MasterFormat 95 fades into the distant past. The voice of Marty Bloomenthal is a memory among former MARC members. The infamous MasterSpec RELATED DOCUMENTS article is gone with the latest update.
“I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”
“When I am an old woman I shall wear purple…” Jenny Joseph
I will continue to use Related Documents article in the manufacturer guide specifications I write.
That’s because I incorporate notes to the specifier suggesting items in the Related Documents that require coordination.
I expect many people using the guide specs will delete the Related Documents article; but hopefully they will be better prepared to coordinate between sections.
I think I just had a “senior moment”.
Phil wrote that MasterSpec eliminated “Related Documents”, but I thought he was referring to “Related Requirements”.
R.I.P. Related Documents. I never used it.
I’ve continued to use Related Sections because I can define it the way it was in the 1978 Manual of Practice and what I learned at the U Wisconsin spec course in 1979. "Items that the reader might expect find in this section that are specified elsewhere.
I would not use “shotgun verbage” that included all of the conditions of the contract and Division 01 unless it was something unusual - such as temporary facilities.
Now that I’m retired, I’m happy to comment.
Hi Ed:
How do you like retirement? Glad to have you join Lynn Javoroski, George Everding, and myself. There is life after specifications.
MasterSpec continues to use the Related Sections article (now titled Related Requirements) for precisely the purpose you note. This is not the same as the Related Documents article, whose demise is not mourned.
And me too.
I seem to remember the MARC committee suggesting this more than once over the years, but being pretty solidly shot down each time. I used a different version anyway, because I thought the MS version wasn’t even accurate.
i ask this once and yes, it was shot down. Now I do the shooting haha…the problem now is updating all 950+ sections it will take a quarter or 2.
Nice shooting Marc.
It’s appreciated.
Now I have convince people that it should never have existed to begin with and please stop putting it back in.
Dave Metzger,
To be honest, I’ve found retirement kind of boring. My “official” retirement began at the end of February 2020 - just as the pandemic shutdowns began.
I’ve played some golf, I’ve played some guitar, but it’s just not as enjoyable when it could be done with friends or an audience.
It would be interesting to see how long the Related Documents article survives. For decades, I eliminated it from my sections unless I was working on a GSA project or similar that required it.
Try as I might, I couldn’t get the engineering consultants to leave it out. I believe they thought it gave them some extra protection.