The key to obtaining professional bids and quotations is to provide the contractors with as much data as possible. The fuzzier your thoughts, plans and specifications, the more ambiguous your bids will be. In fact, the bids may be higher than they should be, because each contractor is trying to protect themselves from delays you may create while trying to make up your mind. This fact is often overlooked by many homeowners. Remember, contractors are not mind readers!

How many should I get?

I have been asked in the past to bid jobs against five to seven other contractors. In these instances, I refuse to prepare a quotation. Generally speaking, I have determined that a wide majority of these people are merely shopping for price. My suggestion to you is to try to find three contractors who are about the same size and who perform similar levels of quality. Getting prices from three similar individuals will give you an excellent range of pricing. Never, never obtain just one bid!

Exposing yourself

Never tell a contractor what you are prepared to spend on a project. If, by chance, you are dealing with a dishonest contractor, his/her price may be just under your ceiling. However, you may be asked by a contractor what you are willing to spend. I have done this in the past so as not to waste time in preparing an estimate. I have successfully overcome this dilemma. Experienced contractors can generally compute a square foot cost estimate quickly when looking at a job. Ask the contractors to do just that and present these prices to you. Each party realizes that these are tentative numbers. However, they allow you to determine if the project is out of reach early in the bidding process.

Itemized Quotations

Always demand an itemized quotation. These quotations are invaluable. They allow you to see just how each contractor arrived at his/her price. These quotations enable you and the contractors to determine if anything has been overlooked in the bidding process. This eliminates any financial surprises after a project begins.

Itemized quotations also enable you to set up a fair and equitable payment schedule with your contractor. Because you can see what each aspect of the job costs, you can be sure that you only pay for items which have been installed or are on site. This method will afford you great peace of mind.

Insurance Documentation

Be sure that your bids include copies of all insurance documentation. Professionals have readily available copies of their Worker’s Compensation certificates and General Liability policies. Demand that copies of these be included in your bid envelope. Often low bids are low because insurance premiums are not really being paid. Remember, anybody can say that they are insured. Don’t rely on hope. Get copies of these valuable certificates!

KEY CONSIDERATIONS
The bidding process really begins before the official bid notification is sent. In construction, as in business in general, relationships forged outside of business, through networking or previous work, can give a company an advantage when learning about projects that will come up for bidding. Joining associations and building professional relationships with important players in the construction industry can give contractors and other bidders a glimpse into projects that are coming down the pipeline.

“If you’re not including value-added services as an option that you bring to the table, your competition is,” says Reif. “You need to present in your technical proposal or in your bid proper a reason why you’re going to be able to deliver a service that’s world class and one step above everybody else’s.”

It’s important for companies to determine the nature and extent of the project. With this information, companies can realistically ascertain whether the project is a wise investment for their portfolio and whether they can realistically compete with other companies for the bid. Though the construction industry is still in recovery, companies should remain selective about the projects on which they choose to bid. Though the company is bound to win some contracts, submitting bids to numerous projects for the sake of submitting a bid is not the wisest use of time or energy. Instead, focus on the strengths of the company and the resources available for the project.

ESTIMATING COSTS
An experienced estimator is essential to a winning bid. Using meticulous attention to detail, an estimator relies on guides and field experience to approximate the costs for the project based on drawings and other details. While some companies rely on consultants to estimate costs, others use software to approximate costs. Each has advantages and companies should choose whichever method has produced the best results in the past.
Regardless of whether a company devises estimates based on software or professionals, the results can have serious repercussions. Estimate the cost of man hours and materials too high and it can cost the bidding company the contract; similarly, estimate too low and it can cost the company money if material prices increase or an unforeseeable incident sparks a setback in the project.

Some companies may be tempted to set their costs low in order to win the bid, under the premise that if costs change, they can submit a change order. While change orders allow some wiggle room for fluctuations in costs, companies should not rely on them. Not only to they establish a bad precedent for the project, the company may have to pay some of the costs incurred or have to cut back on aspects of the project, e.g., use cheaper materials, cut back on manpower, etc., which may be a breach of contract.

CONSTRUCTION BID SOFTWARE
Technology has fostered the growth of software solutions directed towards the pivotal, yet tricky, estimating process. Software programs such as Bid4Build and Turtle Creek—two of the most popular estimation software programs—organize bid materials, generate bids and create cost estimates for construction projects of all sizes and types.

Does it seem like you’re always shuffling piles of paper trying to find that unpaid electric bill or your daughter’s soccer schedule? Do your dining table and kitchen countertops have a permanent layer of paper? Free up your countertops by building this home office in a guest bedroom. It fits on any 7-ft. 4-in. to 10-ft. section of wall and still leaves room for the bed. In this story, we’ll show you how to plan and lay out the office and then

* buy the right cabinets;
* order or build the desktops and shelves;
* build the cord trough, bulletin board and swing-out desk;
* buy the lighting; and
* install everything in one to two days.
First choose the location for the office and then make a scaled drawing of the wall you’re considering for the desk (Fig. A). Make note of the overall length of the wall, any doors or windows, and the ceiling height. Draw horizontal lines at 29 and 54 in. (Photo 1). These represent the top of the base cabinets and the bottom of the wall cabinets.

Determine the overall length of the desk. Ours is 10 ft., but it can be shortened to 7 ft. 4 in. by eliminating the base storage cabinet. The desk can fill a whole wall, sit in the middle of a wall, or start in a corner and stop somewhere along the wall, as shown in our project.

At this point you need to talk to a cabinet supplier and find out the dimensions of its file drawer bases and wall cabinets. Draw these in on your plan. Don’t leave a span of more than 4 ft. 6 in. between base cabinets or else the desktop will sag.

Also note the end panel that’s necessary to cover the left-hand file cabinet and cord trough. Ours is 29 in. tall (this matches the height of the cabinet) and 30 in. deep. Now order the cabinets and end panel. You’ll be ordering at least two base cabinets and two wall cabinets and one 30-in. deep end panel. If your desk is longer than 7 ft. 4 in., as ours is, you’ll add base cabinets. Base units should be 24 in. deep and wall cabinets should be 12 to 14 in. deep.

Next, order or build the desktops and shelves to the dimensions shown on our plans. For strength and to minimize sagging, make them from 1-in. thick particleboard and glue plastic laminate to both faces. We chose to edge them with a wood bullnose.

The cord-management trough is the backbone of the desk. Once it’s fastened to the wall (Photos 1 and 2), the rest of the desk stacks onto it or fastens to the front of it. The top edge of the trough matches the height of the file drawer bases. While ours was set at 29 in., measure the height of your cabinets to confirm.

The corkboard frame is simply screwed together through the edges of the top and bottom rails (Fig. D). We built ours out of cherry and finished it to match the cabinets. Stain and finish all the sections (corkboard frame, shelf edges, swing-out desk) before installing.

Build the cork inserts by gluing together two 1/4-in. thick panels (Fig. E), then fasten the cork sheeting to the face with vinyl flooring adhesive. Let the cork overhang the wood, then trim it flush with a utility knife after the adhesive dries. Use self-sticking Velcro tape to hold the panels to the frame. Because the frame is held away from the wall, it’s easy to run electrical cords behind it.

Set the wall cabinets onto the corkboard frame (Photo 3). Flush the left-hand cabinet to the end of the corkboard frame. Adjust the right-hand cabinet into the corner to make the space between the cabinets conform to the length of the shelves. The corner cabinet can sit a bit away from the side wall.

Drive screws through the cabinet backs into studs. The screws should be long enough to penetrate 1-1/2 in. into the studs.

Mark the shelf cleat locations (Photo 3) on the wall. Continue these lines onto the cabinet sides (Photo 4). Use a carpenter’s square to make sure these lines are also level. Drill clearance holes and screw the 1×2 shelf cleats to each stud with 2-1/2 in. screws (Photo 5).

Draw a layout line on the inside of the cabinet. Make sure it follows the center of the shelf. Drill clearance holes, hold the shelf in place and drive three 2-in. screws to fasten the two shelves (Photo 6).

Miter-cut the two 3/4-in. x 1-1/2 in. light valance pieces, and then clamp them 1-1/2 in. back from the front and side of the cabinets.

Drill clearance holes (Photo 7) through the edge of the light valance spaced 2 ft. apart. Drive 2-in. screws, making sure to countersink the screwheads.

Lay the cap shelf on the cabinets and fasten with screws driven from inside the cabinets.

Set the left base cabinet flush with the end of the cord trough. Adjust the feet or shim under the cabinet to level it and make it flush with the trough (Photo 8). Footed cabinets are ideal if your floor is carpeted. Drive two screws through the cabinet back into the trough.

Clamp the two right-side cabinets together, then drive 1-1/4 in. screws to make a tight joint (Photo 9). Push the cabinets into the corner and against the baseboard; fasten to the cord trough with several 1-1/2 in. screws.

Cut a square notch in the end panel to clear the baseboard (Photo 10). Fasten this panel with screws driven from inside the cabinet.

Buy a power strip with surge protection and mount it to the wall below the cord trough (Photo 11). All your equipment and lights plug into this strip.

Set the top and the trough covers in place on the base cabinets. Leave a small gap between the trough covers and the corkboard frame so the covers don’t get jammed in and become difficult to lift out. Clamp the top to the cabinets, remove the trough covers, then fasten with screws driven from inside the cabinets (Photo 12). Be sure the screws aren’t too long or else you’ll have a hole in your desktop. Set the cord-trough covers in place (Photo 13).

“We’re kind of conservative financially. . . ,” Lily began.

“We’re cheap,” Arnie broke in. And, he added, “We’re too egocentric.”

What’s more, the couple didn’t even hire subcontractors like drywallers, framers or electricians to do the work, choosing instead to take on every task themselves, including Arnie’s worst nightmare: plumbing.

“I detest plumbing,” said Arnie, a director of quality at Mattel toy company. “I’m no good at it. I’m lousy at it.”

Indeed, he cursed so furiously over his plumbing duties during the project last year that, Lily, a secretary in Mattel’s Hot Wheels division, said, “I can’t listen to this anymore,” and threatened to call in a professional plumber.

“Don’t,” Arnie implored. “I won’t let this beat me.”

With this kind of determination the couple was able to tear out the tiny kitchen in their 1930 Downey home in favor of a more spacious replacement with granite-tile counters, lavish moldings, new cabinets, new appliances, a custom-designed range hood and a stained-glass window.

Plus, they added a roomy dining room, accented with an alabaster chandelier topped with a ceiling medallion. And they did it all for $27,000 (mostly for materials, tools and tool rentals), about half what the couple figured it would have cost for professionals to complete a similar job.

Although six months passed from excavation day until the final approval by the City of Downey, the remodel actually began long before that.

“I have thought and dreamed about this kitchen since before we bought the house,” said Lily, referring to the day when she and Arnie first saw the kitchen at an open house. “Is this a load-bearing wall?” she asked Arnie at the time. “Can we take it out?”

For the most part, the house was already roomy, having been enlarged by previous owners from a compact, 800-square-foot rectangle to a more spacious 1,700 square feet home with a large master suite and a den, the latter converted from the original attached garage.

But the kitchen remained minuscule, and so bland that color photos of the room look like they were shot with black and white film. After moving in, the couple put off the remodel until last year, after two years of “great” bonuses from their company, and when they got a break from college tuition fees.

In the ensuing years, Lily gathered ideas from scores of magazines, including Romantic Homes, Renovation, Kitchen and Bath, Traditional Homes, and This Old House, from which she tore out pictures to add to her kitchen planning notebook.

From the beginning, the couple knew they wanted not only to remodel the kitchen, but to make it bigger, and to add an adjacent dining room so their rosewood dining table, and its six chairs, could come out of the small space off the kitchen where it had been squeezed for years.

Arnie felt confident he could pull off the addition because of several additions he had done in Los Angeles. Those projects, as well as an annex he added to the couple’s bedroom, all had concrete slab floors, and he considered that for this project, which would require a step down from the kitchen into the new dining room. Eventually, though, the couple settled on a raised wooden foundation for the addition, to match the rest of the house.

“We decided if we were going to do it, let’s do it right,” Arnie said.

In mid-April, Arnie took his plans for the project to the city of Downey, and expected to get a permit on the same day, as he had gotten for his Los Angeles project. When he was told it would be four to six weeks, he said: “You’re kidding.”

“I wanted to get started that weekend,” he recalled.

While waiting for the plans to be evaluated, then amended and finally approved, Arnie decided to start demolition on the concrete patio out back where the addition would sit. He and Lily sent out invitations to friends for a demolition party, on May 19, bought snacks for them, and rented a jackhammer. The event was such a hit that one friend, Michael Mis, “would not relinquish the jackhammer,” Arnie said.

By the time the plans were finally approved, Arnie had the forms for the foundation built, and he called the city for his first inspection. Except for tying the new foundation to the house with rebar, everything looked fine, and concrete flowed June 20.

To keep track of the project, Arnie made a detailed list called “Kitchen Remodeling Activities,” that was color-coded: Red for completed activities, blue for city inspections and green for activities in process. With “target dates” and “completion dates,” Arnie said, “It felt like I was at work.” Plus, many activities were broken down into smaller tasks, and each one was checked off when done. “We’re neurotic about checks,” Arnie noted.

When the floor joists were installed, the floor was insulated and sheathing added. When the walls started going up, Arnie threw his rickety wooden ladders into a dumpster, spent a couple hundred dollars at Home Depot on two quality replacements, one fiberglass, one aluminum. “Things went better after that,” he said.

After a marathon five-day Fourth of July weekend of labor on the house, when the walls and roof sections were starting to take shape, the couple recalls sitting outside in lawn chairs, drinking wine, eating pistachios and admiring the lumber they had just sawed and nailed into place. “OK, we’re almost there,” Lily said at the time.

Of course, it would be four more months before final inspection. The couple eschewed their typical two-week vacation to keep working on the project.

“That’s all we did,” Arnie said.

“That’s all we talked about,” Lily added.

Another work-filled weekend took place in late July, from noon on a Friday until late on a Sunday night, when the old kitchen roof section was removed, and the new section was tied into it. At 9:45 on Sunday night, the neighbors asked if they could help. Lily interpreted that to mean: ‘Will you please stop?”

While the structure was being finished, with Lily doing all the drywall installation and taping, decisions had to be made on colors and surfaces. For help, Lily turned to her daughter, Stephanie Humady, 27, an aspiring interior designer who studied fat UCLA. “I picked all the colors,” Stephanie said, but then corrected herself: “Well, we consulted. It was a group effort.” While Stephanie wanted a bold, contemporary look with lots of red, her mother leaned toward what Stephanie has termed a Tuscan look.

“It’s been very hard to keep my mouth shut,” Stephanie recalled. “You want to express your own style.”

On the other hand, Lily doesn’t have a name for the style of her kitchen. “It’s just me,” she explained. “It’s what I like.”

The wood cabinets came from Home Depot, where a designer helped with the layout, and Lily chose dark granite tiles for the counters, and light porcelain tiles for the back splash. She installed them herself, even renting a tile cutter for irregular sized pieces. Arnie installed the laminate flooring in just a few evenings. Lily designed the range hood, and Arnie built it for her. The final touches were the moldings and the paint, which had to be redone when it turned out to be too dark. The finished walls have an underlayment of a shade like suede with a chocolate/cinnamon color sponged over it.

Originally, Lily planned to make stained-glass inserts for some of the wall cabinets, but as the project wore on, she ran out of energy to do it. Deciding to put wire mesh inside glass in the doors, she found exactly what she wanted by asking one of the toy designers at work, who referred her to the McMaster-Carr industrial supply catalog.

Throughout the job, there were a few glitches. Rerouting the gas meter from the back of the house to the front turned into a week-long event, and the distasteful idea of crawling under the house caused Arnie to hire someone else to run the line. One day, a driver delivering a dumpster ran it into the side of the house, breaking the plaster. “Just give us a free dumpster and we’ll call it even,” Arnie told him. And then there was the day Arnie, who has an engineering degree from Caltech, miscalculated and filled a dumpster with 13 tons of concrete and dirt, only to be told by the trash company that it was illegal to drive such a heavy load over city streets. It took an extra day for Arnie to transfer three tons to another dumpster.

Between them, the couple had only a few disagreements, usually because of something that Lily wanted to have and that Arnie didn’t want to install. The medallion over the dining room light fixture was such an instance (“I just don’t see the point of it,” Arnie said.), as well as the alabaster chandelier itself. When Arnie resisted buying it, Lily simply said: “Fine, I’ll buy it myself with my bonus.”

“I usually don’t budge,” Lily said.

Now that the kitchen is done, the couple are thrilled with their creation. As Arnie often says:

“We have the finest kitchen on the face of the Earth.”

* * *

At a Glance:

Project: Remodel kitchen and add dining room
Duration: Five months
Cost: $27,642

Construction materials, cabinets, paint: Home Depot, Downey, (562) 776-2200, and All-American Home Center,
Downey, (562) 927-8666.
Granite tile: Bestway Marble & Granite, Los Angeles, (323) 266-6794
Tile for back splash: The Tile Place, Downey, (562) 861-4246.
Alabaster chandelier: Lamps Plus, Torrance, (310) 542-8682.
Appliances: Pacific Sales, Cerritos, (562) 356-2400.
Glass shelves and doors: Hal’s Glass, Bellflower (562) 866-7047.
Wire mesh for cabinet doors: McMaster-Carr, www.mcmaster.com.
Knobs and pull handles: www.MyKnobs.com.
Flooring: Americana Floors, Anaheim, (714) 780-0388.
Demolition and Sledgehammer Weekends – friends and neighbors.

*
High Cost-Value Ratio
Studies show that nearly all of the cost of a mid-range two-story addition may be recovered at time of sale.
*
Less Expensive than Purchasing New House
While this might seem like a “no-brainer,” it needs to be mentioned. It is typically cheaper to build an addition than to buy a new home that equals the space of your existing house plus addition. At the very least, the closing costs involved with selling your old house and buying the new house would push this option over the top.
*
Addition is 100% Your Creation
You may have an old house, but the addition is space that you can claim as your own. It’s like designing a whole new house without the expense of a whole new house. Fire up your design software and go for it!
*
Smartest Way to Add Space to House
When you objectively look at the various ways to add space to your house, addition-building clearly comes out ahead of other methods, such as basement or attic remodeling or adding a sun porch.

Disadvantages of Building an Addition
#
You May Still Lose Money When You Sell
Even through additions have better cost-value ratios than other renovation projects, you still may not recover the full cost of the addition.
#
Emotional Cost of Addition-Building
It’s a thrill at first, those workers energetically digging and sawing to give you more house. Then one Saturday you wake at 6am to the roar of a gas generator five feet from your bedroom window and realize that your romance with building an addition has hit the rocks. Many causes contribute to this, some of which are: having work crews in your house six days a week, noise, dust, and constantly dealing with the contractor.
#
Addition Brings Increased Costs
More space means higher heating and cooling costs, more windows to wash and gutters to clean, increased property taxes, and more house to clean.
#
Additions Eat Up Your Yard

Ideas to Consider:
* Think about your true goal for kitchen remodeling. Is it really more square footage or is it for a lighter, brighter, more functional kitchen space?
* Look to adjoining rooms where you might steal some square footage. For example, you might take a hodgepodge of smaller rooms (laundry, pantry, bathroom, or mudroom) and merge them into one super-functional kitchen space.
* Discuss your project with a certified kitchen planner or architect to get their ideas. A good space planner may be able to reconfigure the walls, the ceiling, or the windows to make a kitchen space feel larger without the expense of a room addition.

Existing Layout
Most kitchen experts agree that one great way to save money on a kitchen remodeling project is to keep the kitchen’s current layout. That doesn’t mean that every new cabinet must be in the same location as the ones you remove.

You’ll save money by leaving major systems such as plumbing, gas, electric, and heating intact. Rearranging your layout could result in added expenses such as:

* Additional water lines for sinks, dishwashers, icemakers, and refrigerators
* Moving gas piping for a cooktop or oven
* Re-routing heating and air conditioning ductwork
* Upgrading vents and ducts for arange hood
* Bringing wiring up to current code for wall switches
* Adding wiring for recessed ceiling lights, sconces, or undercabinet lights

Now in its sixth year, the program aims to demonstrate the value of good design, regardless of a project’s size and scope. Awards are bestowed in three categories: architecture in the public interest; small project objects (up to $50,000 construction budget); and small project structures (up to $500,000 construction budget). Click here to read more about each project.

ARCHITECTURE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST 



Art as Shelter (pictured above)
Raleigh, North Carolina

Tonic Design


SplitFrame
Portland, Connecticut

North Studio at Wesleyan University


SMALL PROJECT OBJECTS

Shadow Pavilion
Ann Arbor, Michigan

PLY Architecture


plug-in satellite office
ASU, Phoenix

mark ryan studio


Prospect.1 Welcome Center
New Orleans

Eskew+Dumez+Ripple


Puptent
New York City

slade architecture


SMALL PROJECT STRUCTURES

East Village Studio
New York City

jordan parnass digital architecture


Salve Staff Canteen
Milwaukee

Johnsen Schmaling Architects


Kevin Mundy Memorial Bridge
Bozeman, Montana

Intrinsik Architecture


[Wide] Band – Nomadic Café
Los Angeles

Griffin Enright Architects

Related Links

AIA Names 20 Winners of 2009 Small Project Awards

The architect-engineer, famous for his elegant bridges and transit hubs around the world, unveiled his designs for the project in Denver on Thursday. Accompanied by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and DIA’s Manager of Aviation Kim Day, Calatrava spoke briefly before showing a short animated video of the airport project. He then switched to a more low-tech method—using pencil, paper, and watercolors—to demonstrate his design concepts.

The $650 million project is a major expansion for Denver’s airport (1995), designed by Denver-based architect Curt Fentress and recently named one of the world’s 15 most beautiful airports by Travel and Leisure magazine. (Calatrava’s Sondika Airport in Bilbao, Spain, also made the list.) Airport officials have long wanted to build a hotel next to the terminal; the train station is the result of a $1.2 billion commuter-rail project that will link downtown Denver with the airport. The “signature” bridge, as Day calls it, will carry commuter trains over Peña Boulevard, the primary automobile route from Denver to DIA, but Calatrava also intends it to serve as a symbolic gateway between the airport and the city.

Calatrava is collaborating with Parsons Transportation Group’s Denver office and Gensler.

The architect said his biggest challenge was to design a hotel and train station complex that would complement the airport. “It is always a problem to add to an existing building,” he says. “In this case, it is an outstanding building that has become an icon.” The 825,000-square-foot hotel-train station complex is directly adjacent to the terminal’s south end and is nearly as tall as the terminal’s 126-foot-tall peaked roof. To maintain a view of the terminal from the south, Calatrava added a dramatic V-shaped saddle in the center section of the hotel, which is to be perpendicular to the terminal. The result is a narrow concrete-and-steel building that evokes wings in flight.

The open-air train station, on ground level, is covered by a dramatic vaulted glass-and-steel canopy. From the train platform, commuters can take stairs or escalators to a large plaza, lined with retail facilities and partially covered by another vaulted canopy. Travelers can then enter the hotel or proceed to the main terminal for ticketing. “The hotel’s prominent volume is defined by an undulating metal frame and white roof that emanate from the geometry of the canopy arches,” Calatrava says.

The commuter-rail crossing, located about a mile and a half from the airport, is a symmetrical, tied-arch, steel-and-concrete suspension bridge with a 620-foot span (overall length: 720 feet). A box girder deck hangs from a single arch by cables and supports flanking orthotropic decks on steel ribs, which carry the east- and west-bound rail traffic. The distance from the roadway to the top of the bridge is 144 feet. According to engineer Gabriel Calatrava, Santiago Calatrava’s son, the bridge’s deck—without train tracks—will most likely be manufactured off-site and then “launched” into place, using temporary supports to limit traffic disruptions on Peña Boulevard. Then, a crane will lift the arch into place in sections and the cables will be attached.

The bridge and hotel are expected to be completed by 2013. The train station will be completed two years later, and commuter-rail service is scheduled to begin service in 2016.

Day is counting on the hotel to generate new revenue for the airport, in the form of overnight stays, business meetings, retail, and conventions. And she also hopes Calatrava’s public spaces will lure Denverites to the airport even if they’re not flying.

“I’m hoping that when this is done,” she says, “people in Denver will take the train out to the airport on a Sunday, enjoy whatever exhibit we have programmed in the plaza, sit and have a drink, and then go home on the train.”

Calatrava agrees. “The buildings,” he says, “will create a kind of link between the city and the airport. We are almost exporting the urban quality of Denver into the airport. So that even people who spend five hours at the airport because they have a plane to catch will want to stay here.”

July 30–WASHINGTON — Federal regulators say earlier tests found corrosion along the pipeline that sent thousands of gallons of oil rushing into the Kalamazoo River this week and that, as recently as two weeks ago, its owner was talking about replacing pipe sections.

On Wednesday, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, sent Enbridge Energy Partners a corrective action order in the wake of the spill, spelling out the steps that must be taken before the pipeline, known as Line 6B, can be reopened.

RELATED:

–Photos: Oil cleanup continues in Michigan –Workers try to grasp Michigan oil spill toll on wildlife –Is the Michigan oil spill sealed? –Another gulf oil spill consequence

It also said that on July 15 — 11 days before the spill — Enbridge notified PHMSA of “an alternative remediation plan” to correct “metal loss anomalies” found during testing on the line last year and in 2007.

No cause for the spill has been released, and it was not immediately known whether problems found in theearlier testing were in the area of the spill, or whether that part of the pipe was targeted for replacement. Neither PHMSA nor Enbridge returned calls for comment.

On Wednesday, the Free Press found two PHMSA reports from early this year raising concerns about aspects of the Lakehead System, including one questioning whether corrosion monitoring systems along Line 6B were adequate.

Corrosion, specifically internal pipe corrosion, has become a pressing concern for many in the pipeline industry. In a pair of recent congressional hearings, witnesses have raised doubts that federal standards are strong enough in requiring corrosion controls.

“Corrosion is certainly the No. 1 problem on those type of pipelines,” said Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a safety advocacy group in Bellingham, Wash.

—–

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