HVAC rough-in took 3 days because the prints were garbage

Ran a job in Red Deer last month where the mechanical drawings showed ductwork going straight through a steel beam that was added after the original design. Nobody flagged it during the walkthrough, so we showed up with 2 guys and a lift expecting a 1 day rough-in. Ended up spending 3 days rerouting everything and cutting new collars on site. The GC kept saying 'just make it work' but every fix created a new clash with the plumbing riser. What should have been a 3 man crew for 8 hours turned into a 5 man crew for 22 hours across 3 visits. My invoice went $1,800 over estimate and I ate half of it just to keep the relationship. Has anyone else had a designer's oversight turn a simple rough-in into a full week of headaches?

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benwilliams2mo ago

Buddy of mine does commercial sheet metal in Calgary and hit the same wall on a school renovation. The drawings were stamped and everything, but the mechanical engineer used an old structural grid from before they added a fire separation wall. He had 14 prefabbed duct sections sitting on the truck that wouldn't fit anywhere near the layout. Spent a whole day just measuring and relocating hangers because the actual beam spacing was 4 inches off from the prints. The foreman on site kept saying the tape measure was wrong, not the drawing. He ended up eating about 12 hours of labor and told me he'll never bid off those stamped plans again without pulling the actual as-builts first.

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