The right stuff

Before any work on a new project starts, Ken Merboth, president of Water Scape in Lincoln, Neb., and American Society of Irrigation Consultants member, makes sure the irrigation design and the specifications manual is in the contractors’ hands so that there’s no confusion about what’s supposed to be installed. Then they talk through the project and he makes sure that the contractor knows when he needs to alert Merboth to come out and take a look as noted in the specifications.

Most often, the problem he finds is non-approved products. He, and other consultants, find that to be the most common problem. “Usually it’s things like they’ll try to use something that they call an approved equal like a sprinkler head or a subsurface line that’s not the one that was specified,” he says. Especially when dealing with water restrictions, the right material is key to meeting codes and ordinances on water usage.

“For instance, the irrigation system is being installed in clay and they installed a product not specified and its precipitation rate is too high for the soil to absorb and we’re getting runoff,” Merboth says. And while the contractor might think that their preferred material will work, it’s putting out too much water. “But they will try to sneak things in and sometimes they’ll even try to put a rotor in that they think is an equal and it’s a residential product not suited for a commercial project and is not an approved equal.”

That can cause serious problems when projects need to meet water ordinances and usage restrictions. James Eddy, principal and founder of James D. Eddy Associates in Danville, Cali., says his biggest challenge is getting contractors to follow his plans. While many contractors are willing to follow the specs, some are not. If a contractor underbids a project, they may want to use a less expensive product. “So it’s very difficult,” he says. “We follow the rules on our design work, but we have to get the contractors to understand, ‘Look, we have followed the rules established by the state of California. You have to follow the rules as well by installing the materials we’ve specified because those materials meet the conditions of the ordinance.”

Many irrigation contractors make a site visit to ensure that the proper products have been delivered. Whether it’s a misplaced order, the wrong delivery or a substitute that hasn’t been approved, the wrong material can show up on a site. “I would say the No. 1 biggest mistake we see is that someone put the wrong equipment in the ground,” says Carey June of Irrigation Consultant Services in Conyers, Ga., and ASIC member.

June and his team make sure that contractors know up front that the project will be observed to head off any problems before they might pop up. “We make it very clear that … site visits will occur and they’re going to be responsible for making the changes that are required because of those site visits,” he says.

ASIC member Bob Healey, Eddy and many other consultants, require the contractor to tell them when products are delivered so that it’s all approved before the work starts. June asks contractors to provide product data submittals, including cut sheets on the equipment they’re proposing to use. “We can find a very big variety from contractors in terms of how detailed their cut sheets are and how closely they do or do not follow the specifications,” Healey says. “That isn’t always something we’re involved with but we like to be.”

Eddy requires details on everything from the pipes to the cement. If any of the materials don’t match the specs, he’ll require a resubmittal, sending the sheet back to the client. That way, if he gets to the site and sees the wrong materials, there’s an easy way to show which is the right product.

Just recently, Healey got to a job site where a couple hundred feet of pipe was in the ground, but it was the wrong pipe. The foreman was installing what his boss put in the truck, with no idea that it was incorrect. “That’s one of the reasons you always try to make sure you sign off on the equipment before any work is done and some contractors don’t really get that point and they just show up and start working and when you show up an hour later, they’ve done work sometimes and you have to stop them and it’s a pain when you have to pull it out of the ground.”

Making a list.

“It’s really important and that’s a big part of what I do,” Merboth says. He has developed an irrigation inspection checklist developed around the contractor’s work, and his specifications and details. He’ll walk with the irrigation contractor and the general contractor to inspect the job as it progresses, making four or five inspections during the process.

“There are so many little things in an irrigation system,” he says. “That’s why the checklist is so important and if there is anything that’s not correct or not as per the irrigation details, then there’s a check where it’s not installed correctly. That item has to be corrected and then approved on the next inspection."

But generally, Merboth finds that contractors whose references and qualifications meet the requirements to bid on the project want to meet the design intent and want good results. “In all the inspections over the years I’ve really had very few problems with any contractor that’s qualified to do the type of work and the size of systems that we design,” he says.