Good point Ron.
My point was that a design professional is responsible for was he or she seals as their work. There is always the responsibility to review, coordinate consultants work, and the privity of contracts.
Interesting debate all, but I am still looking for answers to my questions:
-
Anyone know of any article on cons of incorporating geotech reports in ConDocs out there available for distribution?
-
Anything in the MOP or an AIA document that defines Appendices as things that are NOT part of the ConDocs?
-
Is it appropriate to include Appendices in the Project Manual?
I see two risks associated with the geotechnical report. The most frequent risk appears to be the difference between bid prices and actual construction costs. A less frequent (but certainly one with a higher dollar amount if it occurred) risk appears to be the risk that some subsoil condition causes damages after construction is complete.
BID PRICE AND CONSTRUCTION COST
I understand that you are all concerned with liability, but (currently) as a project manager for a general contractor, my concern is that all my competitors and I are bidding on the same scope of work, and that we do not own unforeseen conditions. That issue is minor when there is an engineer predicting pile lengths, specifying all the shoring, bracing, and/or sheet piles that will be needed for excavation and construction. Unfortunately that is not always the case, but contractors always need to generate their bid from something. Accurate information allows for a more accurate (and generally lower) bid.
The real question is who should be taking the risk that the engineer’s report is sufficiently accurate for us to use. Less information makes it less clear what we are bidding on, and what we are not including in our bid. It appears that some of the individuals posting believe that the GC (rather than the Owner) should carry that risk - or have experienced Owners who expect the Designer to carry the risk.
POST CONSTRUCTION FAILURE
I have no experience in this arena, so I can only do the typical guy thing and make wild assumptions. If there was a post construction failure, everyone would be tied into a mess of litigation whether or not the soils report was included in the manual. Presumably, the soils report would have been used for design purposes, so witholding the document (by not including it in an appendix as is common custom) may in fact be used by a clever lawyer to the designer and specifier’s detriment.
OTHER SCENARIOS
I am certain that other scenarios must exist, but I cant think of them.
YOUR 3 QUESTIONS
- I don’t know of any article on the cons of incorporating geotech reports. I do know that it is common practice to include Geotech reports in our area.
- I don’t know of “appendices” definitions in the MOP or AIA documents. If you have a definitions section, you could include it there.
- I am neither a lawyer nor a specifier, but I think it is appropriate to include appendicies in the project manual. I am an Architect, and during the 15 years before my life in the contractor world, I prepared construction documents. My approach was to provide all bidders with all information available to me. I physically attached it to the drawings or specifications except where it was too large (eg, full sets of as built drawings).
Randy:
“engineer’s report is sufficiently accurate for us to use”.
Every soils report I see is written for a design professional to use, not the Contractor.
How do you bid, and then protect yourself, when the soils report states:
“The Soils Engineer recommends a compaction of not less than 98% Standard Procter, however a lower density may be adequate where settlement would not be a problem.”
This is the type of narative in a typical report. Do you want to decide whether settlement is a problem in a competitive bidding situation. If the specification says 90%, which do you bid, the soils report or the specification? For bidding you need only a good specification. Soils reports are not specifications.
Richard,
First: I guess I had an image of the boring logs, and pit logs and the bit of description and boilerplate with them, and I was thinking of times we have been left to our own devices in identifying what protection we would need for excavations. (In the ideal world they would have been in the spec, or we would have sent an RFI during bidding and received a complete and useable response.) Please note, I am only speaking of the bid phase, once someone has the contract they hire an engineer (or the design engineer steps up) to design the shoring, and sheathing.
Second: We know that soils reports are not specifications. We always use the specifications in the manual.
Third: Finally the light dawns on me that your Owners contract needs something identifying what information (or document) takes precedence over other information (or documents). All the jobs on my desk now were contracted with the 1987 AIA documents, so I dont know offhand if A201 was modified in 95 to correct the weakness seen by most of the people we work with. Half the contracts on my desk include Supplementary General Conditions, modifying the AIA A201, and one of the universal modifications is a clause added to 1.1.1 of AIA A201 identifying what information (or document) takes precedence over other documents. Please e-mail me at rcox@biltriteconstruction.com if you want to discuss this in more detail.
Randy
one of the universal modifications is a clause added to 1.1.1 of AIA A201 identifying what information (or document) takes precedence over other documents<<
Paraphrasing from AIA Document A511 “Guide for Supplementary Conditions”, a principle of A201 is not to establish a precedence among the contract documents, ie that all documents are complementary. If the owner insists that a precedence be established, A511 does give one (to modify 1.2.1), but even so, it explicitly states that drawings and specifications are of equal precedence.
And geotechnical reports are not in the listing in A511, because they are not contract documents.
Randy:
As stated earlier in this string I agree you should have the boring logs.
As for your second comment about your practice, you are bidding against folks that just see an inconsistancy to exploit. Further I see a lot of canned Masters on earthwork that has no relationship to what is explained thoroughly, though not “specified”, in the soils report. I also see a lot of folks that rely totally on the soils report. In all cases you are at a disadvantage in your assumption.
David comments covers the third. However I think a lot of folks will be in for a surprise that soils report is not a matter of contract. It would take one heck of a lawyer to throw out the soils report when there are foundation problems.