English manufactured products are substituted. It's inconvenient to deal with the dual systems, but they seem to be able to accommodate the inconvenience. Contractors are successfully bidding and building metric projects. This has resulted in errors and in some cases change orders were required to rectify a problem. Metric designed projects do not cost more than English designed projects.
Early statistics show that metric projects are consistently bid below engineers estimates.
That way when forms wear out or need changing, they can develop new forms for metric dimensioned items. In addition, many of the metric dimensioned steel plates called out in the plans are not available. Steel mills simply do not roll many of the metric dimensioned plates. The inconsistent approach to metric implementation by various federal and state agencies has caused difficulties in working with stakeholders. DNR refuses to accept any metric data and cites the RCW and lack of any direction from their parent federal agency.