Message text written by Pat Morrissey to "BP - \"Is this the list with all
the ivy haters?\""
>As Mike is well aware, on a project here in our lovely state of
Connecticut, the client paid for an extensive investigation (2 years),
applied three different materials, and let the materials "sit". A decision
was made to allow only one product in the final spec. END OF STORY, I think
not. The contractor in this case, as they so rarely do, did everything in
his power to "stall" the project including sample submission until such
time as he told the owner "I can't wait any longer, I have this other
product which I can get TOMORROW". (You know of course it wasn't even one
of the three products originally considered.) Conservator said yes,
Architect said yes, contractor applied material. END OF STORY, I think not.
It is now 2 years later, the product is both cracked and de laminated,
color horrendous, but the project has won an award (for the Brownstone
replacement section only I hope). Who is at fault, certainly not the
contractor as he only suggested an alternative product to help the job
along! Then it must be either the owner or the "professionals" who allowed
the violation of the "tested" specification???????????????
<

Thank you for the update on this project, Pat, which I frankly had not been
following but I found your comments interesting for a variety of reasons.
There are so many threads we could start here I hardly know where to begin.
So maybe I'll just list a few and see where the discussion leads.

1. Testing - Testing a variety of potential products is always a good idea.
But should the purpose of testing be to disqualify as many products as
possible, possibly involving a highly subjective set of criteria, or to
provide as wide a range of acceptable products as possible that will meet
the requirements of a project? How would one go about setting up an
objective test program which will provide the owner and bidders with the
benefits of alternatives while maintaining required performance levels?

2. Contractor Games - On the face of it, it is easy to play the contractor
as the bad guy, and heaven knows we have all seen guys who do things like
stall, cheat, lie, etc. (Of course Contractors aren't the only ones who do
that -- I recall being told by a contractor in New York that a competitor's
Rep told him he couldn't use us on the job, even though we were specified,
because we don't make limestone patching compounds. DUH!) 

On the other hand, good Contractors may sometimes feel justified in
refusing to use a particular proprietary product when given no
alternatives, particularly if they have had a bad experience with that
product, or with the people who manufacture or represent that product. The
story I heard in the case you have mentioned, is that the Contractor made
it very clear even before they signed the contract that they had no
intention of using the proprietary product specified... something to do
with earlier problems and a conversation with the manufacturer including a
host of 4-letter expletives flung in their direction. If I got the story
straight, they may even have told the consultant they would replace every
stone on the building before using one bucket of that particular patch. 
This goes back to item #1, above. There are a variety of sound business
reasons why specifications should not be unduly narrow and exclusive. 

3. Last Minute Substitutions -- I've been on both ends of this one. Win
some, lose some. I think that if we can agree on anything, Pat, it's that
"new", untried, unproven products should not be considered for sensitive,
extensive, significant work. We have both seen what happens when brilliant
marketing campaigns are conceived and executed, leading to very extensive
use of some unproven new product, only to end up with the sorts of failures
you have described. The cycle seems to run about 2 years. The challenge to
the specifiers is to be smart enough to recognize what constitutes a
legitimate substitution request, and what isn't. 

4. Investigation vs. Product Specification -- The main thread of the
original discussion revolved around the issue of doing sufficient analysis
to properly identify and catalogue the causes of the observed problems.
Product testing in situ is only the last -- and perhaps the simplest --
step in this process. It comes, presumably, only after someone has figured
out why the building is deteriorating and has designed a way to correct all
of the problems discovered during investigation. The point was that without
competent investigation, ALL products are likely to fail. 

5. Product Failure -- This could be a source of unending contention too.
But let me limit my comments here to simply repeat that without competent
investigation and correction of underlying problems ALL products are likely
to fail. One should never rush to judgement on a product application that
looks awful without understanding the circumstances surrounding what has
occurred. What looks like a product failure could really be an engineering
failure, or a workmanship failure, or the whole list of things that Larrey
Riddle listed in his recent posting. I don't know for sure that there was
anything inherently wrong with the product used on the job mentioned. Maybe
it's a great product, maybe it was cooked up by somebody who doesn't know
anything about product formulation. Aesthetic failure is a whole other
issue. 

Mike Edison
Edison Coatings, Inc.