| Author |
Message |
Alan Smithee (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, October 10, 2013 - 09:30 am: |    |
I've been offered the opportunity to participate in a peer review of a proposed building.
My part of it would involve reviewing the project manual at several stages (DD, outline, CD) throughout the project and commenting.
I could tell the client, with a high degree of accuracy, how long it would take me to *produce* the project manual for the project in question, but I am at a loss for estimating how long it would take (and how much I should charge) for checking someone else's work.
Do any of you have experience with peer review? |
Jerome J. Lazar, RA, CCS, CSI, SCIP
Senior Member
Username: lazarcitec
Post Number: 1003
Registered: 05-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, October 10, 2013 - 04:11 pm: | |
Alan, I've been asked by several developers and architects to do this, its a good way to get future work, just be careful you don't get sued in the process. I typically request an hourly rate of payment with a estimated maximum fee. As far as the maximum fee, that varies, but if I had to guess it usually comes in at half the cost of preparing the specs from scratch. I have had success producing a matrix that identifies items in the spec that I have concerns with and also advises why, depending on the client I also have included a column with the correct verbage if feasible. Alan if you post your email, I will send you an excerpt from one of my Peer Review Matrix pages. I will tell you that the process takes longer than you estimate (so double it after you finish calculating your time), but in my case its as much a marketing effort as it is another way to produce income. For every Peer Review I have performed, I made a new client.
Peer Reviews can certainly be eye openers, fortunately specs produced by my office IMHO outperform others in my region, but its a way to see what your peers are doing. I am always amazed when I peer review a spec prepared by a professional from another region of the USA who tries to use their master spec for South Florida. In fact its usually a good laugh and a morale booster.
I said earlier that you need to be careful you don't get sued, funny thing is that all the specwriters who prepared jobs I Peer reviewed are now friends and colleagues, its important to be civil in your peer review.
BTW, if the peer review is for a condo vulture, everything I just said does not apply. I won't do work for condo vultures, no matter how lucrative, granted I know several specwriters who do, but I don't.
Good luck Alan. |
Alan Smithee (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, October 10, 2013 - 04:54 pm: | |
Thanks for your reply, Mr. Lazar.
Forgive me, but what is a "condo vulture"? |
Jerome J. Lazar, RA, CCS, CSI, SCIP
Senior Member
Username: lazarcitec
Post Number: 1004
Registered: 05-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, October 10, 2013 - 05:42 pm: | |
well there is actually a firm in South Florida called Condo Vultures, but that is not what I am referring to. The Condo Vultures are what we affectionately call the professionals (and I use that loosely) that defend condo associations and in so doing investigate every real professional who toiled on a set of condo docs. Perhaps it is a term only used in SFL. These vultures consist of lawyers, engineers, contractors, and yes even architects. |
Ron Beard CCS
Senior Member
Username: rm_beard_ccs
Post Number: 409
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Friday, October 11, 2013 - 01:45 am: | |
Let me start by saying that I have never performed a peer review.
The FBI trains their counterfeiting agents by studying the real bills over and over so that when they see something that does fit their training it is flagged and most likely determined to be fake. So it should be with reviewing a Project Manual.
IMHO, the starting point is to ask for a detailed criteria on which the review is to be performed against. Is it your job to 'judge' an architects product selection; or, to respond only to those selections that have a high probability of failure in a certain application? Is style an important criteria (ie, is CSI's format followed with either section, page, or numbering formats)? Not all project manuals are CSI based and could appear in many variations which technically could be correct. Will suggested alternative materials be accepted with malice? What about drawing details? (Ugh Oh! Did I really say that.)
I like Jerome's comments about the time estimates. Keep in mind that a typical specifier probably sends as much time reviewing the drawings and communicating with the architects as they do writing the actual spec.
"Fast is good, but accurate is better."
.............Wyatt Earp |
ken hercenberg
Senior Member
Username: khercenberg
Post Number: 622
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Friday, October 11, 2013 - 09:49 am: | |
Excellent points Jerry and Ron.
Alan, one other question is whether you will get to sit with the design professional after performing your peer review. I always make sure to point out, whether to the client, the designer, or both, that it's a lot easier reviewing someone else's work than it is to create a document.
Many reviewers believe that they have to find 'something' and tend to nitpick. This usually gets the designer's hackles up and puts them on the defensive. It may help to be able to point out what items you think are more or less important in your summary. Ron's observation that it helps greatly to know what your client is expecting from you (constructability, cost savings, outright errors, etc.). I did a peer review once where the Specifier had left out the spec for the entire exterior envelope. Apparently he didn't understand what the architect was designing and didn't feel comfortable writing a spec for the system. That meeting was awkward at best. |
Alan Smithee (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, October 21, 2013 - 12:09 pm: | |
Thanks again, one and all.
I may be a little slow here, but I still don't understand Mr. Lazar's objection to "condo vultures".
When you say "defend condo associations", do you mean as expert witnesses in a lawsuit between an Owner (or Owner association) and a design professional? Or something else?
To the best of my knowledge, the project I've been asked to peer review has not been built yet and the entity paying for the peer review is the Owner. |
Jerome J. Lazar, RA, CCS, CSI, SCIP
Senior Member
Username: lazarcitec
Post Number: 1005
Registered: 05-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 21, 2013 - 12:21 pm: | |
Alan, if the project you are peer reviewing is not a condominium, than there is no need to explain condo vultures any further, perhaps I should have never mentioned it in the first place. If the peer review is of a condominium, than Alan you will eventually learn that "condo vulture" is not a flattering term. Good luck to you. |
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