Expressions....

Something on Scope of Works and Professionalism   A piece of a passing thought.   Salam,   All praise be to Allah SWT for inspiring me to write this piece…   In a pumping station, the only 'mechanical' device would be the pump. Unless the Civil Engineering student also learns Fluid Mechanics as extensively as a Mechanical Engineering student does (I don't know the Civil Engg. syllabus, kindly enlighten me). Only then we can consider that the Civil Engineering graduate to be trained or educated in Fluid Mech and therefore should have the capability of specifying a pump Then again if the Civil Engg. graduate should be able to specify a pump - not only in terms of flowrate and head but also the difference between a horizontal-split casing and a vertical-multi-stage, and the type of impellers, shafts, bearings, mechanical seal and what have you - components of the pump. Then, well - mechanical can do it as good as civil does. Maybe that's not the case. ...

Safety Factor Might Not Be Safe Salam, I know all of you Mechys and Civils here have seen this chart. It tells you a bunch of stuff. One of the most important stuff would be how flow, Q increases with the lowering of the head, H, and vice versa along the pump curve. The power input to the pump, P2 increases with the increase in Q. If you oversize the H in the design, the actual H during operation will be lower than the H at the red dot there. Oversizing H is caused the fear that your pressure may be inadequate. So you put in a high safety factor (SF) to total pipe length (straight pipe length + equivalent length), static head difference and residual pressure. But in actual operation, the H is much lower, (one of the reasons being that the pipe is new) which causes the Q to increase (follow the pump curve line to the right). See what happens to the power curve in the chart below the pump curve. There is an increase in P2. In the post earlier, what happened during T&C was...

Salam,  My take on the Schedule of Prices (SoP) for Mechanical Services . 1. You don’t have to start from scratch. You can use the previous job’s SoP and modify accordingly, especially if your typing style is ‘patuk ayam’ (non-Malaysians, please Google that). 2. Try to make time to prepare the SoP yourself, especially when you’re the designer. Some of us may ask our typist to type it out based on our draft. Personally, I don’t like that as I’m of the opinion that it’s a technical document and should be prepared by technical people. Maybe because I can type without looking at the keyboard (haha). 2. Normally, we’ll start of the SoP with the Preliminaries section. What's in it? - Items like Shop Drawings, As-built Drawings, Operations and Maintenance Manual. - Items like Performance Bond, wait... Performance Bond shouldn't be in the Prelims. It's the Nominated Sub-Contractor's responsibility to issue a PB to the Main Contractor. The Main Contractor also issues a PB ...

Salam, The Tender Exercise - Part I The Tender Document and Drawings An intern at our firm asked me about what is the Tender Exercise. So, for the benefit of young engineers and engineering students who would like to enter the realm of the construction industry someday, it's an exercise that involves the following, but first.. The context of 'Tender' here is not 'Tender Loving Care' or TLC or to 'Tender Resignation'. 'Tender' is basically 'Bid'. You may read in.. Google..., especially about the thing called 'Invitation to Treat'. Essentially it's a process of obtaining offers from bidders (or tenderers) who are construction companies or specialized trades, such as air-cond, fire protection, plumbing, gas, electrical, ELV (extra low voltage), lift & escalators, medical gas, pneumatic tube (used at hospitals and toll plazas-before touch & go became the only way to pay), landscape, ID, building management unit or BMU ...

Salam, All praise be to Allah SWT for inspiring me to write this piece of mind. Imagine this. Someone puts up a picture of Mount Everest on social media and ask for comments, thoughts or knowledge about the mountain from everybody, then we can expect that :- 1. The geological expert shall put up everything he knows on the mountain. 2. A mountaineering expert shall put up everything he knows on the mountain.  3. A climate and weather expert shall put up everything he knows on the mountain. 4. A photography expert shall put up everything he knows on the mountain.  5. A travel and tours expert, and all other experts who knows about the mountain shall express their piece.  And that's only Mount Everest. What about other things? Virus for example, nuclear power plants, human emotions and intents. All knowledge conceivable to the Human Being.  Lots of subjects and lots of thoughts, ideas, knowledge and those 'out-of'-the-box' ideas.  All ideas conceivable by the human...

Salam, FREE GIFT FOR ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS and FREE GIFT FOR IR AND IR 2 Thank you for coming. Hope you’ll stay. The Overall Concept A building is an empty shell without the building services. We give life to the building with our plumbing, air-conditioning, fire protection, lifts, electricity, extra-low voltage, lightning protection system and earthing, natural gas and building automation systems and many other services which depends on the function of the building. For example, a simple warehouse with a small office on the first floor may only have plumbing for the toilets, bib taps for general washing and maybe another bib tap in case there is a lorry bay outside the warehouse. Fire protection is important too for life and property safety…. Well, if the fire gets put out well then maybe property safety isn’t that important compared to life safety. Some air-conditioning perhaps for the small office. A 2.5hp unit will do. Yeah.. Lighting of course, can’t see in the dark, ...

Salam,   The Standards of Conformity - FOR ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS, KINDLY ASK YOUR SENIORS OR GOOGLE.  Get a copy - either PDF or hardcopy of the following:- By Law (Very Important) - Uniform Building By-Law 1984 - Revised 2012. There are many revisions of the UBBL but the 2012 is often referred to by Bomba.  Guide to Fire Protection in Malaysia (popularly known as the Red Book) - VERY IMPORTANT. For Fire Protection MS1910 - Sprinkler MS1489 - Hydrant, Wet Riser and Hose Reel MS1472 - Pressurization MS1780 - Smoke Control (smoke spill) MS1745 - Fire Alarm System (there are many parts to this - Part 1 to Part 14) MS2586 - Smoke Duct Sections For Energy Efficiency MS1525  For Cold Water MS1583 - SUITABILITY OF NON-METALLIC PRODUCTS FOR USE IN CONTACT WITH WATER INTENDED FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION WITH REGARD TO THEIR EFFECT ON THE QUALITY OF THE WATER: PART 2: METHODS OF TEST: SECTION 5: THE  EXTRACTION OF SUBSTANCES THAT MAY BE OF CONCERN  TO PUBLIC HEALTH BS ...

Salam,  Read about the Tender Document preparation which I've posted in Bicara Jurutera, but we'll discuss this again in other postings.  The designs that you'll be doing for Mechanical and Electrical building services or any other systems in a building shall comprise of the following :- 1. Plumbing - Cold Water Services - Tanks, Pumps, Treatment systems, Pipework and Valves. 2. Plumbing - Hot Water Services - Hot water plants, Boilers, Heat Pumps, Instant Water Heaters and Storage Water Heaters, Gas-fired Water Heaters. 3. Plumbing - Sanitary Piping Services - Soil and waste piping systems. Inspection chambers, Grease interceptors, laboratory waste water systems. 4. Plumbing - Rainwater Harvesting System. 5. Plumbing - Greywater Recycling System. 6. Fire Protection - Fire Extinguishers 7. Fire Protection - Automatic Sprinklers 8. Fire Protection - Pressurized Hydrant 9. Fire Protection - Wet Riser System 10. Fire Protection - Dry Riser System 11. Fire Protection - Hose Ree...

Salam, A guide to Consulting (fresh) Graduate Engineers Things to learn first :- For those doing building services : parts of the building first - slab, walls, columns, beams, flying beams and there are other types of beams, finishes, reflected ceiling plan, part-plans, sanitarywares, ledges (this is where we put our outdoor aircond unit).  (sorry : there's so much more we know that we can share but we hope that we could all help to share to these youngsters about pump curves, fan curves, cross-ventilation, nett free area, design point, static head, psig, etc. Can't do that alone. A lot more people can teach. Just that they're shy.) (ok. i'll share one with you all here: put your air-cond outdoor unit at the ledge that the architect provided. Don't make that first mistake by assuming that the architect has provided the right space for you. You must check with the catalog the capacity of the air-cond unit and allow some circulation space, then only you sketch nicely ...

Salam, All praise be to Allah SWT for inspiring me to write this piece of mind. Sometimes we let emotions rule us. That blocks our ability to think objectively. Why, I wonder that we give in more to emotions rather than logic, sense & objectivity? Rather than be as calm as possible and pray to Allah SWT so that we can be calmly guided & find out why our assistant made a mistake in her work, we shout at her. We ask her why, how come, who, when and many many more whys... If that assistant has a wit like a lawyer and nothing to lose, then she'll probably outsmart us. But she'd be polite, apologetic and won't look at us in the eye or stares blankly at our face with her mind going with whatever negative thoughts in her head. What if we be calm, knowing that we too have had our moment being on the other side of the desk. It was painful for us at that moment, right? Wouldn't you want for someone not to go through the experience? I think as a decent human being, we woul...