More Problems

More Problems

West Virginia University Hospital should be considered one of March-Westin’s most important clients. Not only did March-Westin work on the Family House hospital job that has already been described, they also performed construction on the WVH’s Healthworks Building and the $5 million Eye Institute project. But there were some wrinkles on those jobs, too.

Editor’s Note

The Contractors Critic wants to make it perfectly clear that West Virginia University Hospital is a separate entity than West Virginia University. The hospital has and is doing everything possible to provide first class facilities and hold March-Westin Company accountable for the successful completion of these projects.

Eye Institute:
This $5 million March-Westin job was again for WVH. The March-Westin web site said this job was scheduled for February 2000. In March 2001, the hospital was complaining that the building was still not finished, despite the contractual requirements.

At first, the Eye Institute thought they had two "bad" exhaust fans. But when the system was tested, it was found that there was something wrong with the control/power wiring. The hospital asked that the fans be corrected and commissioned otherwise there would be back charges.

There were other issues. Trash was left in the mechanical room by the contractors, and more seriously, 4 to 6 missing return air volume dampers, noted on March 27, 2001. Grouting of the automatic sliding doors to insure a flush fit also seemed to be a problem. There was dissension with the roofing contractor over the flashing. At least 14 doors had problems with the lock cylinders.

On March 21, 2001, the hospital noticed that there were missing air filters and a missing diffuser. The completion list for the project remained swollen with items including, incorrect entry door keying, missing building separation hardware, wall patching, painting, and final grading and landscaping.

The hospital notified March-Westin of its concerns:

"It is obvious that the facility is not yet beneficially able to be occupied nor substantially complete. You have not provided us a ‘substantially complete building’ as per the contract. It is unfortunate that many of the contractors have not kept the terms of their contract including the completion schedule ... final payments have not assessed the delayed completion issue including damages."

Corrective work on the fire alarm tamper switches was also required. The sprinkler system only sent a fire alarm signal to the Child Care Center, but did not send a signal to the house fire alarm. The wiring was called "questionable."

There were other problems with the fire alarm system. The elevator did not recall or react when it was tested with a fire alarm. The hospital was very concerned stating, "This continues to leave the building in a seriously compromised condition, and all of us quite LIABLE for the safety of persons if a real fire or smoke situation condition was present." (Emphasis in original August 2, 1999 email)

The checklist of other problems became lengthy for the hospital. The hospital fretted:

"The fan coil units in the lounges are apparently undersized and will need to be replaced. WVH cannot effectively use those rooms which are very important to our program ... The other problem is that the fan coil units have been bypassed ... in order to buy time. The valve-tagging chart is most unclear and has caused extra worry in locating valves. Luckily it was not an emergency or flooding damages may have occurred."

A walk-through conducted on the project noted that sprinkler heads in the ceiling tiles were not centered, water connections were not roughed in for the refrigerator ice makers, there was no place for the handicapped range top, and there wasn’t enough room on a landing.

"The Fire Marshall noted to me that he was doing WVH a favor in not leaving the building due to the construction debris that he had to walk through today."

A March 13, 2001 inspection revealed that some of the fire protection piping had not been insulated. On March 8, 2001 the hospital noted that "thermostats are still missing throughout the first floor and some are missing on the second floor."

On March 6, 2001 the hospital’s e-mail to March-Westin Company took the gloves off:

"After the embarrassments in front of the fire marshal today, I request your firm’s detailed update of the project schedule, in particular the tasks and durations of all yet to be competed work... we need to sit down with each contractor and further explain consequences that are mounting (and about to explode)."

The memo continued:

"Why didn’t they have 8 tamper switches installed and tested? Why the emergency lights on the 3rd floor weren’t connected yet? Why haven’t they coordinated the elevator relays? Why the remote connection is still not worked out or why the telephone cables are not on site yet? The Fire Marshall noted to me that he was doing WVH a favor in not leaving the building due to the construction debris that he had to walk through today. He said he had delayed inspection on cleaner sites."

HealthWorks:

Omni Architects inspected some of the work on the HealthWorks job. The results prompted them to put their complaint in writing to March-Westin on May 17, 2000. In the complaint, Omni Architects stated:

"...we noticed that there are several significant low spots in the concrete. These areas cannot remain to allow water to stagnate on the deck surface. Therefore, we feel it is necessary to flood-test the floor, to determine the low spots, and fill and repair the floor so that all water drains to the deck drains as required."

When the university sought to close out and pay off March-Westin for this job, they compared March-Westin’s original bid to the actual award of several individual trades contracts, and recommended that the March-Westin contract payment should be reduced.