Archive for December, 2009

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Thursday, December 31st, 2009

When terminating a subcontractor make sure to write a “Notice to Cure,” and get permission from an officer of the company, and follow the contract requirements for notification. Only terminate for convenience if you have no claim against your trade contractor. If you do have a claim, then you must terminate for cause and use the “Notice to Cure” procedures. It may be better Talleta ja voita matka RioonUpea Euroopan-matka tarjollaKay katsomassa StonehengeaInternet casinot . to use the letter to cure and not terminate, but take the work over and back charge or reduce the sub's contract accordingly. But always write to the trade contractor weekly about your expenses and progress.

If you or the architect is going to cut the subcontractor's payment application submitted to the owner, you must inform the subcontractor immediately.

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Constructing a Mock-Up

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

When constructing a mock-up for the owners/architects approval, you must get written approval of the accepted final product. The final mock-up shall be saved in a safe place until the project is 100% closed out. If the mock up is part of the building, the approved section will be photographed and the photos will be incorporated into the owners/architects approval documents.

When closing out your project; go to the contract provisions for “substantial completion”and requirements to release “retainage” and follow them to the “T” or we can't get interest on our retainage or change orders outstanding. I lost $40k because we didn't follow the contract close out requirements.

When you have a conflict between plans & specs etc. it is called a “Patented Ambiguity.” The onus is on the contractor to ask for clarity if you do not you are at risk. In reality estimating should be our first level of defense with this issue. Something specific always “trumps” something general.

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Construction Schedule

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

Remember in doing a record schedule for your project the durations can be used against you if the actual time took longer than the record scheduled time, unless you can justify an owner’s delays. The reason is if the owner delays you but you also took longer to perform an activity during the same time you have a concurrent delay and you get nothing Be careful.

History has taught us that when you have a sprinkler and fire alarm shutdown on an existing building, the odds are highly probable that the fire alarm system will trigger and people must vacate the building. Thus, we should schedule such shutdowns during off hours or notify the owner of such risk and let him be part of the decision.

Commissioning is timely and must be a milestone activity on your schedule.

Force Majeure relates to a delay to a project schedule not standard for the industry in another words if you have unusual acts of God, extreme weather for the time of season, hurricanes, wars, snow, intense temperatures, rain, etc that could not be anticipated as normal for the time of construction. In this case the contractor is entitled to an extension of time only no monies. Here is some verbiage that has been in some documents. If your project exceeded the normal number of days of inclement weather for such period as determined by employing a ten year average of accumulated record mean values from climatologically data complied by the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the location closest to the Project Site.

Construction Meetings and Schedule

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Meetings:

Have all subs verify existing systems before we shut down their systems and have them sign off and take pictures for protection.

Whenever the owner has another contractor on the job site, you need to get a certificate of insurance from that contractor showing our company as additionally insured.

Schedule:

Address long lead-time items immediately, i.e., create a log and review weekly.

Remember, we can legally get an extension of time if you are delayed by lack of information or direction. We cannot legally get you paid for a delay without a written notification at the time of the delay.