I have run into a few problems on projects where I questioned the architect on a material on a detail in the drawings. I get the response that they are not using that material on the project. The detail is only a “place holder”! Usually I had already written the specification and just needed clarification on some particulars.
This really frustrates me because then I can no longer trust the drawings. I can understand if there is a later material change, but to put something in a drawing set that is knowingly incorrect is inexcusable.
The situation you describe is common with specifiers, but perhaps more-so with the independent consultant. Because of your independent status, you are more acutely aware of inefficiencies chipping away at your project budget than the salaried employee, who has only a vague notion as to how profits are realized.
Making a new standard question to the A/E: Please let me know if you can think of any “placeholder” details on the drawings that I should not focus on for this submission, i.e. unlikely to actually be used.
I am an in-house specifier and our projects are mostly large healthcare projects, virtually always with a design/build, design/assist, or other collaborative project delivery model.
This means:
Project budgets are usually frozen at a frighteningly early point in the design process - How about bidding from the 100% Design Development Submital?
Place Holders become the primary means of setting the budget for finish items.
You work with designers to set abstract price points. We know we want a 3/8 by large format porcelain floor tile in a dark tone and select the right manufacturers and their lines to define a limited price range.
With care, this can be an efficient specification writing process as you focus on performance and leave the final color and model number to the finish schedules on the drawings.
Where it can break down is when the designer wants a certain “look” and this can be accomplished by very different materials, requiring multiple Sections for the same work item, with some sort of bid alternate process to guide selection.
Where my spec budget falls apart is not with this, but with the need to package specs for random, seemingly on the fly Bid Packages hammered out in a meeting the spec writer isn’t invited to.
That’s right, Dave. My question aims to provoke them to consider #3.
Steven, I feel your pain. In rare cases they might listen to reason that the specs don’t need to govern bid packages etc, and 011000 can point that out, quite rightly so. The CMc or GC, D/B’r, whomever, can write their own scope statements to be issued to the bidders or included after 011000. And yeah writing the specs somewhat generally (that is an oxymoron I know!) and by all means avoiding duplication any info that will be on the drawings but I see that you know this.
David G., I have had the same problem on three separate projects recently. And, the issue is not that the designer is “holding” a place for a similar product, but rather listing a product for the mere sake of listing a product.
David J., I disagree that the salaried employee is only vaguely aware of how profits are realized. As a salaried employee, the extra 20 hours overtime each week spent rewriting specifications is unpaid. I believe all salaried employees are aware that the free service they are providing diminishes their profit and time doing other things.
Unless employees are in management (and it is well worth reading how the IRS defines this), they are probably misclassified if they are working slave OT labor for free.
David G. yes that is clearly #3 as Dave M points out. I see why he says we earn our fee by following along with placeholders and whatever ad infinitum items they come up with until the project is finally considered done. (Emphasis mine.)
I posted the other day about how our large healthcare projects depend heavily on carefully selected “placeholders” to set budget values for various building components.
I also want to emphasize how even when we have a selected product, approved by the Owner and documented on the drawings and in the specs, it is often still a placeholder.
Our projects have long design and construction schedules. we celebrated a grand opening last month of a project for which I prepared the 100% Design Development specs for in 2008-2009. Those were the Bid specifications and set the project budget.
When you consider the dramatic acquisitions, mergers (and failures) of construction material manufacturers since the recession, the frequent renaming and reworking of product lines, it is more often surprising when a specified product from 2009 is still on the shelves in the mid-teens and my specs make it to the end without a need for revision than not.
So we go into these mega projects assuming just about anything that is not completely described by ASTM/ANSI/ACI/AISI etc. standards is probably a placeholder, but we still deliver a completely coordinated set of documents.
David G. - all three points are on target. I had a project with a whole sheet showing mounting heights and accessibility requirements for toilet rooms. (No toilet room work required in the project.)
PB, that helps clarify. So as professionals (or creative professionals, as this thread points out we have to be to keep up with the designers), or administrators (not only the managers as I thought the IRS defined it), we are allowed by law to be treated like slave labor when it gets over 40 hours as captured spec writers in a firm. This is one of the reasons I am glad to be independent. I might not get time and a half like blue collar workers, but I at least might get something for my extra toil.
I don’t understand why the CFR is written this way. Does it not penalize people for working hard to get a job that requires a college degree or specialized education in scientific fields, artistic work, or computer analyst type work? And why? We can fall prey to repetitive stress as much or more than anyone else. I have experienced that, and had to just stop working at one point until I could pinpoint the problems and then gradually build back up while taking care of my health first. Now I take a sustainable approach to pretty much everything.