SO anybody see any “issues” with the drain header in these pic.s?




This is a “classic” move by the construction group that has a “better idea”, and is one of my pet peeves about handing over a project to construction and the designer not having any input what they do! It’s assumed that construction will follow your design and the system will operate as you had designed it. BUT as you can see “somebody” had decided that getting laterals would take too long or that they are cost prohibitive and did “their own thing”. Now “IF” there is any obstruction in the line and they try rotor-routering it out, the cutting blade can no longer make the transition into the main header, it WILL deadhead into the tee and not be able to go any farther. The real “joke” in this is they still put in the 45 Deg. Ells to facilitate the rotor-router going down the header ...a total waste of time and material! It would have been better if they left out the 45 Deg Ells and just used tees. The only saving grace on this is if there is a blockage and you have to rotor-router it out, they’ll have to open and rotor-router the main header as a separate operation …so doubling the operation!

Really strange piping .!
I think there might be process requirement here & at construction site we see only the final drawings issued for construction. What happend to come to this decision we never know at site....Have u asked design, that 'why it is done this way??'

1. What was on the Isometric material list? Lateral Tee.
2. If so, then how come shop issued:
a. Regular Tee
b. 45° Elbow
There has to be some explanation for the issuing the material that was not on the iso-material-list.

This was one of those "HOT" projects ...trying to meet an EPA deadline, the entire piping was fabricated on site. I still haven't heard an explaination on this, but the client decided that it was "OK" as-is. One "Golden Rule" that over rides anything in this industry is ..."He who has all the gold, makes all the rules"! ...The other rule that levels everything out is ..."IF the clients happy, then you "should" be happy"!

You are correct about it. After all, client shells out the money.

However, the client wouldn't be so happy if he understood the implications like you did. Maybe they ignored. They say "Ignorance is bliss" and now I realize it is true. But it is very good (no pun) example for all Design persons.

When I looked at the photos my first question was why are they not using wye's (laterals) instead of the tee and 45 combo. I don't see how anyone could say that this practice was cost effective or material effective. The only reason I can see this as every even happening is a long lead time on procuring wye's. Not cost effective. Not design effective. I know if many instances in the states most inspectors won't even sign off of it thus forcing the contractor to cut it apart and start over which really should be the case here anyway.

I am surprised that lateral fishmouths were not cut into the main run. This is a standard layout option, especially for "exotic" materials (i.e. long lead time), and considering this appears to be a low pressure drain system, repads potentially would not even be required. This would appear to save labor as well, looking at all the associated buttwelds with the pictured config.