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When it comes to testing, adjusting, and balancing, experience weighs a lot.
Recently, I had a discussion with a few design engineers who were complaining about the performance of air and water balancing contractors in the hvac industry. Taking the testing, adjusting, and balancing (TAB) contractor's side, I asked these engineers how many times they participated in the start-up of the systems that they had designed. Interestingly, none of these professionals had on-the-job training when it came to TAB.
These were the reasons why they had not taken the opportunity to observe and/or participate in testing and system start-up:
This work was not included within their engineering fee.
This was beyond the scope of their services.
They didn't get paid enough to assist in system start-up.
Their firm's construction supervision staff was responsible for this work.
They were too busy to...