The definition of accessible

[mbryan]

I was looking at a job yesterday that had 3 plenums each with 2 vertical risers that led in to a lateral and a fan. The plenums and fans looked ok but the laterals had never been touched. The invoice from the company that had been doing the job was posted on a board near the kitchen, so naturally I took a look at it. One thing that really stood out was the fact that the invoice clearly stated that all accessible areas had been cleaned. I kind of giggled to myself having seen the lateral ducts and knowing that they had never been touched. I then began to wonder how companies can get away with this blatant lie. Well I have been humbled by simply looking up the definition of accessible(from dictionary.com):

ac·ces·si·ble
adj.
1. Easily approached or entered.

Now I have to admit that in order to get to these laterals you would have to set up an a-frame and pop some ceiling tiles and working on them on the ladder would probably prove to difficult. So, by definition, I guess they were right in saying that all accessible areas had been cleaned.

I have always thought of accessible as just being able to get in to it no matter how difficult it may be. So I guess my question is: What is your definition of accessible?

 

[RustyACE]

I would imagine that the word "Accessible" was very specifically chosen to sound like something was being done, but leave wiggle room for those that weren't able to quite live up to the word.

Accessible is a "subjective" measurement and it depends on perspective and understanding of how just how accessible a ductwork shoud be.

If you make the standard too tough then it will be shot down before being added to the NFPA standard. There are a lot of politics and behind scenes manuevering that goes on whenever something controversial is proposed.

You have to work with incrementalism to get things changed.

A little word here, a little change there, and a little deletion there.

Then set back and see if anybody noticed before it can get passed.

I define accessible as any area of the ductwork that I can access to clean it.

 

[kmjt1021]

First of all can I see it? If I can’t see it, even though in some cases I suspect it may have gotten cleaned, how can I say it is cleaned? We can drop duct spinners, or other devises to spray in places that we can’t see, Do this area’s get cleaned? It would depend on several circumstances like how much grease is in there to begin with and what kind of grease, but in most cases I would say probably not.

Secondly, can it be accessed safely, if it has access but it can’t be reached safely then in my opinion it’s inaccessible. I had a store that had an access panel in a perfect spot to clean the duct, the problem was to get to it you had to hang over the edge of an 8 story building. Granted, this could be done safely with extra equipment, of course I’m going to charge more to do this, substantially more because I really want no part of it. (They didn’t get it cleaned by the way, to much money)