| Author |
Message |
Ralph Liebing
New member
Username: Rliebing
Post Number: 1
Registered: 02-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 01:03 pm: |    |
Would appreciate comments/advice on use of Related Documents as the 1.1 Article-- should this be used in every Section [Div. 1 thru Div.16]? What is advisable/suggested/required wording? |
David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI
Junior Member
Username: David_axt
Post Number: 87
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 03:46 pm: | |
My personal feeling is that sections in this article should be listed sparingly. To me Related Sections is a way of telling the bidder/contractor "Don't look in this section for the information. Look in this other section."
For example in Section 09900 - Painting, I list under Related Sections the following:
Section 05120 - Structural Steel: Shop priming.
This tells the bidder/contractor (I hope) not look in the painting section for shop priming of structural steel, but to look in the structural steel section for this information.
David |
Ralph Liebing
New member
Username: Rliebing
Post Number: 3
Registered: 02-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 04:23 pm: | |
Thanks, David for your comments, but I am looking for comments on 1.1 RELATED DOCUMENTS, not on Related Sections [which I used under 1.2 SUMMARY] |
David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI
Junior Member
Username: David_axt
Post Number: 88
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 05:17 pm: | |
Ralph,
"1.1 Related Documents: The Drawings and General Provisions of the Contract, including General and Supplementary Conditions and Specification Section 1 requirements apply to the Work of this Section."
This is standard AIA MasterSpec boilerplate language is unnecessary. The paragraph tells the Contractor that the section does not stand alone and is tied to the other Construction Documents.....duh!
The thought is that the language somehow protects the Architect from when the Contractor rips apart the project manual and hands the individual sections to the subcontractors. The subcontractor can not come back and say that they did not know about the other documents affecting their work.
I would leave it out. |
William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS
New member
Username: Wpegues
Post Number: 74
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 06:05 pm: | |
David and Ralph,
It is my opinion that the use of the 'related documents' paragraph reference to GC, SC and Division 1 is not only unnecessary but even detrimental to the concept of the Project Manual as a whole and single work.
To include those as references and not list all the other possibly related sections can be taken to imply that the section stands on its own from other sections. That is, having said that the front of the book applies to the work of this section, why did you not reference all the other required sections.
Speaking to your first idea that it was about 'related sections', I don't like lists like that either. I don't use it, I refer internally to other sections that are necessary to make this work complete, but not vv. That is, my curtain wall, windows, skylight and ornamental metals sections refers to metal coatings, but metal coatings does not refer to them.
Lists only cause 'talking point' trouble when you miss one through edit, re-edit as the job moves to completion. No lists, therefore nothing missing from the lists, no talking points. No problems in this regard either since about 1977.
William |
John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA
New member
Username: Bunzick
Post Number: 61
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 08:47 am: | |
I always remove that paragraph, for the reasons well stated above. |
William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS
New member
Username: Wpegues
Post Number: 76
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 02:45 pm: | |
{{{preface - I wrote this in an editor that when I pasted into the reply window rendered all " and ' marks as ?. I think I have manually corrected them all, but pardon the few that might remain.}}}
It has been pointed out that in the "Consultants and CSI principles" thread I posted the following in a response November 20, 2002
>>>
Remember, we are not talking about the 'lipstick' as you call it. We are talking about failure to coordinate the basic requirements of the general conditions and Division 1. That's both uncaring and non-compliance.
<<<
And it was asked how does that square with my comments immediately above that the 1.1 Article "Related Documents" is unnecessary. "Doesn't your quote 'cry out' for just such coordination of tech Sections with overall contract requirements and obligations?" was the question.
I thought I would post the answer here rather than send only a reply to the email.
In response to the question, "No, not at all."
Essentially they are 2 very different situations. The former is specifically about consultants who fail to look at a project's general conditions or division 1 and simply include huge amounts of duplicated (and contradictory) information in their technical sections. That they do this job after job, year after year (heck, decade after decade in the case of several in my area) and then complain about my requiring its removal and corrected coordination.
Putting in a paragraph like the related documents? does not solve this. Actually it points out to anyone reading it that whoever wrote the section has failed to do what the paragraph implies.
The paragraph cannot take the place of actually doing the real coordination. Many projects are written on AIA A201, which has no hhierarchyof documents and states that the Contractor, when he discovers it, should point out conflicts in requirements to the Architect. The paragraph has very specifically told the Contractor to comply with the General Conditions and Division 1. But the internals of the section have massive contradictory requirements, who different submittal procedures.
The correct response is to actually do the work required for the project and correctly write (or rewrite) the conflicting areas and remove the duplication so it appears in only one place where it should.
1.1 Related Documents cannot do this work for you, you have to do it yourself.
The real intent of 1.1 Related Documents has not been to act as a crutch for poor writing, but to act as a link - to tell the Contractor that in all instances they need to go to Division 1 and the General Conditions because those requirements are not repeated here.
That is not necessary. The Project Manual is not a collection of unrelated work. It is a singular publication from front to back with many related areas. Every time I specify a submission of something I don't need to tell the Contractor how to make the submittal, how it will be reviewed, etc. That's in Division 1. I don't need to send him there with a rreference he is required to know it applies. One might argue that if you were going to send him there, a reference to the specific division 1 section would be required, not an uninformative blanket statement like "look in division 1, its in there somewhere".
Yes, there are references in to other sections within most technical sections. Sealants are referred to so that you write them one time. You send the person to that section. But not every section needs sealants. And the real reason you do that is so that the Contractor has to go to the Sealants section and use what you have specified. If not, the mmanufacturerof the item might happen to have a number of recommendations about what to use that would leave the Contractor to consider that he could use what the material mmanufacturerwas recommending rather than something specified somewhere else.
The entire logic for including the 1.1 Related Documents paragraph is standing on its head. It is supposedly there because of the so called practice of the Contractor pulling apart the Project Manual and not sending division 1 to the subs. That's irrelevant. The Contractor is the one obligated here, its up to him to coordinate his subs and see that they comply. If they price it wrong because they did not understand submittal requirements, that's his problem. So, now we are writing specification requirements to protect the Contractor from his own foolishness? Not me. And the Project Manual concept, the specific ccontractualrequirements for the Work, and even "common practice" of the construction industry and the architectural profession hold that it is the Contractor's responsibility to read and understand all of the contract documents...and that includes the General Conditions and Division 1.
I only need to tell him once.
William |
Anne Whitacre
New member
Username: Awhitacre
Post Number: 39
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 07:22 pm: | |
Gentlemen: my take on this "related documents" is that it was a typical paragraph used in old Navy specs and still used in some government spec masters, which is why Arcom still keeps the paragraph in Masterspec. I would bet that every spec writer on the review committee deletes it from their projects unless directed to keep it by the Owner. I haven't used that paragraph in years... but I do recognize it from back when I was using NavFac specs. |
Margaret G. Chewning CSI CCS
New member
Username: Presbspec
Post Number: 1
Registered: 01-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 11:31 pm: | |
That paragraph is no longer used in the military specifications which are generated in SpecsIntact. I believe that paragraph was taken out when NavFac went to 3-part Section Format.
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Phil Kabza
New member
Username: Phil_kabza
Post Number: 2
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, February 23, 2003 - 09:31 pm: | |
My formatting macros have removed the "Related Documents" paragraph from Masterspec for years. However, I also think that any belief that is widely and strongly held is automatically suspect. So I'm thinking about starting to leave the article in.
If we clever specifiers ran the world, it would certainly function much better; at least billboard ads would use proper grammar ... The reality is that contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers use specification sections every day separated from the related documents listed in 1.1.
We don't have any obligation to tell the users of our documents that they need to read the related documents. We do have God and the MOP on our side if we delete the article. But if we avoid an occasional dispute between a contractor and a subcontractor by reminding them that they need to read the rest of the story, the architect and the owner also benefit indirectly. A great many unsophisticated subcontractors get screwed each year by established contractors that take advantage of their lack of knowledge. So it doesn't bother me to have a few extra words at the front of a section.
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John Regener, AIA, CCS, CCCA, CSI
New member
Username: John_regener
Post Number: 60
Registered: 04-2002
| | Posted on Monday, February 24, 2003 - 02:00 am: | |
Phil:
Which disputes does the Architect get into and which does he/she not? Which are benign? Which are not?
The issue isn't so much that the Architect is getting involved inappropriately in matters but is being exposed unnecessarily to claims.
First, the typical "Related Documents" statement is inadequate. There are more documents than those identified. What about insurance and bond issues that are not a part of the General Conditions and Supplementary Conditions? What about business licenses and contractor's licenses? What about Federal and State industrial safety regulations. Knowledge and application of all these are necessary for a subcontractor to perform the work.
Second, what about those Sections where the statement is not included? Reverse the situation and instead of critiquing consultants for including the Section, how about getting all to include the statement and to include the same statement.
Third, doesn't this just give justification to the practice of writing to subcontractors and suppliers? What about claims that the Architect or engineer was negligent in establishing the scope of work to be performed by a subcontractor? After all, the inclusion of the "Related Documents" article clearly demonstrates the the architect intended that the spec section could be extracted from the set for the purpose of bidding and performing subcontract work.
Now all of this could only be applicable to design-bid-build projects. For design-build projects, perhaps it would be appropriate to prepare the specifications so they could be broken into separate packages for design-build proposals at the subcontract level. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable and experience in d-b could address that. |
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