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American Polywater has received a BonDuit Approval Letter from Blue Diamond Industries, a premier manufacturer of HDPE pipe products. The letter may be helpful when dealing with inspectors questioning UL approval and/or NEC code compliance. A little background will guide you in understanding what the letter does and does not represent. Athough the successful product has been around for 12 years and is time-tested and wildly popular, an ongoing challenge for sales of BonDuit is that there are no UL standards or NEC code specifications to which we can test. This puts electrical inspectors in a difficult position. Their job is to ensure code compliance, and that's hard to document if official specifications don't exist. Inspectors are leery about approving use--even when they're fans of the product and can see its obvious advantages. This is a rare problem that usually goes away when we tell the inspector that ubiquitous PVC cement is not UL listed either. But some inspectors are more unyielding. Many, however, understand that UL and the NEC are somewhat open to the fact that new products come out in between code books, leaving some room for inspector judgment. Inspectors will consider independent 3rd-party testimonial. In our case this means looking to HDPE manufacturers for whether BonDuit is recognized as an acceptable product. Pipe manufacturers obviously can't make compromising statements pertaining to non-existing UL or NEC specifications, but they can comment on their own experiences and internal testing. This recognition may be all that's required for BonDuit use to proceed. This is what Blue Diamond has provided for your use: a simple statement on their letterhead recognizing BonDuit as an acceptable solution for joining HDPE pipe to dissimilar materials and PVC. They describe it best: "I think your BonDuit product works fine. We did very informal testing, and I’d be happy to write a general letter saying it worked well as a joint ... if you do get UL standard going, I would be happy to support your efforts in any way we could." |
