J045--HYDRO JET CLEANING DRAINAGE | QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS - Amendment

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Question #1 - The Baltimore VA Medial Center located at 10 N. Green street. There are four risers A, B, C, D. Located in that building. There is currently no clean out area to jet from the risers and we were told they have never been jetted before. There is no access in the 6" vertical riser lines. Will the winning bidder install clean outs on those 6" Risers or will you guys be installing them? If the winning bidder is installing them would that be a change order? Would like to confirm if all the clogs are on the 4 " horizontal lines going to your 6" risers? Just to confirm we are only jetting the 6 " vertical risers not the 4 " horizontal lines coming from all the toilets? ANSWER FOR BALTIMORE LOCATION: Baltimore Clean outs in Baltimore are primarily in the interstitial. There are not many and most are not marked on any drawings. When there are no cleanouts, toilet fixtures would generally need to be pulled for jetting drain lines. Current plumbing staff would be overburdened pulling toilets at a site this large. Requesting the contractor to add cleanouts would exponentially increase the contract dollar figure. Removing and reinstalling floor mounted toilets are labor intensive. It can take 2-3 hours a piece for each with the entire process that includes jetting. Cleanouts are built to reduce that amount of time and effort down to minutes. Installing new cleanouts is also labor intensive as it would require shutdowns and major rework of extensive plumbing systems. It also is not as simple as buying and installing one. Simply plopping one in could cause more problems then it solves. Its why you need a licensed plumber to install and rerun new drain lines properly. Cleanouts Required | UpCodes 2012 International Plumbing Code - Cleanout requirements. The rule of thumb is you should have a cleanout every 50 -100 feet or change of direction. They are also required on all risers and each vertical drain stack. Putting them in the interstitial is a violation of code and I don t even want to get into the infection control conversation with that (Back wash comes with opening a cleanout). Where do you think that fluid goes? Especially when a line is locked with fluid from a clog.  You have a million and a half square feet at Baltimore. You would need thousands of cleanouts. Even if the VA chose to put clean outs in small amount of selected areas to limit spending, you would be pushing plumbing restriction problems from one area of the building into the other where there would be no cleanout. All the drain lines connect. At Loch raven we can push our problems to the city of Baltimore underground utility. VA Baltimore (10 north greene street) does not have that luxury. I want to be clear without cleanouts the only other option is to break pipes apart behind the wall to remove the restriction. Over the years Install/Construction contractors have cut corners and not installed cleanouts which is a large part of the problem. The laws and codes are only as good as the enforcement of those codes and rules. QUESTION #2 FOR LOCH RAVEN - Loch Raven Medical Center located at 3901 The Alameda. Baltimore, Md. What is the turnaround response for emergency clogs and backups. I did not see that in the solicitation. Should the winning bidder allow that into the total price or should we bill for each emergency separately. I am also to understand that we are giving two separate prices for each location. ANSWER FOR LOCH RAVEN LOCATION: Loch Raven Turn around times for emergencies at both campuses should be within 24 hours. Solicitations should be sent separately as emergencies should have a CLIN and funding. We requested two separate prices under one contract to delineate how much each campus costs.