Some of the Project Managers in our office what this statement at the beginning of every spec section “Drawings and general provisions of the Contract, including General and Supplementary Conditions and Division 01 Specification Sections, apply to this Section.”
Others don’t think it is necessary.
Do any of you use it?
of course:
1.1 RELATED DOCUMENTS
A. Drawings and general provisions of the Contract, including General and Supplementary Conditions and Division 1 Specification Sections, apply to this Section.
Every technical section uses the wording above in A. from Jerome.
Wayne, you would be surprised how many don’t, esp MEP specs, even though I require all Consultants to follow a form that includes this, still MEP seems to be most resistant.
Yah. Some MEPs tend to still use MF95 and include their own Div01 within their sections. They also use Division 20.
Dewayne,
“Every technical section uses the wording above in A. from Jerome.”
That was going to be my next question, about consultants.
If it is standard for the industry, it will be easier for me to make my case here.
“It should be irrelevant, as it repeats the intent of the Contract”
My thinking is this would be for the benefit of the sub contractors who would not be privy to the terms of the contract.
The industry standard should be to never include something like this that is repeated in every section. CSI’s principle of say it once and in the right place should be your guide. Maybe I missed the next statement that said, “unless of course MasterSpec does it in their full length sections.”
So when a consultant doesn’t put that wording in their section, does that mean that the General and Supplementary Conditions and Div 01 don’t apply to that section?
Whether it benefits the sub contractors or not should be irrelevant. You are writing contract documents for the Contractor. How they handle their contracts with subs shouldn’t be the concern. The subs aren’t signing a contract with the Owner.
The AIA owner-contractor agreement and the AIA general conditions state what the contract documents include. The general conditions also establish the complementarity of the documents, and the agreement requires compliance with them. There is no reason to restate those requirements regarding the general conditions.
Years ago, CSI recognized the lack of specific instructions regarding the use of Division 01 to control all other specifications.
"Although the Division 01 role in governing the work has been accepted in practice for many years, this authority is not explicitly stated in either the AIA or EJCDC general conditions. Until that change is made, the authority should be established by a provision in the supplementary conditions as follows:
“Sections of Division 01 - General Requirements govern the work of all sections of the specifications.”
Following the “say it once” rule, stating that once in the supplementary conditions, or, I will argue, in Division 01, is sufficient, and obviates the need to restate it in every section.
That is what AIA’s MasterSpec sections have at the beginning of every section.
I always delete it as it is unnecessary.
I agree with Sheldon and Ron. Adjust as necessary in accord with the agreement / general conditions used for the project, but only say it once.
thanks for all the input folks
The purpose of the “say it once” rule is to reduce the odds of providing contradictory information. In this case however, there should never be a risk of contradiction because every project should have division 01 sections and general and supplementary conditions.
Some of the main purposes of the specs are to minimize arguments that a subcontractor might use to justify performing shoddy work and to minimize justifications for change orders. I suspect that it is common for subcontractors, if they read anything, to only read the sections applicable to their portion of the work. I think that is a good enough of a reason to warn them in each spec section that there are other documents applicable to their work. If a lawsuit arises, the subcontractor could argue that he or she was not aware that general conditions or division 01 specs applied to their work. It seems wise to solidly eliminate that argument.
ARCOM Masterspec invented the “RELATED DOCUMENTS” Article at the beginning of every Full Length (identified with FL in the file name of each Full Length Word document)specification section they offer.
Curiously, ARCOM Masterspec Short Form (SF) specification sections do NOT contain this Article.
The hidden comments above this Article in MasterSpec FL specifications says “Retain or delete this Article in all Sections of the Project Manual.”
ARCOM Masterspec recognizes and acknowledges that this is not required and not necessary, but evidently are influenced by some that feel strongly that it is, and so have just let it ride. Dumb.
ARCOM Masterspec also includes, in Section 01 1000 - SUMMARY, this sentence:
Division 01 General Requirements: Requirements of Sections in Division 01 apply to the Work of all Sections in the Specifications.
So, if you are mixing and matching Masterspec Full Length and Short Form spec sections, and consultants are just using whatever, you are likely not getting any consistency with regard to this RELATED DOCUMENTS requirement. I take it out of my specs, and I instruct consultants to do the same. It is unnecessary.
Having been a subcontractor for many years, I confess that I only read the sections that detailed my work.
Downloading the entire Project Manual seemed formidable and irrelevant to me.
Department of Redundancy Department.
No useful benefit. Delete it along with the Related Sections Article. Seen too many people list half the Table of Contents in Part 1 of some Sections.
Ken recommends deleting “Related Sections” article. I find judicious use of the article helpful in situations where the normal “work results” are not clear. A case in point is lightning protection. The NFPA Standards for lightning protection include surge protective devices. It is customary in to size and provide the devices as part of the lightning protection work results. Yet few lightning protection installers are licensed as electricians. So the industry convention is to specify the installation in a section that includes other electrical work. I reference this in the Related Section article.
I believe the reason for the Related Documents verbiage is to alert a subcontractor, who may only get a portion of the project manual/drawings, that all the documents will apply to the project.
For example, if the tile setter only gets the tiling section he can’t complain about the number of submittals because he did not receive the submittal procedures section.
I too think Related Document verbiage is redundant and unnecessary. I take the language out of my specifications. That said, I do have a client that insists I leave the verbiage in their specifications.
One of the unintended consequences of putting the Related Documents language in each sections comes when it is accidentally left out of a section.
That leave the opportunity for the contractor to claim that the Drawings and general provisions of the Contract, including General and Supplementary Conditions and Division 1 Specification Sections, DO NOT apply to this Section.