AIA documents in spec manual

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Author Message Richard Baxter, AIA, CSI Senior Member Username: rbaxter Post Number: 110 Registered: 12-2004 Posted on Monday, March 21, 2011 - 01:24 pm:    What is the best and most appropriate way to deal with AIA documents in the project manual? Do you: -Include all applicable AIA documents in the project manual as ”draft” AIA documents? -Include all applicable AIA documents in the project manual as ”sample” AIA documents? -Merely reference applicable AIA documents throughout specs, without including them in the project manual? -Merely reference most applicable AIA documents, but include important ones like general conditions A201 and Instructions to Bidders A701? -Include only the AIA documents given to the architect by the Owner? Anne Whitacre, FCSI CCS Senior Member Username: awhitacre Post Number: 1136 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Monday, March 21, 2011 - 04:10 pm:    I have not included these documents in the project manual in a really long time; generally they are listed by reference only and I haven't had any issues come up with that. Mark Gilligan SE, Senior Member Username: mark_gilligan Post Number: 376 Registered: 10-2007 Posted on Monday, March 21, 2011 - 04:33 pm:    From a consultants point of view it is nice to at least have the General Conditions in the manual especially if it is not AIA A201. On occasion I have been able to point out to the project architect that the GCs say that I should be reimbursed for dealing with substitutions. The project architect had obviously never read A201. A few times when I have had time to familiarize myself with the project General Conditions I have seen provisions in the non AIS GCs that run counter to our understanding of what we signed up for. In such cases I expressed our concern in case there were future problems. Remember the general conditions impact the liability of the consultants as well as the architect. W. Dean Walker, AIA, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: wdwalkerspecs Post Number: 43 Registered: 08-2006 Posted on Monday, March 21, 2011 - 05:15 pm:    I like Anne list them by reference, or my clients edit the documents using the AIA editing software and include those in their manuals. Lisa Goodwin Robbins, RA, CCS, LEED ap Senior Member Username: lgoodrob Post Number: 127 Registered: 08-2004 Posted on Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - 08:47 am:    I agree with Anne and Dean. Very rarely an Architect asks me to include a real copy, then I direct them to the AIA website. Ron Beard CCS Senior Member Username: rm_beard_ccs Post Number: 377 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - 09:47 am:    Many printing houses will not print an AIA form unless they are given the appropriate paperwork from AIA authorizing them to copy their copyrighted documents. Sometimes AIA requires them to purchase the copies for insertion into the project manual. "Fast is good, but accurate is better." .............Wyatt Earp J. Peter Jordan (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - 10:27 am:    Because I use ARCOMM's MasterSpec to generate most of my specifications and because the language, and indeed some specification requirements, in MasterSpec are based on definitions and requirements in the AIA A201, I always specifically include a couple of Division 00 Documents that incorporate the appropriate AIA documents by reference unless I am informed otherwise. I believe the CSI PRM recommends the inclusion of agreement forms and contract conditions in full in the Project Manual, but I have rarely seen this done in the private sector. Although Ron is correct, I believe preprinted AIA forms are no longer available from the AIA; everyone is supposed to be using the electronic versions. The last time I checked, the license permitted one to make copies of an edited form for publication in a Project Manual. David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI Senior Member Username: david_axt Post Number: 1167 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - 01:06 pm:    We typically include AIA forms in our project manuals. I believe the license from AIA for electronic versions allows copying their forms in project manuals. Richard Baxter, AIA, CSI Senior Member Username: rbaxter Post Number: 111 Registered: 12-2004 Posted on Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - 01:30 pm:    I never include AIA documents in my specs unless the project architect or owner tells me to include them. Until now however, I was never sure if I was doing the right thing. I am glad to see that I have been doing what most of you have been doing. One reason it concerns me is that every time I include one of their documents, I cower before the AIA wording in the footer of their documents. If reproduction of their document is not authorized by them, they threaten “severe” civil and criminal penalties that will be prosecuted to maximum extent of the law. A lot of architects and owners do not seem to pay much attention to that. I recently recieved a bunch of scanned AIA documents from an owner, copied out of some other project manual. The project architect didn't see anything wrong with that. Paul Gerber Senior Member Username: paulgerber Post Number: 63 Registered: 04-2010 Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 09:38 am:    In Canada, or at least more specifically in Ontario, the "concencus" Forms of Contract are available through the Canadian Construction Documents Committee (CCDC). CCDC is an organization with industry representation from Construction Specifications Canada, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Association of Consulting Engineering Companies-Canada and Canadian Construction Association, so they truly are derived from a concencus of the construction industry. Contracts are available for Stipulated Price, Unit Price, Cost-Plus and Design-Build formats. There is also a Construction Management contract available from the Canadian Construction Association that is used. In twenty years I have never seen a CCDC contract included in a Project Manual...and in my humble opinion, I could never see the need to include one, or any standard Form of Contract such as AIA contract. Using the same logic, if the Form of Contract was included in the Project Manual, would you also not want to/be obliged to include all ASTM, AISI, UL (ULC) and numerous other "reference documents" in your Project Manual as well? Where would that madness end? Ride it like you stole it!!! David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI Senior Member Username: david_axt Post Number: 1169 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 11:48 am:    Let me clarify my previous post. In our project manuals, we typically include electronically edited A701 - Instructions to Bidders, A101 - Agreement between Owner and Contractor, and A201 - General Conditions of the Contract. Sometimes we include other AIA forms. Wayne Yancey Senior Member Username: wayne_yancey Post Number: 437 Registered: 01-2008 Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 12:13 pm:    If AIA documents are used, they are not bound in project manuals (bound hardcopies or PDF versions). They are included by reference only with instructions to GC as to where they may be obtained (i.e. local AIA office). In the rare occasion when A101 and A201 are used, they have a big, big DRAFT watermark. We do not author supplementary conditions as we are not the clients lawyer. All of the projects I work on are private with the GC/CM on board before us. We are RARELY, if ever, given access to the General Conditions of the Contract. We crank out the typical Div01, just in case; provide a complete set to the assigned GC/CM for review and comment to avoid redundancies or conflict or other risk but we never hear back one way or the other. The GC/CM does what they do regardless. Ronald L. Geren, AIA, CSI, CCS, CCCA, SCIP Senior Member Username: specman Post Number: 934 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 12:43 pm:    From the Project Resource Manual: "5.3.4 Inclusion of Agreement in Project Manual Even though standard agreement forms, published by professional societies, other organizations, and agencies, will be utilized, the A/E should avoid including the agreement by reference only. It is more appropriate to include the actual agreement forms in the project manual. The possibility of referencing an incorrect or out-of-date form is also eliminated if the forms are bound into the project manual." And... "The general conditions should always be bound into the project manual, not simply included by reference, so that they are easily available during progress of the work." From the AIA End User License Agreement: "...pursuant to Paragraph 3(a)(i) or 3(a)(ii), as applicable, you may photocopy an unlimited number of (a) completed AIA Contract Documents, on condition that the AIA Contract Documents are used in connection with a particular Project identified in the completed AIA Contract Documents;..." Ron Geren, AIA, CSI, CCS, CCCA, SCIP www.specsandcodes.com Mark Gilligan SE, Senior Member Username: mark_gilligan Post Number: 378 Registered: 10-2007 Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 12:59 pm:    Paul If the general conditions consist of the unedited model contracts you may have an argument but the reality is that this is seldom the case. What do you do then? Wayne If you are not given access to the General Conditions how do you do your work during construction? I wonder at times whether we are like the contractor who builds the building without looking at the technical specifications. While you are not the clients lawyer you are not a disinterested party regards the content of the general and supplementary conditions. A number of the provisions in A201 have an impact on how you do your work and your professional liability exposure and thus you may want to at least comment of the proposed general and supplementary conditions providing input to the Owner and his lawyer. What am I missing on this discussion? Wayne Yancey Senior Member Username: wayne_yancey Post Number: 438 Registered: 01-2008 Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 01:18 pm:    Mark, Agreed. I am just a cog in a wheel on a need to know basis. I ask the same questions but sometimes I am a mushroom. Kept in the dark and fed bullshit. We do what is defined in the Owner/Arch agreement and what is reasonably expected to meet the local standard of care. The usual submittal review, respond to RFI's, limited site observations, OAC meetings, etc, etc, etc as the King said. We know what is correct, fair and reasonable but not all parties or entities we deal with share our opnions. Wayne David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI Senior Member Username: david_axt Post Number: 1170 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 01:34 pm:    Maybe I am an anomaly here but we always publish the General Conditions of the Contract and Owner/Contractor agreement form in our project manuals regardless to whether the forms are an AIA form or not. If I was a contractor I sure would want to see those exact forms in the project manual and not a vague reference. Tom Good, architect, CDT, SCIP, LEED AP Senior Member Username: tom_good Post Number: 27 Registered: 11-2006 Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 02:46 pm:    on GC (bid): I always include Instructions to Bidders, Bid Bond, Proposed Agreement, and General Conditions on CM: All Division 00 documents are the responsibility of the CM to include/distribute as part of their service in obtaining bids. These documents include provisions for retainage, substantial completion dates, subcontractor relations, etc... and the CM has to let the bidders know of these provisions in some manner. How they do that is up to the CM. Phil Kabza Senior Member Username: phil_kabza Post Number: 468 Registered: 12-2002 Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 07:11 pm:    I've always considered the inclusion of readily available standard documents in the Project Manual to be a waste of trees. However, with the advent of electronically-altered AIA A201s and AIA A101s incorporating what used to be included in the Supplementary Conditions, it is necessary to distribute these hybrid documents to bidders. So inclusion of them in the Project Manual is useful. AIA electronic document licenses clearly provide for this. If doing so, do users a favor and include the Additions and Deletions Report to make it easier to find changes. And please learn the difference between Supplementary Conditions and Division 01: 2 pages of detailed instructions on Punch List procedures do not belong in the General Conditions! John Regener, AIA, CCS, CCCA, CSI, SCIP Senior Member Username: john_regener Post Number: 521 Registered: 04-2002 Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 12:09 pm:    Phil: Like, where do the Supplementary General Conditions and the Special Conditions go? Are they as authoritarian as the General Notes on the various series of drawings? I'm very familiar with the 1976 AIA General Conditions. Is the new version really so different that the tried-and-true '76 version won't work? My version is getting faded from so many xerox copies. Where can I get a new one? Do you need to use the 1983 version of Masterformat with AIA A201-1976? I hate the idea of changing to five numbers instead of the familiar format of two numbers and a letter. It's hard for us Luddites to keep up with all these changes! I might have to upgrade the trusty ol' IBM XT to an AT if things keep changing. Know where I can get some more 5-1/4" flopping disks? And it's getting hard to find ribbons for my dot-matrix printer. Can I buy 'em on the Interweb? I hope the website doesn't have lots of pictures 'cause my dial-up modem hardly gets up to 56k speed. George A. Everding, AIA, CSI, CCS, CCCA Senior Member Username: geverding Post Number: 587 Registered: 11-2004 Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 12:15 pm:    John- For any of your architect-clients who might be interested, I have a blueprint machine for sale, and I'll even throw in a few extra gallons of ammonia. Still using the mimeograph, but I might be willing to part with that for the right price. George A. Everding AIA CSI CCS CCCA Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies St. Louis, MO John Regener, AIA, CCS, CCCA, CSI, SCIP Senior Member Username: john_regener Post Number: 522 Registered: 04-2002 Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 12:27 pm:    "I love the smell of mimeo fluid in the morning." - Archpocalypse Now ... and nothing will clear your sinuses like a stack of fresh, ammonia-soaked blueline prints. Another joy of life torn from us by Revit and BuildingSmart. Wayne Yancey Senior Member Username: wayne_yancey Post Number: 441 Registered: 01-2008 Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 01:30 pm:    Big ass blue-bottom flies are free! Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEED® AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 1225 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 01:45 pm:    And they didn't even have to march around with protest signs to obtain their freedom! J. Peter Jordan (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 03:44 pm:    George: They have not sold the blue-line paper in Houston for at least 5 years. Is it available in other parts of the country? (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 06:43 pm:    I'll keep this one anonymous (for reasons that will be obvious), I can remember back to the day, when as a young architect my duties included helping to type specs, running them off on the mimeo machine, running prints, making coffee, janitorial duties and burning garbage in the "drum" out back (I did get to practice architecure in my free time). One time the Architect/Owner was giving me a jug of "spent amonia" to take home for cleaning purposes. Since it was "spent", I decided to open it up and take a whiff - they had to pick me up off the floor. As already noted in another comment - it was good for clearing out the sinuses. Also, almost burned down the storage building - which was also "out back" next to the drum where we burned the garbage....but that is another story. Just glad the fire departnment was just down the road. (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 10:00 pm:    (for reasons that will be obvious) you are not alone, be proud; but I will protect my dignity too George A. Everding, AIA, CSI, CCS, CCCA Senior Member Username: geverding Post Number: 588 Registered: 11-2004 Posted on Friday, March 25, 2011 - 08:54 am:    Peter, although I do have a blueline printer in the basement, I haven't used it for years, so I haven't needed to look for paper. The mimeograph comment was a lie - I never owned one of those - although I suspect there still are some lurking around. Mimeo paper, probably not. Guests, I spent my first days as a young intern running prints for my boss. Even with the best fans at work, the fumes coming off the prints were heady stuff, so I never felt tempted to sniff the jug. But the true odor afficiandos will remember another great scent from the past: sepia eradicator. I'm guessing the non-existant sepia paper is stocked right next to the non-existant blueline paper. Ah, the good old days! Maybe they weren't so good. George A. Everding AIA CSI CCS CCCA Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies St. Louis, MO J. Peter Jordan (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Friday, March 25, 2011 - 10:28 am:    In my first summer job with an architect (just after my freshman year in college--don't ask me why they hired me), I had to run prints and run the "spirit duplicator." Our "master specifications" were "memeo masters" on which the secretary would tape over the text to be changed and type the changes on the tape. In the office I worked in the next summer, the boss had invested in an IBM MTST system which was a tape-driven Selectric. I was fortunate that first summer in that the office owned a commercial grade blue line machine which was kept in its own room and properly vented outside. I thought that was the norm for design, but of course, I was mistaken. It was not completely odorless, but much more pleasant than the "developer tubes" which you set on top of a cup of amonia. For architects of a certain age, I think that most will be unable to associate architectural practice with anything other than at least a faint smell of amonia. Paul Gerber Senior Member Username: paulgerber Post Number: 64 Registered: 04-2010 Posted on Friday, March 25, 2011 - 04:07 pm:    Mark - maybe the CCDC Contracts are different than the AIA documents! Since they are a concencus Form of Contract, they are distributed electronically (I think they are still available in hardcopy *shrug*) and are protected to only allow the filling in of the form. Any changes to the standard General Conditions is done through Supplemental Conditions (Section 00810 or 00 73 00). This is done so that all parties involved (mainly the Contractor and Consultant, as most Owners aren't as intimately familiar with the Contracts) have the comfort of not having to re-read each page of the Contract for every project they do/bid to make sure some unscrupulous party has not made any changes/inserted any weasel clauses which unfairly swing the balance of risk/responsibility toward one party. The one instance I cringe at is when we do projects for municipalities who issue their own Supplemental Conditions, drafted by their City/Regional Solicitor who has never set foot on a construction site, but who is out to "protect" the Owner from the Contractor who "screwed them" or made life difficult on the last project. The second last project like this that we did, by the time I had got half way through these Supplemental Conditions I said that if I was a Contractor I would fire my Chief Estimator if he would even consider submitting a bid for this project. And then municipal clients turn around and complain at the cost of construction. I bet if we used our standard SC's, we could save them a minimum of 10%. Ride it like you stole it!!! Dean McCarty, CCS, CSI, SCIP Senior Member Username: dean_e_mccarty Post Number: 51 Registered: 08-2002 Posted on Monday, March 28, 2011 - 04:22 pm:    My Spec Section Checklist has a line on the front that asks my client if they want the AIA Documents included or not. If they select yes (which is rare), then I remind them at printing time to coordinate this inclusion with the repro house. In the pre-PDF day, when I would print out the final copy to send to the client, this reminder was easily accomplished with "sticky flags" in the appropriate locations. I also had a Print Instruction sheet that would accompany the printed originals. This Print Instruction sheet indicated which forms, if any, were to be included. Now I just leave it up to the reminder to get the job done. My "Forms" Document does include a hyperlink to the AIA Document website for those projects that are only referencing the AIA Docs. Ken Moore, FCSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: kjmoore Post Number: 19 Registered: 06-2006 Posted on Tuesday, April 05, 2011 - 01:44 pm:    If a firm has a license to use the electronic AIA forms, that is the way to go. Otherwise I gree with Anne and Dean I reference the AIA documents, but do not include hard copy in Bidding nor CA sets. I do specify, if a prime contractor wants a hard copy the Design Firm will furnish one copy. I have only had one prime contractor request that. I used EJCDC General Conditions. Not all Prime's are farmiliar with EJCDC documents. When working for a Design Firm as a employee, I required the firm to include hard copy of AIA or EJCDC documents in the Signed Contract Documents. Cost of purching 3 or 4 hard copies by Design Firm, in my opinion is worth it.