| Author |
Message |
Christopher Borcsok
Senior Member
Username: ckb
Post Number: 44
Registered: 06-2013
| | Posted on Thursday, July 23, 2015 - 10:35 pm: |    |
There are (by my informal search) at least a dozen threads where various comments have been made about various engineers' implementations of of 2X 05 XX sections (mostly related to Div 21, 22, and 23), and *shudder* Division 20.
I haven't seen a specific recommendation on how the folks here would like to see it be done, more of "how NOT to do it". I'm wondering if anyone can make a practical recommendation.
Option 1: Repeat x3 in Div 21, 22, 23 (results in most pages, could permit future deviations, but does add unnecessary duplication.
Option 2: Insert once. Which is the ideal Division? 21? What if there isn't a Div 21 in the project - pick the lowest numbered division of the three in use and throw it there, or is there a logic to using 22 or 23? Name as "... for Fire Suppression", or "... for Mechanical"? Add a bunch of references to the sections in that other division?
Option 3... better ideas?
Also, on the topic of "Vibration and Seismic Controls for XXXX", I have another version of the same Section called "Vibration Controls for XXXX" - usually the different version (same number xx 05 48) is used, but name difference as clients have actually questioned why I would spec (expensive) seismic hangers in a project in a non-seismic area (just by reading the section name, even if I don't actually spec any seismic in the section). Does anyone concur with this approach?
Thanks everyone. |
Tom Gilmore, NCARB, CCS, CCCA
Senior Member
Username: tgilmore
Post Number: 44
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, July 25, 2015 - 04:27 pm: | |
I haven't yet seen a convincing argument why Division 20 shouldn't be unreserved and used for these Common Work Results sections. And I would complete the title of the sections with "...for Facilities Services". In the event that there needs to be separate language for plumbing and HVAC for instance, separate articles could be used.
With Facilities Services sections making up an inordinate portion of our project manuals, we'd prefer to "say it once in the right place", and let our consultants focus their thought on more important tasks than editing redundant sections. |
ken hercenberg
Senior Member
Username: khercenberg
Post Number: 936
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, July 26, 2015 - 07:57 pm: | |
I agree Tom. The architectural specifying community would never have tolerated a scenario like this being imposed on them.
On the one hand we want our MEPT Engineers to fully coordinate their work. On the other hand, we neglect to provide them the one tool that would simplify coordination.
Division 20 should be a tool for specifying common work elements across the 20-Series Divisions.
Obviously we will still need to be diligent about keeping Division 01 content out. |
Richard Howard, AIA CSI CCS LEED-AP
Senior Member
Username: rick_howard
Post Number: 290
Registered: 07-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, July 26, 2015 - 10:11 pm: | |
Although I support the idea in principle, the one time I had an engineer send a Division 20, it was about 60 pages of randomly organized, incoherent thoughts intended to completely replace not just Division 01, but also provisions of the State of Ohio's standard (as in "not to be edited") Instructions to Bidders and General Requirements. Only a few paragraphs actually dealt with subjects appropriate for common work results. This Section 200000 "General Requirements" applied only to the work of Divisions 21, 22, 23, and 26. Divisions 25, 27, and 28 were prepared by other consultants who each approached the project as if their part of the work was completely divorced from rest of the single-prime construction contract. Kind of like a self-contained project manual in a single section.
If that is the way the concept is going to be executed, then that is the best argument against it.
There are few engineers (or architects for that matter) who have the slightest understanding of the concept of General Requirements or the principles of specification writing. When we have a half-dozen contributors to the contract documents, keeping it all seamless is not going to happen if each one exercises autonomy. |
J. Peter Jordan
Senior Member
Username: jpjordan
Post Number: 856
Registered: 05-2004
| | Posted on Monday, July 27, 2015 - 11:10 am: | |
The best argument against the use of Division 20 is that there isn't really that much in common over the full range that the Division 20 series covers. This section is often used by MEP but isn't really applicable to the "low voltage stuff" you might find in security or datacom disciplines. I would also argue that the truly common work results between the electrical lighting and power stuff and the piped stuff is not as extensive as one might think. |
Michael J. King, FCSI, CCS
Senior Member
Username: mking
Post Number: 24
Registered: 08-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - 10:48 am: | |
This topic comes up about every three or four years. It is normally resurrected by those who don't specify facility services specifications. This is proven true by the lack of understanding of what is and is not "common."
The reality about "common" versus "unique" and "redundant" as opposed as "not redundant" is that the commonality of the topics in the categories of 2X 05 00 is true about Section, Article, and Paragraph titles; and beyond those titles the content is not, and should not be the same. There will certainly be a minor bit of overlap among various topics, however, the static and dynamic loads, pressures, temperatures, and other design factors among the topics of Fire Suppression, Plumbing, HVAC, Electrical, Communications, and Electronic Safety and security are vastly different. This truth applies to hangers and supports, meters and gages, general duty valves, identification, conductors and cables, raceways and pathways, overcurrent protective devices, and more when considered among the seven divisions in Facilities Services Subgroup.
A division 20 would need to contain common work results for all services. To do so would require some subdivisions at Level 1-1/2 and Level 2 numbers and titles to differential, say, electrical common work results from HVAC common work results. In so doing, the results are the same as what appears in each of the seven Services Subgroup divisions. So, why move them from where they apply to a new division?
The interdependence among sections within each division in the Facilities Services Subgroup is dramatic; much more so than in the Facilities Construction Subgroup. However, the same principles could be applied to the latter as are applied in the former. For example, in plumbing systems, each piping system is specified in a separate section (e.g., Domestic Water, Sanitary Waste and Vent, Storm Drainage, Compressed Air). Each system has common components (e.g., pipes, fittings, specialties), each of which is chosen from an ever-expanding variety of product types that are applicable and unique to the application of each particular system. In each piping system section cross reference is made to hangers and supports in a 22 05 00 category section to avoid repeating them in the several piping system sections. Spacing of hangers and supports is, however, specified in the system section because that spacing depends on the piping material chosen for various locations, sizes, and conditions at various parts of the system. The Hangers and Supports section in Division 22 will have some overlap with Division 23 (not with 21 and certainly not with 26, 27, or 28), but the dynamic and static loads, temperatures, and pressures will require differences between the two. So, a hanger for domestic water piping will likely have different requirements for high-pressure steam piping, as an example.
Here's an interesting observation, the architectural community has not embraced the same redundancy eliminating principles as the MEP community, either within divisions or among divisions as they are professing for Facility Services Subgroup. Divisions 3 through 14 have "XX 05 00 – Common Work Results for (Insert the Division Title), but these are rarely if ever used. Also, among those divisions in the Facility Construction Subgroup, there are (or could be) items that are common among most (e.g., fasteners). However, I don't see (for good reason) a movement to create a division to consolidating these common work results.
The MasterFormat Expansion Task Team and after that the MasterFormat Maintenance Task Team, for the first time in MasterFormat history, engaged facility service engineers and organizations to revise and expand the classification for facility services specifications. Having serviced on MF committees since the mid-1980s I can attest to that. When that happened, two and one half divisions (13-, 15, and 16) became seven divisions with a few more (24 and 29) for future expansion. Divisions 20, 30, and 40 were not considered to be a classification number to be used, although the Environmental Engineers chose to make use of Division 40 (for reasons inconsistent with the rest of the classification system). This expansion was done deliberately and carefully to accommodate the vastly larger quantity of product types and work results and to align the classification system for subject matter in facility services with the classification for subject matter in facility construction. Each work result section in facility services described large amounts of products and the application of them into the project. These complex issues demanded expansion of the number of divisions and sections to enable more comprehensive and concise coverage of these requirements and to be able to locate that subject matter within the project manual. To consolidate Common Work Results into a single division would to move backwards and require larger sections containing many more products and contradicting the underlying principle of easing retrieval of requirements. I believe in the Tenant of "Say it Once," but until one actually designs, select products for, and specify work results for facility services, one cannot understand the complexities affecting the decisions for the classification.
Buildings are becoming much more complex, intelligent, and dynamic. So, facility services specifications will continue to expand and require careful and considered organization. My architectural friends and colleagues, get used to the fact that the quantity specifications and drawings for facility services will eclipse those for architectural. |
Charles Coleman, RA, CSI (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - 03:36 pm: | |
The statement "...This truth applies to hangers and supports, meters and gages, general duty valves, identification, conductors and cables, raceways and pathways, overcurrent protective devices, and more when considered among the seven divisions in Facilities Services Subgroup..." speaks directly to the issue - there are sections in the Facilities Services Subgroup that could be consolidated to include all of the disciplines involved. We believe that Division 20 could be used effectively for this purpose - to consolidate the information from each of the disciplines into a shortlist of sections that would properly address applicable project requirements without sacrificing completeness or accuracy and avoid repeating the same text multiple times. Respectfully, we would also include sleeves and sleeve seals, escutcheons, and vibration isolation to the list of sections referenced above.
The other statement "...Divisions 3 through 14 have "XX 05 00 – Common Work Results for (Insert the Division Title), but these are rarely if ever used..." makes the point. The Common Work Results sections may exist in Divs 03 thru 14 of MasterFormat but they're rarely used in our work. That said, in our 60+ years of experience working on large, mixed-use/multi-family residential projects, we’ve found that in the last five years or so that these sections are always used in Divisions 21 through 26, which inflates the page count but doesn’t add any substantive content. That’s why we raise the question. We may not be Engineers but it doesn’t take that much to see the amount of repetitiveness that comes from a strict adherence to a single presentation format. Division 01 works that way. Why not Division 20?
Not intended as a criticism but more of a question about the possibility of refining the presentation of the information without sacrificing completeness or accuracy. |
Michael J. King, FCSI, CCS
Senior Member
Username: mking
Post Number: 25
Registered: 08-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - 04:24 pm: | |
Charles, in your first paragraph, you miss read my statement or took it out of context from the sentence preceding it.
Your second paragraph illustrates that the organization principles of MF are often misunderstood or misapplied. Most of the mixed use/residential project in my experience often don't even have specifications other than what's on the drawings. That said, these projects would benefit most from avoiding a Division 20 in which the specifier would have to meticulously delete all the requirements that don't apply to that project. If the project, for instance, does not have communications systems, the common work results associated with communications systems in the proposed Division 20 would have to be deleted.
If you look beyond Section, Article, and Paragraph titles, and study the content, you might just find there are fewer or no repetitions than you think. If you find duplications in the product descriptions among the similar sections of different divisions, then the challenge is to the engineer not the classification system. |
Michael Heinsdorf, P.E.
Senior Member
Username: michael_heinsdorf_pe
Post Number: 28
Registered: 01-2014
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - 04:40 pm: | |
I agree with Peter and Michael.
Charles, to break down that a couple of the examples you quoted: while electrical and telecom hanger and supports use the same MSS standard as plumbing, fire protection, and HVAC, the similarities end there. How/where/loading/approved products/codes result in very different requirements for each discipline - water moves, conductor doesn't, so anchoring a support for a water pipe can be very different than a conduit. Electrical uses a fraction of the hangers and supports in the MSS standard, and some that are not. Then there are telecommunications specific hangers and supports which are not suitable for anything but telecommunications.
Identification is similar: Some identification products used in the engineering disciplines are similar, but not all. Some are not used at all - for instance, you should hopefully never see a tag with a metal tie-wrap identifying an electrical cable or a zip tie on a fire extinguisher. The identification schemes for electrical, telecommunications, HVAC, fire protection, and plumbing are different, as they should be.
These are really the two most "common." And the potential to leave in products that are not appropriate or a scheme to identify where certain products may be used (i.e. zip ties only on electrical, metal ties for plumbing valves) that makes sense to architects, engineers, specifiers, and contractors would have to be in place.
With respect to common work results, I think that they can be done well in certain situations. Mixed-use/residential is one of them. Would be hesitant to use them on a data center or high-rise. |
Charles Coleman, RA, CSI (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - 07:26 pm: | |
Following the recommendation, we reviewed specification Sections 21 05 17, 22 05 17, and 23 05 17 from a recent project – an 8-story, concrete frame rental apartment project with Ground Floor Retail and three levels of below grade parking. In comparing the three sections - made up of a combined 12 pages - we estimated that 80% of the information provided is exactly the same. We appreciate the coaching that the engineer is the one that should be challenged on this but we don’t see that the versatility of several of the products to be used in a variety of applications to be a fault of the engineer.
But maybe the word “duplication” is being misused. It’s not that the information is being duplicated per se but that the products being specified can be used in a variety of applications by multiple engineering disciplines and are being specified that way in each spec section - be it Stack-Sleeve Fittings from Jay R. Smith Manufacturing, Grout with a 5,000psi 28-day compressive strength, Sleeve Seal Installation requirements, or Sleeve and Sleeve Seal Schedules, which are common to all three sections. Is it necessary to cite this information three times - once in each section - or is there another way to approach this that allows the engineer to “say it once”, qualify it where appropriate when applicable to a particular discipline, “say it correctly, say it in the proper place”, and move on? Using Division 20 is considered to be an inappropriate option. We can accept that. What would you recommend as an alternative? |
Michael J. King, FCSI, CCS
Senior Member
Username: mking
Post Number: 26
Registered: 08-2004
| | Posted on Monday, August 03, 2015 - 10:05 am: | |
I am just curious, but if we follow the theory of this thread, where would one specify galvanized steel pipe for an application as a handrail? |
ken hercenberg
Senior Member
Username: khercenberg
Post Number: 939
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Monday, August 03, 2015 - 11:18 am: | |
Optimally it would go in 05 06 00 and then cross-referenced. Unfortunately the tendency has been to include it in every Section that uses it so it too is repeated too many times.
An example of how to really screw up can be seen with such items as sealants. The overwhelming tendency that I've seen, and too often practiced, is to include sealant information in individual Sections instead of limiting the content to 07 92 00 and cross-referencing. The excuse used is that when the trade is expected to install the sealants, the sealants should be included in the Section (example: curtain walls). In fact, we are not supposedly scoping the Work and should therefore not be doing this. If we want to insist that the curtain wall Installer also install the sealant, there is a perfectly good location in PART 1 to include that information. I don't know of many who follow that rule.
Nobody I know follows rules exactly but that doesn't mean that we can't discuss it and try to improve our methods of communications. Obviously enough people feel that the system still needs work. The question is whether it's good enough in some places or not. We may never agree, but it's good to hear what everyone thinks so we can continue to seek consensus. |
J. Peter Jordan
Senior Member
Username: jpjordan
Post Number: 857
Registered: 05-2004
| | Posted on Monday, August 03, 2015 - 11:23 am: | |
MasterFormat 2004 was developed emphasizing the idea of "work results" not products. When I discuss this concept, I use galvanized steel pipe as an example; where would you specify galvanized steel piping used for irrigation? Stone is another good example. It is specified in Division 04 if it is used as an exterior cladding, Division 09 if it is used as an interior flooring, wall cladding, or tile, Division 10 if used in toilet compartments, Division 12 if used for countertops, and Division 32 if used as a unit paving material.
It is the work result we should be looking at, not the product itself. |
John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA, LEED AP
Senior Member
Username: bunzick
Post Number: 1635
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Monday, August 03, 2015 - 04:17 pm: | |
I don't think I've seen sealants being spread among sections. What I've seen around here is a sealant section written as intended. One exception one being structural-sealant glazed curtain walls, which is given a separate section. Other types of "sealant" or "caulking" that are really only accessories, such as painter's caulk or acoustic caulk, I put in with the respective sections.
But as to things like iron pipe used in a bunch of locations: posters here are right, I've never seen that in a common work results section. I have seen architectural finishes, such as for aluminum windows and curtain walls, or for galvanizing and finishing, done in a common work results section; but not too often. |
Steven Bruneel, AIA, CSI-CDT, LEED-AP, EDAC
Senior Member
Username: redseca2
Post Number: 504
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Monday, August 03, 2015 - 05:31 pm: | |
I like to put sealants for tile work with the other tile setting materials in a tile Section. In addition to my preference to specify complete tile setting systems from a single source, the major tile setting manufacturers have their own sealants matched to their grout colors.
Every other sealant lives in either 07 92 20 or 07 92 30, "Exterior Joint Sealants" and "Interior Joint Sealants" respectively.
We also provide a Section "Common Work Results for Aluminum Finishes" and a "Common Work Results for Ferrous Metal Finishes".
A unique Section is "Common Work Results for Metal Fasteners". This is for expansion bolts and powder driven fasteners that have special performance requirements and testing requirements on our California Hospital projects. |
Chuck Coleman, RA, CSI (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, August 06, 2015 - 11:10 am: | |
We specify galvanized steel pipe for handrails in one of two sections - Section 05 51 00 Metal Stairs or, if Metal Stairs are not a part of the Scope of Work, in Section 05 50 00 - Metal Fabrications. |
Christopher Borcsok
Senior Member
Username: ckb
Post Number: 46
Registered: 06-2013
| | Posted on Monday, August 24, 2015 - 10:32 pm: | |
Option 4: Provide the section three times, but two of the three sections reference the other. Example:
Section 21 05 53 - Identification for Fire-Suppression Piping and Equipment
1 - GENERAL
1.01 RELATED REQUIREMENTS
1.01.1 Section 23 05 53 – Identification for HVAC Piping and Equipment: comply with all requirements of that Section as related to the work results of this section, including general requirements, products and execution.
2 - PRODUCTS – NOT USED
3 - EXECUTION
3.01 INSTALLATION
3.01.1 In addition to the piping, equipment and systems listed in Section 23 05 53, provide identification on all fire suppression piping, valves and equipment including the following:
3.01.1.1 Fire suppression standpipes.
3.01.1.2 Fire suppression wet sprinkler systems.
3.01.1.3 Fire suppression dry sprinkler systems.
3.01.2 Identification of all fire suppression systems must comply with the requirements of the applicable NFPA standard where the requirements of that standard exceed these specifications.
END OF SECTION
Feedback? Ideally, I would stick to this approach when I know I'm using 23 05 53. |
Michael J. King, FCSI, CCS
Senior Member
Username: mking
Post Number: 27
Registered: 08-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - 10:08 am: | |
This approach works if the project has HVAC installations, but for projects that are only an expansion of or addition of fire suppression, it requires the inclusion of Division 23 - HVAC when there is no HVAC installations. |
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