Interview with heating point designer

1. How long have you been designing?

I have been designing ITPs and boiler houses for 12 years, since 2005

Sample projects

2. Where does your work usually begin? For example: from collecting initial data, filling out questionnaires?
It all starts with communication with the customer and receiving a preliminary task from him, oral or written. It is also necessary to obtain from the customer all the materials available to him (technical conditions for connecting to heating networks, if any). After that, the analysis of the available data is carried out and the required amount of survey work is determined. If necessary, the loads on the heating point are determined (if necessary, the necessary calculations are made).
After collecting all the necessary data, a final technical report is compiled. design task with all necessary applications, signed by the customer.

3. What documentation / legal framework do you use when preparing thermal mechanical calculations?
In the course of design work, the current regulatory framework for boiler houses and ITPs (SNiP; GOST; SP) is used. Textbooks and other industrial literature of the type are also used: “THE THERMAL CALCULATION OF BOILER UNITS NORMATIVE METHOD Edited by Dr. Tech. Sciences N.V. Kuznetsov. The instructions and recommendations of the equipment manufacturers also apply.

4. What problems arise in obtaining the original data? How do you solve them?
The main problem, which is actually always present in the design of TS, is the lack of data on the connected internal engineering systems of the building. Their study has to be carried out during survey work (this applies to existing objects, when designing an ITP in a new building, it is easier to obtain initial data on systems).

5. Do you coordinate the design decisions that you are preparing, how does this happen?
Coordination of design decisions takes place at all stages of design, both with the customer (or his representative) and with designers performing related sections (architecture, power supply, automation, VC). The project is also being coordinated with representatives of the networks to which it is connected. Submission of docks for examination is carried out at the design stage "P".

6. How do you choose the brands of the equipment you use?
The equipment brand is determined at the stage of writing those design assignments. Either the customer himself chooses it from operating experience, or the designer does it based on his experience according to the criteria:
Price;
Quality;
service at the design stage;
service at the stage of installation;
service at the maintenance stage (including after the warranty).

7. Do you use 3D modeling in your work? Does it add value to your activity? And does it increase the complexity of the work?
It’s used, it reduces the time for coordination with subcontractors and allows the customer to see the TP in space. At the same time, the labor intensity of the work does not increase, since the design goes to REVIT.

8. Does the use of these 3D models increase the cost of the work?
With BIM design, there is no increase in cost; with the usual methods of designing in AutoCAD, both cost and time will increase.

9. Have you met unscrupulous customers in your work?
Unfortunately met. Often this is not a way to save money, or they have already been “mastered”.

10. Where do you usually look for and find design orders? Is there a way to find customers?
This is mainly through acquaintances working in design or construction organizations. There is also the Internet that allows you to find direct contacts of the customer through various services and start communication.

11. How long have you been designing?

I and my partners have been designing individual heating points (ITPs) and boiler houses since 2015.

12. Where does your work usually begin? For example: from collecting initial data, filling out questionnaires?

Usually, design work begins with initial discussions with the Customer and obtaining information about the object: about the building or other structure that needs to be heated.
Further, calculations of heat losses and the need for a heat carrier are performed, on the basis of which it is possible to obtain technical conditions from the heat supply organization. Under these conditions, the characteristics of the coolant at the connection point, the technical requirements for the ITP are described, and the activities performed by the customer and the contractor are described. For example, MIPC requires its terms and conditions to be met in order for it to ship media of the correct quality and quantity. As a rule, it is required that the system of commercial accounting is correctly implemented in the project. Accordingly, it is necessary to try to take into account all the requirements for the installation and further maintenance of these heating points.

13. What documentation / legal framework do you use when preparing thermal mechanical calculations?

In order to correctly determine the legal regulation when designing an IHS, it is necessary to understand the heating point of which object we are dealing with. If this is a heating point of a small country house, then it falls under the minimum requirements for private development and civil structures. And if it is a heating point of an apartment building, an office building, a stadium, a shopping center or an industrial facility, then its design will be regulated by other legal acts that apply to industrial safety, labor protection, etc. Why is this happening? Because the Customer, a private person, first of all needs to deal with the values ​​of temperatures and pressures, which are low in a private house and, as a rule, are not dangerous to human life. At the same time, the Customer himself is responsible for everything that is done in a private house. The design of heat points of industrial importance is subject to such legal acts that regulate the construction of engineering facilities by legal entities. In this case, we find ourselves in the field of action of regulatory legal acts that impose a lot of restrictions and requirements on the designer, and this is connected, first of all, with the safety of people.

With regard to the legal regulation of our activities in general:
Firstly, new regulations are now being developed and are in effect - the technical regulations of the customs union (TR CU), which are the main documents in force in the space of the entire customs union.
Secondly, GOSTs and SNIPs, other norms and rules, calculation tables, on the basis of which the volume of the coolant, the cross section of the pipes and the speed of the coolant in the pipes are calculated.
Thirdly, along with the requirements of the legislation, in our work we rely on classical textbooks on thermal mechanics, hydraulics, tables, reference books, which are considered generally accepted.
Along with this, at the stage of project development and selection of specific equipment (“RD stage”), questionnaires are used that make it possible to create a specification, assemble a boiler house or heating point in the form of a list of equipment, materials, and other elements.

14. What problems arise in obtaining the original data? How do you solve them?

When obtaining the initial data, problems, first of all, arise due to the incorrectness of the initial data themselves. Customers tend to transfer them in the form of old documentation on buildings, structures, although this documentation at the time of contacting us, as a rule, no longer corresponds to reality or is completely absent. Therefore, in order to form a correct idea of ​​the initial data of the object, it is necessary to go to the site and check the compliance of architectural solutions, the possible intersection of the designed heat networks with cable routes, with other existing and planned engineering networks and objects.
In practice, engineering networks (for example, sewerage) can actually be laid in a completely different way than indicated in the documentation. Because of this, when designing heat networks and supplying a heat pipeline to a heating point, difficulties arise. Naturally, then they appear during installation, when, for example, they dig a trench for laying a pipeline, and out of nowhere, a cable appears. networks and objects.
Inside the building in the heat point, there are approximately the same problems: the designers of the heat points reflect their vision on the placement of engineering networks, and later it turns out that the electrical wiring, pipelines or sewerage were actually made by the builders in a completely different way. In this regard, it is necessary to adjust the placement of pipelines and equipment, since when spacing equipment in heating points that fall under the definition of industrial safety, it is necessary to take into account their overall size, it is necessary to take into account the distance between pipelines, depending on their diameters, take into account the distance of equipment from one to another. The customer may admit an error in the data that a cable has appeared where it should not be and offers to quickly redraw everything - a big problem arises, because due to this cable location, the equipment has to be relocated. The equipment itself, as a rule, remains the same, because all the hydraulic calculations are done, the calculations of the loads of the electrical networks are done, the thermal loads are calculated and this, as a rule, does not affect the layout. Accordingly, when the location changes, some additional pipelines, bends appear, the list regarding pipelines may change. Equipment sometimes has to be replaced with smaller and more expensive ones.

15. Do you coordinate the design decisions that you are preparing, how does this happen?

Within the organization, coordination with the Customer is mandatory.
Under certain criteria and operating conditions, the construction object falls under the care of Rostekhnadzor. There is a clear understanding of the design process, which is reflected in federal laws and by-laws (orders). The approval procedure is prescribed in federal laws, it also reflects the list of documents that must be submitted for approval, the terms are indicated in which the approval body must agree on them or make claims.
The criteria for objects to fall under state expertise are also reflected in federal laws.

16. How do you choose the brands of the equipment you use?

According to different criteria: price - quality, experience with suppliers, wishes of the Customer. There are Customers who fundamentally want a certain brand of equipment to be chosen. It must be taken into account that the equipment used in Russia must be certified. The procedure for certification is reflected in regulatory legal acts.
There are separate large organizations that require internal certification of equipment, for example, Gazprom. They have their own certification "GazpromCert". If the equipment, in addition to the general certification, is suitable for use in certain conditions according to certain criteria, and it has already passed their internal certification from Gazprom, such equipment can be used without any prior approval. Approximately the same approach is used by a number of power supply organizations that have been working with some kind of equipment for a long time, they have an understanding of how they will service it, and there are trained specialists. No one usually forbids the use of other equipment, but you need to confirm that it is suitable for the required characteristics, that its quality will be the same or even better than the recommended equipment.

17. Do you use 3D modeling in your work? Does it add value to your activity? And does it increase the complexity of the work?

We have been using 3D modeling lately, it is very convenient and efficient. Already at the design stage (stage "P"), both the Customer, and the general contractor, and other organizations that are interested in the construction of a heating point, see a clear idea of the location of all equipment. This makes it possible to assess the correct placement and serviceability. Previously, equipment placement plans were created in axonometric projection, but as a rule, it did not reflect the real picture of the object, even though the dimensions were set. Of course, based on experience, it is possible to get an idea of how the heating point will look like from such a projection, but this is not enough for a complete picture.
When there is a three-dimensional 3D solution, all participants in the process have a real understanding of how this heating point or boiler room will function, there is an opportunity to discuss the project with people whose knowledge in this area is superficial, but who already have some wishes. There is an opportunity to discuss the intersection of networks with subcontractors that perform other engineering networks. You can immediately see where there are empty seats. Take, for example, a heat exchanger. It cannot be quickly cooled from the outside, quickly heated, it must be thermally insulated, respectively, it should be placed at a certain distance from some ventilation devices. If there is a three-dimensional drawing of a heating point, then a person from subcontractors who designs, in this case, ventilation, will look at the three-dimensional image and say: “But we just wanted to place here a ventilation duct where cold air will enter. Let's agree on this placement".
Thus, 3D modeling gives a complete picture of how the equipment will be placed in the heating substation. This is a very important point.

18. Does the use of these 3D models increase the cost of the work?

It increases. Since the drawing of a 3D model is associated with the drawing of three-dimensional objects in space, this takes time and intellectual costs. Again, when drawing, the designer has to return to other sections of the project in order to check again whether he has correctly laid down the installation dimensions, some passages through the walls, and the placement of equipment in one place or another. Otherwise, just do not draw. Therefore, as a consequence, there is an increase in labor costs and development costs with a significant improvement in the quality of the project.

19. Have you met unscrupulous customers in your work?

Of course I did. Their existence is primarily due to the crisis in the country. Regardless of the well-being of my Customers, the need for heating does not disappear anywhere. There are Customers who find a way to make long-term investments, replace expensive equipment with cheaper ones, and somehow cope with this situation. And there are dishonest Customers who find a way not to pay, to deceive, but this is a topic for a separate dialogue. There are some mechanisms to deal with such phenomena.

20. Where do you usually look for and find design orders? Is there a way to find customers?

The Internet plays a very important role in finding orders. On certain order portals, Customers very often appear who need to build an individual heating point or a small-capacity boiler house. You contact them, draw up a technical and commercial proposal. There is, for example, a public procurement portal that can be used after the registration procedure. There are several sections where tenders are put up. This is the order in which you can participate and win orders. As a rule, this is associated with high costs and a lesser opportunity to communicate with the Customer, bargain, and less likely to win. When drawing tenders, everything is built on such an algorithm - whoever offers the least price wins. There is a limit below which you should not take on work, since it simply cannot be done with high quality, but by monitoring the algorithm of the auction, you understand that people fall even lower, by 10%, 15%, 20% ... Looking at this, you understand that is so unrealistic to do the job normally. I see that the people are fighting, they continue to win, but what happens at the end and what is the fate is already a question. Therefore, lately I refuse to participate in tenders.
There are private customers with whom I once worked and continue to work, from time to time they throw up some tasks, some tasks for the installation of heating points. They recommend me and my colleagues to their friends based on the results of my work. Such proven Customers are more stable, because you started working with them and continue to work.
There are such Customers who come to me according to the theory of six handshakes. They are looking for, as a rule, several performers. But as a result of an interview, discussion, presentation of my portfolio, as a rule, they choose me. And after that the work begins.

#Heatpoint, #Designsmarthome, #3DModeling, #Boiler