by David Burstein, P.E., PSMJ Resources Consultant

During construction, the contractor usually has a lot more contact with the owner than you do. And they often use these contacts to bad-mouth you and your designs. Here are two things you can do to mitigate this problem:

1. Add this term in the front-end documents:

“The Contractor represents that he has thoroughly reviewed the drawings, specifications, and contract documents and that they are suitable for submitting a valid bid. Contractor shall submit a written description of all deficiencies and ambiguities in the contract documents to the Owner within 30 days of signing the Contract. Change orders for design deficiencies or ambiguities not included in Contractor’s description will not be allowed.”

2. Require regularly scheduled construction meetings and be present at all these meetings. This often goes beyond the scope of typical CA services. If that’s the case in your contracts, be sure to explain to the client why it’s in his benefit to have you present at all construction meetings and include the time for these as an additional service.

In the future, we’ll discuss ways of dealing with contractors who tend to submit obviously incomplete shop drawings.

David Burstein is a PSMJ consultant and seminar leader. He can be contacted at 770-723-9651 or dburstein@psmj.com.

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