Warranties - Okay I give up. You win.

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Author Message David G. Axt, CDT, CCS, CSI, SCIP Senior Member Username: david_axt Post Number: 2026 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2023 - 01:16 pm:    Other than roofing and waterproofing systems, I am no longer going to specify warranties. The other day I got an email from my client where a subcontractor was not going to put a bid in on an interior aluminum/glass sectional door because I had 5 year warranty on the anodizing (which is the standard). This got the owner upset so I was told to reduce the warranty to 3 years. Let me state again. This was for an INTERIOR sectional door that would never be exposed to weather or salt air. So that was the last straw. I have had issues with warranties before. Owners seemed to be lulled into a false sense of security with them. I have even had owners tell me to double the warranites. I am tired of fooling with warranites. I also notice that MasterSpec has been slowly eliminating them as well. So no more warranties in my specifications! David G. Axt, CDT, CCS, CSI, SCIP Specifications Consultant Axt Consulting LLC Loretta Sheridan Senior Member Username: leshrdn Post Number: 95 Registered: 11-2021 Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2023 - 01:45 pm:    SpecLink doesn't have a lot of them in the specs. Alex Sperfeld Senior Member Username: alexsperfeldhdrinccom Post Number: 7 Registered: 11-2022 Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2023 - 02:08 pm:    AGREED! David G. Axt, CDT, CCS, CSI, SCIP Senior Member Username: david_axt Post Number: 2027 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2023 - 02:16 pm:    Warranties are kind of worthless anyway. With all the exclusions, the warranties really do not cover much. Afterall, they were written by the manufacturer to protect the manufacturer not the purchaser. I can probably do more damage than good by specifying a warranty. For example, if a produt has a 5 year warranty and I put 3 years in my specifciations then the manufacturer has a good argument to only warrant the produt for 3 years. Also, I think that the product has a warranty whether I specify one or not. Then there is the whole Uniform Commercial Code issue that I do not have a firm grasp on. David G. Axt, CDT, CCS, CSI, SCIP Specifications Consultant Axt Consulting LLC John Bunzick Senior Member Username: bunzick Post Number: 1915 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Friday, June 16, 2023 - 05:07 pm:    Not completely relevant to commercial work, but about my house. I have 30-year warranty on the GAF roof shingles, installed in 2007. In doing some other work, my roofer found that a significant portion of the shingles are completely eroded, with glass fiber core exposed and shedding. Upon applying for the warranty coverage (since the roof is almost completely shot halfway through its life), GAF told be if it doesn't leak, then the warranty is not applicable. In other words, I have to allow the roof to leak and cause damage to my insulation and interior finishes (not covered by warranty) in order to have the roof replaced. I can't think of an example of a more worthless warranty. Ron Beard Senior Member Username: rm_beard_ccs Post Number: 494 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Friday, June 16, 2023 - 07:32 pm:    An old CSI member waterproofing contractor friend of mine had a standard saying for all his work: the warranty runs out, when the water runs in. "Fast is good, but accurate is better." .............Wyatt Earp J. Peter Jordan Senior Member Username: jpjordan Post Number: 1186 Registered: 05-2004 Posted on Saturday, June 17, 2023 - 04:53 pm:    What is critical to understand about warranties and why they may be less than useful is that, generally, manufacturer's warranties cover manufacturing defects and not problems caused by installation or application. So a 10-year paint warranty is relatively cheap for the manufacturer to issue since the material is usually not "defective." If it is defective, all they really owe you is a bucket or two of the same stuff. The expense will be the prepping the surface for a new paint job. Several years ago, a school district required me to go through and write in installation warranties for a number of products (including paint). I did it, but I could not convinced that anyone tried to enforce any of the warranties or even paid any attention to it. The single most critical thing to understand about a warranty (product or installation) is what constitutes failure and what the remedy is. When a manufacturer says that they "stand behind their product;" what does it really mean. and, again, it usually means they will ship replacement of product to project site (for someone to install). Not necessarily worth bothering with, if you ask me. J. Peter Jordan, FCSI, AIA, CCS, LEED AP, SCIP Phil Kabza Senior Member Username: phil_kabza Post Number: 762 Registered: 12-2002 Posted on Tuesday, June 27, 2023 - 04:39 pm:    We have a client facility group with over 100 facilities and 10 or more construction projects per year who are very focused and detailed about specification warranty requirements, with dozens of requirements per project and even alternates to take prices for longer warranties. They have one or more staff members working full time to review and catalog warranty requirements and to investigate potential warranty claims. I often wonder whether this client has performed a cost/benefit analysis of the cost of obtaining and enforcing these warranties against the savings resulting from not requiring them to begin with, especially in light of comments above concerning the difficulty in defining defective materials and workmanship. Phil Kabza FCSI CCS AIA SpecGuy Specifications Consultants www.SpecGuy.com phil@specguy.com ken hercenberg Senior Member Username: khercenberg Post Number: 1576 Registered: 12-2006 Posted on Tuesday, June 27, 2023 - 06:35 pm:    As a longtime cynic regarding warranties I typically advise against depending on them. If building managers know where the trap doors are, they can still benefit. Little things like reporting leaks promptly when they happen, cleaning out roof drains quarterly (and documenting that it was done), not punching holes in membranes, and similar actions that are usually clearly written in the warranty as requirements need to be complied with. If you don't blow off the caveat, they don't have one. I have seen situations where campus managers have developed relationships with certain manufacturers and have leveraged that relationship to encourage those manufacturers to stand behind their products and warranties or risk losing long term, dedicated clients. To be fair, when I was an independent building envelope consultant, I was able to encourage some manufacturers to stand behind their products/warranties and conduct repairs and replacement of failed product, often including labor. I observe that this resulted in large part because of good relationships with those manufacturers and their reps. Reminding people that they got the project because they were specified and that the spec was held went a long way too. John Bunzick Senior Member Username: bunzick Post Number: 1916 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Wednesday, June 28, 2023 - 03:32 pm:    Going way back to when I was in charge of maintenance for a 14-store supermarket chain, I wonder if Phil's client is putting in this level of effort tracking maintenance-related tasks. As Ken points out, that will likely get you more bang for the buck. Stuff like making sure lubrication is done on time, replacing belts before they fail, etc. Another example: doing an annual inspection of every roof and making repairs - no need to wait for failures. Unfortunately, this was early in the early '80s so we didn't have a maintenance tracking system (that was the topic for my degree project). But this approach was very effective ken hercenberg Senior Member Username: khercenberg Post Number: 1577 Registered: 12-2006 Posted on Wednesday, June 28, 2023 - 04:04 pm:    Before coming to my current firm I worked for a client that bought and managed resorts, often ones that were either still in construction or that were recently completed. My primary task was to compile every warranty (all Divisions), determine what was missing, what was or was not compliant, and what was involved in transferring ownership of the warranties to the new owners. I was surprised by the number of warranties that were not transferable as well as how many firms charged a lot of money to transfer ownership. Most just required a note on the new owner's letterhead but some firms demanded proof that the new owners were, in fact, really the owners. For some resorts, each bungalow received its own set of warranties so for hundreds of bungalows there were literally hundreds of warranties, each. These folks took it pretty seriously so perhaps they were on to something. Phil Kabza Senior Member Username: phil_kabza Post Number: 763 Registered: 12-2002 Posted on Wednesday, June 28, 2023 - 04:21 pm:    As our facility client is one of the biggest owners building new construction in the state, the manufacturers pay attention and service their warranties accordingly. Ken's point about relationships is quite important. There are many who believe that public agencies should not have relationships with individual vendors that might impact receiving competitive pricing. But there is a price for competitive prices - and customer service quality is often shortchanged in exchange for a low initial cost. If the owner of 100 facilities has a roof leak and can call their preferred vendor - it will get addresed the same day. Phil Kabza FCSI CCS AIA SpecGuy Specifications Consultants www.SpecGuy.com phil@specguy.com