stolen or damaged in the blink of an eye, kiss their butt a little. They are your livelihood after all.

Furthermore, DD doesn't strike me as the vindictive type. He is somewhat to blame for his situation too, but, I can understand his getting steamed and looking for some help from the manufacturer now, since they seem to be "otherwise occupied" at this time, and not at all interested in the fact that a professional that relies on their product to make his living is losing his butt 'cause they screwed the pooch.

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"My clients’ wishes are the center of my attention." -- David Guido, a contractor in Woodstock, N.Y.
New York Times, July 20, 2006

PipeGuy

Finally...the $24 question. Yeah, what make and model are we talkin'?
IMO, the manufacturers obligation stops at fixing or replacingthe laser. Just like the pipe manufacturer that'll provide you the new pipe and haul away the old if it's defective. Removal and replacement is your nut.

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Fortunately I keep my feathers numbered for...for just such an emergency. -Foghorn Leghorn