We’re constructing a 48×28 1-1/2 story house, rather vanilla, with a shed roof. Our contract is lump sum with allowances (we’re well over $400/sf). Framing was carried in two lump sums – one for labor and one for materials. We’ve gotten a request for an additional 15% labor and extra material ($10k) since the framing plan did not depict blocking or include the phrase “blocking as required”.
We’ve had previous residential CD sets that did not call out blocking. (The GC provided us an example CD set to show it needed to be in a bid set — but that example set only showed an instance of blocking needed on a particular door detail, not the typical code required blocking.)
I’m trying to decide if we should push back on this overrun — which will likely cause a schedule hit and bad feelings. If we don’t push back, I think this will just happen repeatedly on the project and we won’t complete. Hard to know.
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You would be well within your rights to ask what the blocking is for. It is possible that there could be blocking beyond what was expected due to the design or material spec of the shed roof or additional blocking required to meet brace wall requirements. I would recommend starting with the question of what is assumed by the builder to be required as a matter of standard means and method and what they are seeing as above and beyond due to the final design.
Ian, thanks. The overage was largely horizontal blocking on exterior sheathing, all needed for code compliance on braced walls, as well as other code required blocking. We had an amiable discussion about this with our GC yesterday and reached a compromise to split costs. More importantly, we clarified how any future overages will be handled.
Happy to hear that you were able to talk through it. Braced wall panel requirements can be challenging for designers and contractors to get right and in some municipalities it is not uncommon to have differing interpretations of the prescriptive braced wall panel code.
Did the building inspector fail the framing due to the lack of blocking?
You could engage with a local lawyer about an implied commitment in the contract. Is the builder required to meet code, or did you take that responsibility on?
But at this point, you are right to think about the end state.
Is there another source you could engage?
did you get a couple bids from builders, or were you lucky to find anyone to do the work?
We haven't gone for framing inspection yet. We did reach a compromise on costs and preserved the work relationship. We felt lucky to find a very good contractor but we are paying for it!