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Author Message Ronald L. Geren, RA, CSI, CCS, CCCA Junior Member Username: Specman Post Number: 3 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Monday, August 11, 2003 - 03:41 pm:    I have come across a situation where the Owner provides their own forms for change orders and pay applications. I use MasterSpec as the basis for my in-house guide specifications, and they provide options that allow the inclusion of forms at the end of the Section. Neither the MOP, SectionFormat, or PageFormat directly address this particular issue. If included at the end of the Section, how should it be done? Do you add a footer to the form and place "END OF SECTION" after the form? Do you include it in the total number of pages in the Table of Contents? To me, includng forms at the end of the Section is awkward. I would rather include them in an appendix. How have others addressed this issue? David E Lorenzini Member Username: Deloren Post Number: 17 Registered: 04-2000 Posted on Monday, August 11, 2003 - 03:57 pm:    We reference the form in the body of the Section and just place it after the last Part 3 paragraph. We put End of Section after the form. Good examples are the Substitution Request Form and the Door Hardware Schedule--the bast place is right there at the end of the Section. Keep the same header and footer, and continue the number of pages. It is the same as if a table were included in the middle of the Section, only placed at the end. We reserve the Appendix (at the end of the Project Manual) for non-section type documents that the client, owner, or construction manager forces us to include. William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS Senior Member Username: Wpegues Post Number: 202 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Monday, August 11, 2003 - 04:06 pm:    Ronald, MasterFormat, 1995 has the area "00400 BID FORMS AND SUPPLEMENTS" I retitle this to "CONTRACTING REQUIREMENTS SUPPLEMENTAL FORMS" I apply it not just to bid type jobs, but to all jobs of all types. All the project wide forms are provided here. Our office has a Submittal Compliance Form which is required for every submittal and a Substitution Request Form. We have had owner's that have created special forms and where we are going to have to incorporate them into our format such as Construction Change Directives, where we post the sample of what that will look like. I want to give only want to post out 1 example of a form that the contractor may need to duplicate. I don't like posting them in every section where its repetitive. Just makes my project manual thicker. I put the project header on it, and I give it a document number and I have an end of documet identifier. Its not a section, so its not 'end of section'. Richard L. Hird (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - 07:45 pm:    As I have moved through various electronic publishing approaches I have vacilated on the inclusion of forms in the specifications. First I did not want to but when I found that a bitmap scan allowed me to keep a consolidated project file with all the documents for future printing, i changed my mind. At first the files were to fit on floppy disks and I had to spend time using OCR to make them smaller. When I switched to Zip Drives I no longer had the problem. But then I started to Email the files to clients the transfer time for large files became another obstacle. Now we have high speed transfer it is not a problem from my end but many of my clients do not have access. In addition I found I was exceeding their mail server storage capacity. Now I have to use OCR just to get them through, Since I have no idea what is next in the evolution of computerized file publishing I would just as soon not commit to spotting forms throughout the specification. There always solutions, but there are not always folks that are interested in keeping up. William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS Senior Member Username: Wpegues Post Number: 203 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - 11:50 pm:    Richard, what kind of forms are you scanning? I think here we are talking about common forms that we have actually created in our wordprocessing applications. My Submittal Compliance form is such a form. Owner's have provided us with forms they like to use and those were also typically in a word processing document and we just modified it to our standard format, type face, header/footer, etc. I don't have any forms that I scan. William Richard L. Hird (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 06:20 pm:    William: Typically the forms are payment application forms, tax, waiver and lien documents. I also like to scan EEO and Minority Set aside policies. Usually they are a Project Owner's standard contract conditons. Occasionally I have to add a standard technical document somewhere in Div 2 through 16. If I scan them I can leave the Owner's content intact (avoiding the implication that I own responsibility for them) and still date and put the job title on them, which my professional clients insist on. If you try anything other than a direct picture you also bog down in lots of tab and underline spacing issues. You can still change the standard date problem 19__ to 20__ using a bitmap editor. Keeping them together in an appendix and just running them through a copy machine is the best for me. Unfortunately my professional clients just love to volunteer to date them and do some minor fixing. Since I have to do it they just do not think about the implications. How do you incorporate an Owner's standard legal documents; just copy or convert them to electronic documents. William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS Senior Member Username: Wpegues Post Number: 204 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 09:19 pm:    Richard, If an owner has his own legal documents, we follow the recommendation that they not be bound into the Project Manual. Our first encouragement is to state to the Owner that if they produce and print their own volume for the project that contains their legal documents, they are then free to modify them by their own series of addenda, or whatever they want to call them, and that they can better control the content. As a fallback, we will offer to take their paper originals and create a cover for it and have it printed and bound (separately from the Project Manual). This still gives them the same flexibility, and if they are not used to dealing with a printer, then we are doing that part for them. We have a number of owners who create their own general condistions and write their own bidding documents. William Anonymous   Posted on Friday, August 15, 2003 - 02:55 pm:    What is the problem with including Owner's Series 00 documents in the Project Manual? What recommendation are you referring to? William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS Senior Member Username: Wpegues Post Number: 205 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Friday, August 15, 2003 - 03:34 pm:    It has been generally recommended that unless you have had your own legal advisor look at these documents in coordination with the Owner/Architect agreemet, that you could be agreeing, by publishing them, to any differences between the 2. You publsh it, you are party to it. The contractor could infer that easily since the different limitations that might be in the Owner/Architect agreement are NOT published anywhere he will find them. Something in their says you are going to get submittals back to him in 7 days, or that has other obligations that you may have specifically excluded in your Owner/Architect agreement - he makes that part of his plan. Because you publish it, you are presumed legally to be aware of it - you end up obligated. That even includes supplementary conditions to the standard AIA A201 document when they go beyond a few basic modifications. We have never had a problem with an Owner publishing his custom front end documnents separately in some 25+ years of doing this. Ultimately, it even makes for a cleaner Project Manual down the line. If additional books are printed for the contractor, those documents, which may have lots of clauses in them overridden by the final Construction Agreement itself, will not be in there being printed for no reason. Richard Hird (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Friday, August 15, 2003 - 06:10 pm:    My experience has been that, if the Owner has his own construction contract conditions he almost always has his own Architect/Owner Agreement. Even an AIA agreement has been negotiated to one degree or another. I can not imagine a Contractor making suppositions about documents that he is not party to. One of my frustrations in producing contracts and specifications is the request by professionals to try and load the construction contract with requirements pertaining to the Owner Architect relation, for instance a hold harmless agreement from their insurance company, which the Owner has probably not accepted. If it gets in the construction agreement and not in the Owner Architect agreement I guess it is valid. I am not a lawyer, nor want to be one, but I amazed that cases can be built on suppositions about information you do not have in hand. William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS Senior Member Username: Wpegues Post Number: 206 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Sunday, August 17, 2003 - 05:31 pm:    Whether the Owner has his own Architect/Owner agreement or not is irrelevant - it is what is negotiated between the 2 parties, and it is also whether the 2 are correctly coordinated in the first place. Even if most owner have their own construction contract, it is whether that is actually coordinated with the general conditions and supplementary conditions - and if they are doing all 3 are they coordindated with the Owner Architect agreement as signed. They all need to be coordinated - and if the Owner and his legal group are doing it, I have seen about 1 in 10 that have correct - and for some might large organizations and for some mighty important major projects. Most of the time we have no access to these documents during their creation process. There have been some where we never got them at all - and they were totally screwed up. We request to review to assure that the Architect's obligation in the general/supplementary conditions and Owner/Contractor agreement are correct. We have some Owner's who never let us see this, and its invariably incorrect. We had a project where what the Contractor got in general conditions and Owner/Architect agreement stated that the Architect was going to be present at each and every meeting of any kind, that we were going to coordinate the responses from all those meetings - where our contract with the Owner was one where we were only doing CA site visits, including any meetings, 2 times a month. What the Contractor held stated we would review and return submittals within 10 calendar days, what we had was 15 calendar days. There were many other inconsistencies. And the Owner had never let us see these documents though we continually requested them...until major problems started to crop up. Somewhere around 9 months of constructio the Contractor wrote a letter that stated he was behind and hindered by the Architect's failure to perform their duties. Virtually all of our true responsibilities were listed as signed with the Owner in our Division 1. Fortunate, an arbitration panel decided that we were not at fault, and that the contractor got saddled with about 30% of the blame for not discovering the conflict between Conditions, Agreements and Division 1 and the Owner got the rest of the blame for creating the problem in the first place. We just don't, and won't, publish documents that the Owner creates or if he heavily modifies AIA A201. If we had published them, we would have ended up sharing some of that blame unless we had a record of a written request that the Owner change the conflicts. William Anonymous   Posted on Monday, August 18, 2003 - 11:31 am:    William, With all due respect, I find your comments to be contradictory to what the MOP has to say about inclusion of Series 00 Documents into the Project Manual. See MOP module SP/050. I have prepared Project Manuals for huge projects, both public and private, and have often been asked to use Owner-provided Series 00 Documents and forms, as frustrating as this can be. My job as a specifier is to review them and inform Owner of any issues between these documents, Owner-Architect agreement, and the rest of the Project Manual (again, see the MOP for step-by-step instructions). If the Owner elects not to follow our adivce, so be it. Following this procedure has never failed me. Ignoring our duty to review and make comments and allowing Owner to print whatever they wish as a separate volume doesn't seem very wise to me. After thorough review, our additional obligation to the Owner includes modifying specification sections as required to be coordinated with series 00 documents (again - see MOP). Dennis Hall (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Monday, August 18, 2003 - 12:20 pm:    MF04 will have a space for all Project Forms in Div. 0 and we have assigned Document titles and numbers to the common ones. We are also indicating that these forms may be included in Div. 1 as a part of the General Requirements. Please review Draft 4 which will be published at the end of this month for public review and comment. William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS Senior Member Username: Wpegues Post Number: 207 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Monday, August 18, 2003 - 12:41 pm:    Anonymous (?) Remember, the real core of the problem here is when the Owner has his own general conditions, or highly modified conditions, and where he produces them - that is, he would provide paper to be included in the project manual, not where we would be doing the editing or modifying. We have no problem in providing the owner with comments to make his documents correct. And if they went through it and actually corrected it and could even manage to get the paper to me on time. With the vast majority of these, the problem seems to fall into 2 categories... 1. They have something they are producing, but are totally unable to get it to us in time to review. Their suggestion, publish it 'as is' and it can be modified through addendum - which we think is probably worse because it often seeems to occur that once its out there, its done, why bother to modify it. 2. Actual delivery of paper product (or even email product) to the office would be a couple days after we needed to go to the printer, and they want the books in hand to just attach it. I know what the MOP states. It states that the conditions should always be bound in and not simply included by reference. In no situation are we simply referencing them. They are simply in their own volume. I have a project manual for the new headquarters of the International Monetary Fund. The Project Manual itself is 6 volumes (its a complete project including interiors). There is nothing wrong with separate volumes - its too thick to conveniently bind any other way. The Bidding documents and the general conditions, and even including a sample Construction Agreement are in their own volume - it just happens that this volume is separately provided by the Owner. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is not counter to the MOP at all. We did not tell the Owner he did not need to publish the general conditions and "just tell contractors to see AIA A201." We have told him that he needs to include them and publish them and make them always available to the Contractor. When the Owner produces his own comprehensive series of forms and general conditions and other contract and bidding related documents, there is nothing at all wrong with him providing his documents in a separate volume. It does provide a clear separation of responsibility where his documents failed to coordinate correctly the requirements of the Owner/Architect agreement. (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2003 - 07:43 am:    Diagree with Annoymous and the The Manual of Practice. Significant portions of Division O "Contract Conditions" are considered legal documents and it is inappropriate to expect "non lawyers" to "inform them" of problems with their "legal documents". This does not include "project specific conditions" such as the bid invitation or proposal form, just the typical "boiler plate". If you are a laywer, or work for a large enough organization that you have in house lawyers, it may be appropriate to review boiler plate, but few AE organizations qualify. Reviewing boiler plate to see if you have any conflicts with portions you are responsible for is appropriate, but an expectation to "comment on them" is exceeding the specifier's area of expertise. This is not to diparage the knowledge of the typical specifier. When I worked for a large organization, with in house lawyers, I did not find that the documents we reviewed from client firms lawyers were always good. But that is not the point. The "Boilerplate" part of the Contract Conditions should not be the professional specifier's responsibility if anything other than standard industry "AIA" Conditions are used. If it is, my hourly rate needs to be adjusted. Dennis Hall (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2003 - 12:37 pm:    Sneek peek at forms included in MF04. These are intended as blank forms to be completed later in the project (procurement & construction forms). This list is what will be included in Draft 4. Comments encouraged. 004000 Procurement Forms and Supplements 004100 Bid Forms (00410) 004110 Bid Form - Stipulated Sum 004111 Bid Form - Stipulated Sum (Single-Prime Contract) 004112 Bid Form - Stipulated Sum (Multiple-Prime Contract) 004120 Bid Form - Construction Management 004121 Bid Form - Construction Management (Single-Prime Contract) 004122 Bid Form - Construction Management (Multiple-Prime Contract) 004130 Bid Form - Cost Plus-Fee 004131 Bid Form - Cost Plus-Fee (Single-Prime Contract) 004132 Bid Form - Cost-Plus-Fee (Multiple-Prime Contract) 004140 Bid Form - Unit Price 004141 Bid Form - Unit Price (Single-Prime Contract) 004142 Bid Form - Unit Price (Multiple-Prime Contract) 004150 Bid Form - Design/Build 004151 Bid Form - Design/Build (Single-Prime Contract) 004152 Bid Form - Design/Build (Multiple-Prime Contract) 004200 Proposal Forms 004210 Proposal Form - Stipulated Sum 004211 Proposal Form - Stipulated Sum (Single-Prime Contract) 004212 Proposal Form - Stipulated Sum (Multiple-Prime Contract) 004220 Proposal Form - Construction Management 004221 Proposal Form - Construction Management (Single-Prime Contract) 004222 Proposal Form - Construction Management (Multiple-Prime Contract) 004230 Proposal Form - Cost Plus-Fee 004231 Proposal Form – Cost-Plus-Fee (Single-Prime Contract) 004232 Proposal Form - Cost-Plus-Fee (Multiple-Prime Contract) 004240 Proposal Form - Unit Price 004241 Proposal Form - Unit Price (Single-Prime Contract) 004242 Proposal Form - Unit Price (Multiple-Prime Contract) 004250 Proposal Form - Design/Build 004251 Proposal Form - Design/Build (Single-Prime Contract) 004252 Proposal Form - Design/Build (Multiple-Prime Contract) 004300 Procurement Form Supplements (00430) 004310 Allowance Form 004315 Alternates Form 004320 Bid Security Form 004325 Bid Submittal Checklist 004330 Estimated Quantities Form 004335 Proposed Products Form 004340 Substitution Request Form 004340 Proposed Subcontractors Form 004345 Unit Prices Form 004350 Wage Rates Form 004355 Minority Business Enterprise Statement of Intent Form 004360 Proposed Work Plan Schedule Form 004365 Proposed Construction Schedule Form 004370 Proposed Schedule of Values Form 004500 Representations and Certifications (00450) 004510 Bidder’s Qualifications 004515 Proposer’s Qualifications 004520 Minority Business Enterprise Affidavit 004525 Non-Collusion Affidavit 004530 Statement of Disposal Facility 004535 Worker’s Compensation Certificate Schedule 005000 Contracting Forms 005100 Notice of Award (00510) 005200 Agreement Forms (00520) 005210 Agreement Form - Stipulated Sum (could be promoted to all level 3) 005211 Agreement Form - Stipulated Sum (Single Prime Contract) 005212 Agreement Form - Stipulated Sum (Multiple-Prime Contract) 005220 Agreement Form - Construction Management 005221 Agreement Form - Construction Management (Single-Prime Contract) 005222 Agreement Form - Construction Management (Multiple-Prime Contract) 005230 Agreement Form - Cost Plus-Fee 005231 Agreement Form - Cost Plus-Fee (Single-Prime Contract) 005232 Agreement Form - Cost-Plus-Fee (Multiple-Prime Contract) 005240 Agreement Form - Unit Price 005241 Agreement Form - Unit Price (Single-Prime Contract) 005242 Agreement Form - Unit Price (Multiple-Prime Contract) 005250 Agreement Form - Design/Build 005251 Agreement Form - Design/Build (Single-Prime Contract) 005252 Agreement Form - Design/Build (Multiple-Prime Contract) 005400 Attachments to Agreements (00540) 005410 Allowance Amounts 005415 Supplementary Scope Statement 005420 Unit Prices Schedule 005500 Notice to Proceed (00550) 006000 Project Forms 006100 Bond Forms (00610) (Note: These can be distributed throughout the Project Manual) 006110 Performance and Payment Bond Forms 006115 Lien Bond Forms 006120 Maintenance Bond Forms 006125 Special Bond Forms 006130 Warranty Bond Forms 006200 Project Certificates and Forms (00620) 006210 Certificate of Insurance Forms 006215 Request for Information/Interpretation Forms 006220 Infection Control Forms 006225 Minority Business Enterprise Certification Forms 006230 Submittal Transmittal Forms 006235 Application for Payment Forms 006240 Release of Lien Forms (00640) 006245 Sales Tax Forms 006250 Stored Material Forms 006255 Recycled/Recovered Materials Forms 006260 Statutory Declaration Forms (00650) 006265 Products Forms 006270 Work Plan Schedule Forms 006275 Construction Schedule Forms 006280 Construction Equipment Forms 006285 Schedule of Values Forms 006300 Project Modification Forms (00930) 006310 Request for Proposal Forms 006315 Substitution Request Forms 006320 Change Order Proposal Forms 006325 Change Order Forms 006330 Construction Change Directive Forms 006335 Field Order Forms 006340 Supplemental Instruction Forms 006345 Proposal Worksheet Summary Forms 006350 Proposal Worksheet Detail Forms 006355 Request for Information/Interpretation Forms 006360 Written Amendment Forms 006500 Closeout Forms 006510 Certificate of Compliance Forms 006515 Certificate of Substantial Completion Forms 006520 Consent of Surety for Final Payment Forms 006525 Warranty Forms 006540 Release of Lien Forms (00640) 006550 Statutory Declaration Forms (00650) Robert E. Woodburn, RA, CCS, CCCA,CSI Senior Member Username: Bob_woodburn Post Number: 9 Registered: 05-2003 Posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2003 - 12:47 pm:    (Unregistered Guest, in a previous post: "Significant portions of Division O "Contract Conditions" are considered legal documents") Actually, all of the Contract Documents are legal documents, including the Drawings. All of the "Contract Conditions" are legal documents, "Project specific" or not; they are an integral part of the Contract, even though they are separated out for convenience because they are usually an industry standard form. Unregistered Guest appears to be playing fast and loose with terminology here. Bid invitations and proposal forms are not "Contract Conditions." (In fact they aren't even part of the "Contract Documents" unless specifically incorporated therein.) (BTW, if anyone knows of a good standard legally valid definition of "boilerplate," I'd like to have it...) The late architect and specifier Clark Moore once told of a lawyer who voiced his opinion in a meeting that since virtually the whole of the Project Manual was a legal document, it should all be prepared by an attorney. Clark pushed the thick volume across the table and said, "Then you do it." All of the contract documents are legal documents (they constitute the Contract), but they are also construction documents. Few attorneys have the specialized construction knowledge or experience required to prepare them; an attempt to do so could, in fact, constitute practicing architecture without a license. Yes, owners should have bidding requirements, and contract forms, terms and conditions, reviewed from a legal perspective by experienced construction law attorneys (and the insurance provisions by their insurance counselors), but that cannot take the place of the more general review and coordination of all the document requirements -- including the conditions of the contract -- that is best done by a qualified architect or specifer. Robert E. Woodburn, RA, CCS, CCCA,CSI Senior Member Username: Bob_woodburn Post Number: 10 Registered: 05-2003 Posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2003 - 01:05 pm:    Over 100 forms. Sure nothing's left out? Ronald L. Geren, RA, CSI, CCS, CCCA Member Username: Specman Post Number: 4 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2003 - 02:23 pm:    Although the discussion veered off track from my original post, it was highly informative. My original post was specifically directed to forms referenced in Division 1 (ASI, RFI, CO, etc.). Per Dennis' post regarding MF04, it appears forms are covered. However, since MF04 has yet to be published, how could it be handled under MF95? Now, back to the topic which this thread has turned to, I like to add my 2 cents: 1) To "Unregistered Guest": There is no Division 0 in MF95. 2) MF95 is an organizing tool and does not necessarily mean the Architect has to personnally review, advise, approve, etc. on everything that goes into the Project Manual. The bidding and contract documents are the Owner's responsibility, but the Architect includes them in the Project Manual. However, the Architect needs to know and understand the content so that the specifications (Divisions 1 thru 16) do not contradict the Owner's requirements. David R. Combs (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2003 - 03:14 pm:    Another point of view: We include forms as an appendix, attached to the specification Section to which it most pertains. Example: RFI form is included at the end of Section 01310 - Project Management and Coordination. Submittal Transmittal Form is included at the end of Section 01330 - Submittal Procedures. Substitution Request form at the end of 01600 (or 01630). Punch List Form at the end of Section 01770. etc. The ASI form (and CCD Form, and Change Order Form) could similarly be included at the end of Section 01250 - Contract Modification Procedures. Not sure if that is the "CSI Way", but it works for us, seems logical, is easy to maintain, and we have received no complaints. We also use the 5-digit spec section number as a prefix to the electronic file name, so they appear in numerical order along with the spec sections in our master directory. And they're included in our spec master Table of Contents, which helps serve as a reminder and a checklist to make sure they are included when preparing the specifications and Project Manual. Anonymous   Posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2003 - 05:13 pm:    To Unregistered Guest: Disagree with me about what? Don't shoot the messenger! Some selected excerpts from the MOP SP/050 (for those that don't want to drag it out): *The Project Manual contains the bidding requirements, contract forms, conditions of the contract, and specifications. *Generally, the following tasks should be performed in this order: Review Owner A/E agreement Request information from owner on contract, insurance, bonds Review proposed Owner/Contractor agreement Review proposed general conditions of the contract Prepare supplementary conditions to modify general conditions in order to coordinate conditions of the contract with specific requirements of the agreement Prepare Division 1 Gen Reqs Send proposed conditions of contract and Div 01 to owner and consultants for review. Prepare specifications Doug Frank FCSI CCS Senior Member Username: Doug_frank_ccs Post Number: 42 Registered: 06-2002 Posted on Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - 08:22 am:    Dennis, I think ya’ll have outdone yourselves with that list of forms. I’ll have to add yet another volume to my typical Project Manuals just for blank sample forms (is it really appropriate to include blank sample forms as “Contract Documents”?). I don’t include any blank sample forms for my typical projects (except for a substitution request form at the end of Section 01600), unless there is a requirement to use an extremely unusual one with which bidders may not be familiar. Instead my CCA group distributes required forms at the first preconstruction meeting. As far as the legal portion of this discussion goes, we spec guys aren’t doing our job if we don’t read, and understand, the legalese in Owner’s documents to ensure proper coordination with the documents for which we are responsible. William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS Senior Member Username: Wpegues Post Number: 209 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 10:24 am:    Nice listing Dennis. Glad to see I managed to second guess MF04 with what I have been doing the last many years including even a couple of the numbering sequences. I have always put all the forms of a various typse together up front and each form has its own 'document' number. For those that keep dragging out the MOP about how the architect is responsible for including forms and conditions or coordinating them - that doesn't really work very well if the Owner is not forthcoming or if the Owner is modifying his General and Supplementary Conditions right to the last minute. Of course when we see them we review and provide comment. But when they take it upon themselves to prepare them, and our experience is about 60% of them seem to do this, then thre is nothing we can do about it. And its just plain incorrect to make Division 1 coordinate with the Owner prepared Conditions when the Owner prepared conditions provide incorrect information about the Archtect's obligations as relates to the Owner Architect Agreement. We will modify our Division 1 to the Owner's requirements in all regards except that. We tell him where he has errors and should change his documents - or recommend he simply omit requirements that are inappropriate to the Conditions. But we are not ever going to obligate ourselves to efforts that contradict the Owner/Architect agreement. If the Owner udertakes to negotiate changes in our agreement or undertake supplementary services for additional obligations, then we will of course revise Division 1 accordingly. To do otherwise will actually legally obligate you. If you write it, if you even just publish it, the legal system has decided that you are neither blind nor mute, so you buy what you write and publish. MOP is not incorrect. In the best of all worlds, everything works correctly, the owner lets the architect prepare the documents with coordination through his legal and insurance groups, or there is clear and timely coordination with those that are preparing them and they are all nicely published in the Project Manual. But in the real world when coordination breaks down, when an owner does not wish to coordinate, or their idea of timely is a schedule for the front end that gets attached 3 days after the owner requires the project manual be printed for him and no coordination opportunity, then you have to protect yourself. The MOP is about how projects are supposed to go, how we would like to see them go. The MOP is like a text book or a reference guide on the history of the best methods of practice. When other members of the construction group take it upon themselves to ignore these guides, it is foolish for the architect or the specifier not to move to protect themselves from the errors of others. The MOP is a great guide and a great tool. I never miss an opportunity to even reference its suggestions to owners, lawyers, insurers and contractors who ignore it or force me due to their practices to deviate from its advice. William Dennis Hall (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 12:42 pm:    Doug: No, you don't need a second volume for your projects. Not all projects need all these forms. Since MasterFormat must incorporate (excuse the terms) Broadscope and Narrowscope titles, we tried to have an inclusive of the most common forms used on projects. We are picking up the subject matter which was only referenced in MF95 and assigning titles and numbers. If your projects don't need these forms, don't use them. But if they do, we are trying to create one place for all forms. Today most firms either include them in Series 0, or include them as an attachment to the end of the Division 1 section where they are referenced.