I have a commercial project in the punch list stage that has gone extremely smoothly. The millwork was disasppointing, but everything else was very good, it was finished early, etc. I did have the probelm with the trusses that had excessive gaps, but that was not the gc’s fault and everyone worked to correct it.
Then I have this other job, that more than makes up for the first one. I took over after the foorings were in, and it has been a disaster. A few highlights:
We are in a large shopping center, and the footings were built 6″ over the lease line. Fortunately it is not a property line, and after much negotiating the landlord/shopping center owner agree to re-write the lease and move the line 6″.
Two story building, cmu walls for stairs and elevator shaft. One stair wall call for #5 rebar every 8″ or in otherwords one bar in every cell. I saw an insopection report that says they installed the rebar every 32″. That was corrected.
The rebar was supposed to be lapped 27″ and tied together. They would install about 6-8 courses of block, then stick a rebar in the cell and fill it with grout.
The drawings call for double angle iron door lintels in the cmu walls. The contractor took it upon himself to omit the angles and used a concrete bond beam. The engineer said that would be adequate, but why didn’t they ask first?
I have been on the project about 6 weeks and the first floor slab pour has been delayed 5 times, always by the gc. They never have distributed a schedule that is correct. At least twice they have handed out a schedule at the meeting, and the date for the pour is shown to already have happened.
Today I got the creme de la creme. A little after 4 pm on Friday I got an email from the gc, he says they need to verify the location of the only floor outlet in the slab. Plans say to verify with the furnioture layout, which they don’t have (that’s not exactly correct, but ok). He wants me to verify that it’s in the right place, and oh by the way we start the concrete pour at 630 Monday morning. The job is 2 hours from my office, plus today I am 3 hours in the opposite direction on another project. And even if I do verify or reject the location, nobody is working on the site this weekend.
I strongly suspect that he is not ready to pour and is looking for an excuse to delay it again. I responded as civily as possible, and pointed out that I could not verify the location because he didn’t tell where it is. If he had at least given dimensions off a column line I might have been able to give an answer.
I am at the end of my rope trying to deal with this guy. And we need to be complete before the after-Thanksgiving shopping starts, and every delay eats up what little time we have.
“Put your creed in your deed.” Emerson
“When asked if you can do something, tell’em “Why certainly I can”, then get busy and find a way to do it.” T. Roosevelt
Replies
Hit him with a ball bat.
Never mind me I learned business 101 watching the Sopranos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPONTneuaF4
Why don't you TELL him where the outlet goes? Or am I missing something?
The outlet is sghown on the plans in very nearly the correct location. This one is foir a free-standing kiosk that could go anywhere within several inches. But the point is, and I told him in my response, is that they should have asked before the last minute. Actually, I was there Thursday morning and watched the electrician install it. No one asked then, and I assumed they had figured it out already. I do need to have some confidence in their ability to read the plans, so I didn't question it at the time. maybe I am expecting too much."Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Sounds like your gc is playing loose and fast.
How much did it cost to have the engineer review the field changed lintel? Maybe if you back charge him on some of these small things he will get a clue. Or better yet, if he isn't complying with specs, have him tear out the work and do it per spec. Will this cause some angst in your relationship... probably, but sometime you just have to use a 2x4 to get his attention.
Regarding schedule, he is jerking you around. You need to have him provide a corrected, up to dated schedule at your next construction meeting. It really does sound like he will be looking for additional time on the job, which of course will mean more money for his pocket at your expense.
Leland
Fast,
First of all remember that your a businessman with a contract, not a carpenter with an office.
You gotta know the contract you have with this dufuss frontwards and backwards. Take three copies home, roll one up in a baggie and put it on the driveway. Read it instead of your morning newspaper. Put another next to the throne and the last on the endtable by your bed.
Then. . . You got a buddy contractor with his own company hard hat? some time when dufuss is on site, have your buddy come over and walk the areas dufuss has to get to in the next few days/weeks. Don't say nothin' to dufuss. Nothin' at all. Strongly deny that it has anything to do with him or his work.
Now, everytime you gotta talk to dufuss, preface it with "According to the contract, you . . . ." and backcharge him for every little nit pikin' thing you can.
OTOH, unless the contract states that dufuss is supposed to field verify the location of the outlet, as the Super it is your responsibility to be the interface between subs. If one subs' efforts determine a critical dimension that affects another, it is up to you to insure those dimensions are corrrectly passed to dufuss.
BTDT,
SamT
Praise the Corporation, for the Corporations' highest concern is the well being of the public.
Sorry - I'm not totally up on my BT reading. What's your involvement in the is problem project? I thought you were like a superintendent or something working for the GC...
I are the owner."Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
FastEddie, I am a super for a GC (several actually) and will give you my take on what you have presented. I might well have asked an engineer if I could change the angles for a poured lintel if it improved flow of work and did not impact the strength or design in such a manner that it was critical. That hardly seems worthy of worrying about, Engineers signs off on it, change order is issued. Some days if you as owner want me as super to stay with the deadline I will get verbal authorization and then after the fact handle the paper work with the engineers.EDIT: I just reread your OP and see I may well have misunderstood. If the GC changed the lintel with PRIOR engineering OK then he blew it . I won't comment much as to the schedule, don't have enough information, but I for one hate the friggin things!
I try to schedule in broad terms , telling someone they will be here on a certain day 6 months in advance is crap IMO. I understand your situation is not that but wanted to toss out my personal feelings (whining actually ! ;-0 )Now as for the electrical , unless this is a design build project where I can call the sub responsible for placement of the kiosk then I would call the Archy.
IF I got solid info I would pass it on to the electrician , confirm it in writing , and put it to rest .
Concrete sub wants to know if it is correct , he is doing his job, I would verify it with the electrician , and if time allowed field verify it myself, but in either case I would tell the concrete sub it is correct if the electrician said it was . So my question to you is : Why do they have to call you? Did you design the building? Whoever has design responsibility also has the responsibility to verify shop drawings for placement of things like this.
It sounds to me as if the one responsible for checking the details of design is who should be being called, if that person is you,well then follow though, if it is someone else then tell the GC to call them.
"Poor is not the person who has too little, but the person who craves more."...Seneca
Edited 6/2/2007 7:11 pm by dovetail97128
Good points. I am the owner, we have a highly paid archy on the team. In this case we have a strict deadline, and it was part of the bidding documents. And the bid specs require a schedule, with updates. One of the issues with the schedule is that there are a lot of owner-supplied subs and equipment to coordinate and schedule ... like the safe deposit vault.
The gc has not yet asked permission to deviate from the plans, he just does it and gets caught. Although he did ask to use fiber mesh concrete in place of wire mesh, and that was approved.
There is a note on the electrical plans for the in-floor receptacle "verify location with furniture plan". The furniture is being supplied and installed as a separate contract. However, the furniture is shown on the architectural plans, and it is an accurate rendition. So rather than call the archy, he emailed me after they closed the site for the weekend, and said he needed it verified before they pour at 6:30 Monday morning. I think he is playing games. And I honestly think he is not ready to pour Monday morning, and is looking to get me to say the electrical is not right so he can delay and blame me.
I would have happily verified the location if he had given me a little notice. I watched them install it Thursday morning, and no one said anything. That means they knew enough to schedule the electricians to be on site to install it then ... why couldn't he ask me at that time?
And yes I have a personality problem with him, and that probably clouds my reasoning."Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
I think that you have every right to feel jerked around with the schedule. The guy isn't being straight up with you or is just extremely disorganized. Still, commercial construction schedules do get behind more often than not, especially when undependable subs are involved. If though, you were to go (on your weekend time) and verify the location of the floor outlet and he doesn't pour concrete on Monday AM (Weather permitting - you may be getting hit by the tail end of that tropical storm) why not go ahead and back charge him $100 per hour including travel time or whatever your weekend time is worth?
OTOH, it seems really odd that you, as the owner would have this level of involvement with the project.
FastEddie,
""The gc has not yet asked permission to deviate from the plans, he just does it and gets caught. "" Unfortunately probably not caught as often as he is changing things, Sounds to me as if he is trying to maximise his profit potential by shortcuts. Exactly the kind of GC I won't work for. As for the Owner supply, Owner responsible part of it goes if you are responsible for this part of the job then I would be calling you , but only after I exhausted all the rest of the possibilities (actual unit supplier/ manufacturer, going over shop drawings, calling the Archies etc. It does sound as if there is a stall happening unless for some reason someone in his organization or the electrician got nervous about the location because of changes to plan that weren't clear or not verified (or quite possibly lost) and doesn't want to take responsibility for the location. I have had to have electricians and plumbers actually show up and stand by until verification occurred while the crew poured. Pain in the Butt, but what was needed. Tougher when there are personality clashes as well.
"Poor is not the person who has too little, but the person who craves more."...Seneca
So, did your concrete get installed?
See 90751 'crack in slab' in construction techniques."Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
90751.1 The sides were left shelving, and not stoned; but the sun having never shone on them, the sand still keeps its place. It was but two hours' work. I took particular pleasure in this breaking of ground, for in almost all latitudes men dig into the earth for an equable temperature. -Thoreau's Walden