Special offer – save nearly £100
Before I start this month, an offer for you: On 8 June in Chester and 15 June in Central London I am delivering a seminar, ‘How to manage a contract without losing your shirt’. If you’re involved in tendering, managing, surveying and / or delivering construction projects as a subcontractor, this course will make you money.
Normally priced at £290 per person, I am delighted to offer the first five readers to contact me a discounted price of £199 per person – and you still get a bacon sandwich and lunch included. Get in touch on Tel: 07771 997 621, Fax: 020 7502 6353 or Email: [email protected] to book your place on the course. For more information or to complete your registration online visit www.stoneconsultants.co.uk/training.htm
Records, records, records. If it moves, record it. Drawings record changes to the works. ‘Tender Issue’ drawings become ‘Construction Issue’ and this is when you have to act. Scour the construction issue drawings for changes from the tender issue. These become ‘adds and omits’ and will appear on your valuation as such, priced at the original rates contained in your order.
It makes sense to price these changes as you work through the contract, sending copies to the main contractor’s quantity surveyor. Then include them in your monthly valuations. If the changes are small and easily identifiable there should be no reason why they are not paid.
However, if there is a change that will cost the client a substantial amount, make sure you flag this up to the QS.
Most contracts assume the issue of a drawing by the architect is an instruction that you have to carry out as a variation. True. But beware the big changes. Architects (not so much) and designers (more so) make changes that are often driven by a challenging client. They may not be aware that changing the material type or adding certain mouldings, for example, costs substantially more.
Before you plough on regardless, send a quote for the additional work to the QS. And ask for approval before you start the procurement or manufacture. Most QSs will be glad you did. It’s part of their job to make sure they are paid and the last thing they want is a dispute with either you or their client half way through the contract.
Some might come back and say: it’s a variation, get on with it. In response to which you politely ask them to put this in writing. You then follow this up with an email to confirm your request.
It’s all about keeping records. Because if there’s a dispute and something is said in the heat of the moment you may not remember what happened three… six… nine months down the line and the reasons why. But if there is a record – an email, a letter, CVI , RFI and a site diary – you will have the answer.
There is absolutely no substitute for keeping a site diary, a day-by-day record of what happened, where and when, how much was fitted, the interruptions, the delays and everything else that goes on. It might sound a tall order but, like any discipline, once you form the habit it’s easy. Who’s going to keep the diary? If the site is large enough you will employ a fixing foreman and / or a project manager. Make it part of their job. Incentivise directly employed staff if you need to. Demand it of your sub-contracted staff. But get it done.
We once lost a crate of cut-to-size limestone tiles – the last batch for the job. The driver said he had delivered them. The builder said he had never seen them. Panic. Where were we going to find replacements that would match?
It was a Monday and our foreman fixer was on an extended weekend until Tuesday – no answer to texts or phone calls. Fishing, apparently. The builder was breathing down our necks to finish. Then somebody said: “Look in the site diary.”
Derr! Friday’s entry in a spidery scrawl read: “Tiles moved to Room B6”. And there in room B6 was the crate, stored over the weekend for safe keeping.