Ask for NADCA professionals (Help!)

[IceYogurt]

Hi.

I work as a general Contractor in the construction of residential and office buildings. Our SPEC requires NADCA professionals to conduct duct cleaning, which we haven't done it for residential and office buildings before except for hospitals. And the most difficult part is that we cannot find a NADCA professional in the country. I have some doubts and questions:

1. How do NADCA professionals to assess the ducts are clean enough or to be cleaned? Which test to be conducted and what parameter to be read?
2. Is there any NADCA professional willing to get a project in Egypt?

Please let me know if you can help. Much appreciated in advance.

 

[SAK9]

You need to challenge your consultant for specifying something that is not available in Egypt. They should have researched it before specifying it. It is not going to be economical for your client to fly out duct cleaners from the US. These certifications are a ticket clipping business in the US and it is crazy to apply it in other parts of the world!

 

[IceYogurt]

I have challenged our consultant and they refused to compromise with us since, as quoted from their words, "it is an international project and the Contractor should comply with project specs without excuse because the Contractor signed the Contract."

From my client's viewpoint, it is Lump-sum contract. So the problem is with us (the Contractor) not them. Absolutely, our bidding department has not catched the trap during tender phrase. That's the past. My position is to advise the management to do some damage controls in the case.

I have searched the NADCA professionals in Middle East (ME), there seems some companies having NADCA certificates in Dubai and Saudi Arabic. It should be much cheaper than ones in US. My plan is to get an NADCA certificated engineer from ME, then assess the cleanliness of the installed ducts.
- If it is really dirty and far away from the standard, then we may get duct cleaning specialists to clean ducts.
- If just a little bit dirty and could be blew out by the Fans, then we just run the Fans to clean.
- If it is clean enough, then the NADCA certificated engineer can issue an report to prove the point so no more cleaning work to be conducted.

Basically it is all my plan to address the issue. However I do need a full support from an trustful NADCA certificated company or engineer.

 

[nuuvox000]

I don't know much about NADCA but here's what I would do as a PM if I really had to meet this part of the contract.

1) Hire someone. Call all of the places here:

https://nadca.com/find-a-professional

and then you'll have to ask them if you can fly them out and pay per diem, hotels, flights, etc. Will be costly so you'll have to look at your budgets.

2) Get someone from your company certified:

https://nadca.com/hvac-certification-education-training/ascs-cvi-vmt-online-training

You may need to call NADCA and see if they are willing to host an exam asap outside of their regular schedules (I'm sure they'll charge for this). If it's in person, you'll have to fly someone over to take the exam and fly them back.

If the budget allows, I would do number 1. Number 2 might be less costly if you have someone that can binge the trainings and pass the exam. Good luck.

 

[IceYogurt]

Hi nuuvox,

Thanks for your advise. Actually I am on the way of solution #1. We found one company certified by NADCA located in Saudi no far from Egypt.

Solution #2 is pretty good but costs time. Considering that I would have to purchase many test materials (for swab test or vacuum test) and cleaning machines in solution #2 and trained the labors to study the cleaning, it should be one-stop solution to outsource all the works to one specialist. Hope everything will go well.