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2025-12-10
2025-12-10 10:45:19 --- ConEst Lighting Controls Meeting Notes
#occupational/takeoff #topic/ambiguity #topic/transparency
Related: lighting-controls-takeoff
Minutes
2025-12-10 08:30--10:00
Objective: Discuss lighting control systems
A primary reason for the discussion was presented:
[!example] ^ex While putting together a large garden style project Bid received a quote for lighting control at over one million dollars. Believing it gold-plating, Bid proposed ~$150,000 for lighting control "per code". The contract was awarded on those terms. When the project team received a quote for a "per code" system, the total was ~$600,000.
Ultimately the responsibility is ConEst's to resolve discrepancies between:
- applicable code
- design intent
- Bid proposal intent
- PDR quote intent
It was erroneously suggested that lighting control conductors may be run with their circuit conductors if both are 600V insulated.1
My Thoughts
The lighting control problem is misunderstood. It's true that some technical training would be beneficial to ConEst estimators, but root of the problem has nothing to do with lighting control.
When I heard #^ex, where lighting control went wrong and costed a job half a million in profit, what I took away was that we sold high-risk scope without knowing what was required and without qualification.
Others have suggested creating new assemblies grouped by manufacturer, which I'm not a fan of. While it's true that similar implementations are different between manufacturers, the differences are trivial for our purposes. More to the problem, such an arrangement would inevitably lead to confusion (i.e. taking off the wrong brand because its contents happen to match better in a specific instance).
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This is a violation of nfpa-70_725_control-circuits#725.136(I) Other Applications.. See lighting-controls#0-10V Dimming. ↩︎