Construction Administration 101: Essential Terminology for Architects & Contractors

Construction Administration 101 covers the basic terms and processes involved in construction administration. The purpose of construction administration is to ensure that the building is constructed according to the design and specifications. Key terms discussed include RFIs (Request for Information), shop drawings, change orders, progress claims, and field reviews. RFIs are requests for more information from the contractor to the architect. Shop drawings are detailed drawings submitted by the contractor for review. Change orders are documents that outline proposed changes to the project and their associated costs. Progress claims are requests for payment from the contractor based on the progress of the project. Field reviews are site visits to observe and document the construction progress and address any issues or deficiencies.

Takeaways

• Construction administration ensures that the building is constructed according to the design and specifications.
• RFIs are requests for more information from the contractor to the architect.
• Shop drawings are detailed drawings submitted by the contractor for review.
• Change orders outline proposed changes to the project and their associated costs.
• Progress claims are requests for payment from the contractor based on the progress of the project.
• Field reviews are site visits to observe and document the construction progress and address any issues or deficiencies.

Chapters
0:00 - Introduction 
2:17 - Coordinating Registered Professional 
3:40 - Drawings
4:00 - Specifications 
5:35 - Request for Information 
8:40 - Submittal
13:40 - Supplemental Instruction
15:30 - Conteplemnted Change Notice / Proposed Change
16:55 - Change Directive
18:00 - Pricing 
19:00 - Change Order
20:35 - Cash Allowance 
22:06 - Progress Claim
23:35 - Certificate of Payment 
24:50 - Field Review 

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Transcript

0:00

RFIs, ASIs, CCNs, PCs, COPs, oh my! As you guessed it, today we are going to go over Construction Administration 101. Let's do it. Hi, I'm Matt Brennan and welcome to What the RFI. So this is the podcast that goes over Construction Administration from the lens for an architect, project coordinator, engineer, you name it. So today, as you kind of guessed it, we're doing CA 101, the basic terms, right, with it. You know, this podcast, this episode may be kind of above you. You've been doing CA for years and that's great. You know, you might learn something, you might not. I'm not expecting that. But I bet you have been wanting to teach someone in your organization, a colleague, a friend about CA and you just haven't had the time. This is the episode that you're going to give to them as a basics 101 to start them off the right track. And this is, we're going to talk about RFI's and CCN's and all these fun things that we're going to go over. We're going to go kind of line by line, okay? So if you've been doing it for a long time, you might skim through it. But if you know someone, it's a great episode, okay? So let's, before we get into the terms, I want to get into why is even CA required for a project, right? So having Construction Administration allows the architect, basically everything you've been designing for to be followed throughout the process from the contractor. We want to make sure that the buildings we built, you've spent all this time designing this premium building, this premium product you've done specifying certain, you know, fixtures, lighting, everything. And now the time is for it to be built. So while it's being built, we want to make sure it is following the right path. It's meeting our drawings and meeting our specifications. So that is why CA is, you know, really required. You don't really see a lot of CA through residential houses because it's different, because it's really just the builder doing the thing providing a product and done. Anything beyond multi-res, to public projects, schools, you name it. There's a huge amount of documentation as we have applied to it and you want to see it there. We've been basically designing this, you know, fine BMW. I don't want the Honda Civic. Nothing wrong with the Honda Civic, the driving one. The point is that we want it to be built as per what we did. OK, the second thing is the architect or the according registered professional CRP, there's our first acronym, is they're legally bound to make sure this project is followed through. Right. And what I mean about that, like a big, big one is code regulations, right? Life and safety. On a certain plan, you know, we have like on condos, we have fire separated units, one hour between. Well, if we're running, if the contractors just going crazy, being a cowboy, running, you know, pipes through stuff and he's not doing the proper install details or the fire cocking or anything like that, that's a problem. And as the architect, the CRP, he needs to be flagging this and bringing this out to the contractor. So very, very important in that sense. And that's why another reason why we have CA. OK. And of course, if it's ever did go to court, you know, there was a, you know, something, a legality issue or something like that, you know, the building fell apart or something like that. And all the documents get placed out there. And when you stand in front of the judge as the architect and go, I've never even the judge says, hey, have you been to site? You know, have you been making sure that it's being built the proper way as per the drawings as a specs? And if there's been no record of it, then, you know, good luck. It's not going to end well. Right. So it's very important to do this, you know, do this regularly. OK. So enough said, let's get into the common terms, why they're there, what they are, kind of the process. And I'm going to kind of walk you through the whole thing. So let's start, you know, what their basics, one on one drawings. OK. I think we all know what those are. Those are the drawings that you've been preparing. You've been working your heart on these things, putting all the details, the millwork details, you know, all of that, that fancy feature at the entrance, that glazing detail, that exact color facade. Very important. We know what the drawings are. OK. Basically, the legal documents are going to this. The other side of the legal documents is the specifications. Now, a lot of people don't. Again, this is kind of might be a new territory, new territory. And this is something we can talk about at length on a different episode. But specifications is that book format spec book. And there are any depending on the size of the job, they can be, you know, 500 pages. That can be 2000 pages. Right. And it's a thick, thick, basically like a Bible of specs. OK. And this is everything. So, for example, what toilet are you using? Right. What even furniture? You may even have that as a specified element. What bleachers are you using on the school? And you're very specific because we kind of talked earlier about we're designing the BMW. I don't want the Honda Civic. That's with specs. I'm saying I want this type of toilet. I want this type of bleacher. I want this type of rooftop unit. I don't want some knockoff brand. I'm saying I want this product. And you specify an all you basically say what exactly you want. And then during a time of tender, you know, you might get people saying, can I use my product on your project? Right. And that would be considered an alternate and whether you do it or not. But the point is, once the tender closes and the buildings being built, what these specs state is what is going to be built. And we're going to get into this later, kind of how this is important. OK. So you got your drawings and your specs. That's what makes the contract. And now we're ready to go. So the project has been awarded to the contractor. We are building and we are under construction. We've entered the construction administration phase. And here we go. So the first thing that's going to happen that you're going to find in terms of terms is RFIs. Hence the title of the show. What the RFI? RFI stands for request for information. OK, so an RFI is a document that the contractor issues out to you, to the architect, asking for more information. And this could be anything like what is this box on the plan or how am I going to build this millwork? I have a question. How are you going to connect this piece of millwork? And you know, I've got a conflict. I see that there's a toilet above a beam. All these things, you know, drawings, as much as we want to be perfect and, you know, as much as we try and we strive for that, there you are going to be we're human. We're going to make mistakes. Right. And especially when we're working with different people, again, not just the architectural, but we've got mechanical, electrical, structural. And we have to coordinate that. Again, that's the whole job of the architect. But again, things are fast paced. Things rush sometimes. Someone makes a change at last minute. Then we're here we are. OK. And that's why RFIs are generated. So request for information. So with these RFIs, basically, you'll get it and you need to respond to it and you need to respond to these items in a timely manner. And we'll talk about that in a minute. But the point is it might be, again, I'm missing a wall tag. What is how do I what's going to happen with this? Or maybe just a question that the contractor is asking, he just missed in the drawings while it's on sheets. So your duty is to basically respond to this RFI with an answer. OK, pretty straightforward. Now, in terms of numbers of RFIs, having a lot of RFIs doesn't always mean it means your drawings are bad. Maybe it does. Maybe your drawings were not coordinated and they're filled with mistakes. Right. And that's going to be the reality of it. But if you have a good set of drawings and the bids came in all around the same price point. Yeah, it sounds like you had a good set, but you're getting a lot of RFIs from the contractor. It could be the contractor is looking for an extra. And I've seen that in some jobs, not all contractors like that. Again, no, this is not slagging on any contractors. But the reality is sometimes they that is a tactic that they're going to introduce so many RFIs to you that every fifth RFI that's released, it's going to result in an extra on site and they're going to make a few dollars on doing so. So again, it's play by play. I've had some GCs issue very limited RFIs, which is great. Saves me time, you know, because I have to respond to everyone. And then I've seen just daily I've just been getting RFI after RFI. And that's just the reality of it. And there's a whole tracking and that's another episode on its own. OK, so one thing I do want to say is, again, we talked briefly, but response times you need to respond to these RFIs in a reasonable time. If you do not respond to these, you are going to get in trouble at the end of the day. And there's going to be a thing called a delay claim that the contractor has, you know, obligated to issue out to you basically saying, I'm not getting the answers I need. The architect, the team design team is slowing me down on site. I'm in trouble. I can't build this on time. And therefore, there's going to be a cost and a penalty to keep my fences up, my trailers, etc, etc. OK, so response times really key. So that's RFIs. So the next type of document is submittals or shop drawings or even cut sheets. That's a really rare term I've heard, but usually shop drawings is a good common one submittals as well. Same thing. OK, these are documents in the project that we talked about that you specify this toilet, right? As the specs as we talk, you know, this type of bleachers. This is the time for us to review it. So the contractor is going to basically provide us with these shop drawings to review. Now, with RFIs, I can't like we talk, we can't predict how many RFIs we're going to get, because that could be a few or could be a lot. I don't know. But the shop drawings we can predict because as per our specs, it's going to have so many items in there. And we're going to want to see all those individual items. OK, so we kind of an idea. If it's a school, it might be 200 shop drawings. If it's a little daycare, it could be, you know, 20, it could be 30, could be 50. All depends on what you're putting in there and what you want to see a shop drawing for. But ideally, you want to look at it for the main things. So this is like I said, it's a cut sheet. It has a product in here. So let's take, for example, let's take a rooftop unit. It's a good, simple one. So this is the mechanical unit that's going on top of there. When it comes in, it's not just the architects reviewing it. And they may not even review it because it has nothing to do with them. But it has they have to coordinate it with the electrical, the mechanical, structural, because of loading. Right. And all these things come into place. And every shop drawing is a little bit different. Who's involved and so on. OK. So when the shop drawing comes in, basically you as a design team are going to review this and make sure that this is the product right away. Does this meet the specs? Is this approved manufacturer? Is the product? Is this the product I asked for? If it's not, then it's going to be considered. Then you would send it back to the contractor as revise and resubmit. Right. Or maybe reviewed as modified because there was just a couple of tweaks or maybe it's just been reviewed. You never approve shop drawings. You never do that. It's either, you know, reviewed. OK. Making that very clear. So once you reviewed it, it goes back to the contractor and then he basically proceeds and orders with it. And if it was revised, resubmit because it didn't meet specs or whatever the case may be at this point, you know, the contractor is supposed to go back to the sub, get the right version and bring it back. Maybe it's not the right clouding color. Maybe it's not the right glazing. That's a common one. I always found was revised and resubmit. But it's basically it's a last chance for us to make sure that the right products are going into the building. OK. Pretty straightforward. Now, this is where alternates come in. And I don't like alternates because it usually causes an extra. And we're going to get to that in a minute. So with alternates is basically I asked for star line windows. But the contractor can't get those during covid times. It was tough to get some of these products. So he's going to propose an alternate for maybe Centro windows. The only risk of you accepting the alternate is you have to do your due diligence and make sure it's going to work. And it's not going to trigger an extra later down the road. So, for example, if I get the set of windows, you know, doesn't meet the testing. It does. Good. Does it meet the same colors? Good. Does it meet warranty information? No. Well, that's a choice that you got to say. Do I want to go with this or do I really want the specs? Because if it's a fixed fee job and it's been bid on, the contractor is obligated to. He has to follow the specs. Right. What you basically put on the table saying, please bid this job. So that's why the specs are so critical at the beginning of the phase. But if you accept the alternate and you proceed, review the shop, right. And then we keep going. OK. And one thing is, again, we talked about response time. Again, these have to be responded in a reasonable time. Now, we usually say 10 business days for shop drawings. But, you know, in case of steel shop drawings, that can be 600 pages and every page is critical. You have to review it, you know, not necessarily the architect, but the structural does. And it takes time. So I think it's just having to be very clear, open, communicating the timelines to some of these shop drawings with your GCs. So you guys are on the same page. So again, when they they call out a delay claim, you've got data to back it up, saying, well, I took a little bit longer to review the shop drawing because it was 600 pages. Right. It was a big shop drawing. Right. And it involved multiple consultants as well. The other thing that at the start of the project and your specs would define this is a shop drawing schedule. So in a shop drawing schedule, the contractor would basically provide you a whole list of all shop drawings he's going to receive. He's going to provide you and when he's going to provide them to you. Now, this is a term that's thrown out quite a bit. I've only received one shop drawing when I, you know, during my practice and talking to people, they always laugh because we never get shop drawing schedules. Right. What we're actually seeing is architects change the game and actually provide a schedule to the contractor and saying, here's all the shop drawings I need and here's the whole log and I need them now. Right. And these are hot leads and you're responsible basically to provide them. So anyways, that's just something else to kind of consider and in this whole shop drawing submittal package phase. OK. Next is supplemental or site instructions. OK. S I S now you might have heard the term A S I or M S I S S I. Right. That's basically architectural supplemental instruction or supplemental site instruction. Mechanical site instruction. Right. Electrical site instruction. Yes. Right. So that's kind of just the short form terms of what those other is just relating to the disciplines. OK. So what is the purpose of an S I? Well, during the build phase, maybe there was an RFI that came through and it triggered a question of, oh, my goodness, this isn't going to work or I need to modify this or whatever the case is. You're giving site instruction, site instruction to basically do an action. So a very simple one is let me just say I'm going to move this plug from here to over here. If it hasn't been built, it's probably not a problem. It's probably not going to have a charge to it. But if that plug is already built and now you're saying site, please move it, there's going to be a charge and that's going to tie us into our next topic. But if you say move this outlet, but add five, let's well, that's going to be an additional cost as well. So a site instruction doesn't typically means there's no cost to it. All right. It's just what it is. You're giving a site in direction. Move this. It can be set. It could just be words. It could be drawings. It could be any of that. Right. And it could be multiple consultants as well. Maybe you're doing a whole client revision. They can be a site instruction to be driven from the RFI's. It could be driven through a shop drawing because he has some coordination items to deal with or owner driven. Right. OK. So that's an S I. Now comes the one where it comes as an extra as a change. So where I'm from in Vancouver, B.C., we call these continental change notices CCNs. But the moment you cross into the US border and states you are dealing with proposed review, proposed change, proposed order. And each state is a little bit different. So you really need to know what state you're in, what's the contract language that you need to follow. And that's what you're going to call at the end of the day. They're the same document type is just way that they're being titled. OK. So the documents almost look exactly the same thing as an S.I. But in this case, it's guaranteed that there is going to be an extra. We recognize that there is an extra for this. So you'll prepare it just like the S.I. But you'll review it, issue it out. And the next step is the contractor is going to come back and provide your pricing. But let's talk about a change that we don't really know what's going on or a week. We just got to get moving on it because basically when you issue a proposed change, it's going to go. It's going to stop. Go for pricing. Contractors are going to price it. Come back, give you pricing. You're going to review it and approve it. And then basically seal and we're going to cover those in depth in a second. But just say if it's like Earthworks, right? We're digging. We found some bad soils. Right. And you know, we we figured there are plans basically said we're going to dig down this deep. But in the end, it was just garbage soil for this location. We didn't do a borehole during the geotechnical stage or anything like that. We just didn't know about this condition. In this case, you would issue a change directive, a CD. Now, the dangers of a CD is they are open checkbooks. Basically, you're saying contractor, please proceed. Go ahead, do it. Collect all the bills that record that come from this change and then we'll deal with the cost at the end. But you don't have a lot of legroom. There's no review of the costing other than this is what it costs. Here's the bill. Please pay it. It's an open checkbook. So be very cautious. Of course, contractors love change directives, CDs. But the reality is, you know, it's not you typically don't issue a lot of these. Like I said, the ones I've issued in the past have been relating to like Earthworks because it's just we just can't we can't assume we can't price it. We don't know. We know as soon as we keep digging, we might find more issues or something like that. Even like maybe furring if you know, because there was all these extra beam sizes and you know, you couldn't catch them all. Might be easier to do a CD, but again, not not recommended, but that's what a CD is. So regardless if it's a proposed change, CCN or a CD, pricing needs to come and be reviewed by the architect. So basically, the contractor is going to submit the full pricing. Again, this pricing might involve a number of people just like a shop drawing. So again, might involve mechanical electrical because it both they were changing the unit, the mechanical unit. So therefore, a mechanical needs to review the unit. Electrical needs to review the electrical portion of it. Right. So as a CRP, as the architect, basically collect all this feedback. And then if pricing is great, you accept it and you get back to the contractor and that will turn into a change order. But if it's not acceptable, then you might go back and forth and you might do it a few times. There's even contractual stuff like overhead and profit. And we'll we'll dive into that in its own session too. But there's all these things that you've got to check with pricing. Just think if you went to the grocery store and you bought, you know, your groceries and went, hey, hey, there's all this extra stuff. That's not my groceries or you're double dipping. You're charging twice or anything. Those are the things that you need to check during pricing. It's really, really important in that sense. OK, but once the pricing is done and you've accepted it, now we can take that pricing and we can issue a change order. CEO and attach that pricing to it. Now, when we issue a change or we can do it per item, per proposed change, right? We can do that or we could do one per month and group all those changes into the item is up to you. I kind of like to keep it the same, you know, just in case you had to go back and modify it. But basically per change per pricing became one CEO. So that document is just a final document. You're going to get an owner sign off on it. You're going to the architect sign off on it and you're going to get that final approval saying we are proceeding with this change and going from there. Now, depending on the type of project you have with this, like in most some meaning like a fixed fee contract competitive bid, the bid on it. And they've said, I'm going to build this, you know, this school for 30 million dollars. That's the contract value. Now we're doing these extras that we've been talking about. Well, these extras might be, you know, say a million dollars, two millions, whatever, you know, just for simple numbers here. That's going to be on top of the contract. So originally we bid the project at 30 million, but now it's 31 because this change cost a million dollars. And going through that, that's the reality of all these changes. Right. So you have a contingency, meaning that there's some money in the piggy bank for it. Now, with some changes, when you issued out the project to be tendered in your specifications, you would have had perhaps some cash allowances or contingencies. Right. Maybe add a contingency for a million dollars for soil because we don't know what the soil is. We're building on the side of a hill. We want to have a buffer of just in case and money in the piggy bank to basically pay for that extra that we could not anticipate unless you're going to, you know, you just couldn't do it. Right. You could even know what to expect. OK. Or sometimes at the design stage, we had cash allowances. Maybe we want blinds for the whole building and we put a cash allowance for twenty thousand dollars. So when we issue that change, we're going to pull from that cash allowance and then, you know, the contract card would basically provide a quote for that blinds and then we do that. So that's another way how these budgets come into effect of the change. OK, so you put the change order together, get all your initial initial. Sometimes certain clients like to have their own cover pages for this kind of information. All the signatures from the owners, they put it together, they issued out and then it becomes CEO one, two, three, etc. You never issue a CEO number before you officially issue it because sometimes money changes and it can get really messy. You want to kind of do it the moment you got to prove price and you want to issue it that CEO to track the numbers. You never want to go back because it can get very, very messy. And again, another day, another topic. Let's just focus on the terms. OK, so we've been reviewing all these RFIs, we've been doing the changes, we've issued these CEOs. It's the end of the month. Everyone wants to get paid. So each month, the contractor issues a thing called a progress claim. OK, I've never heard the term PPG, but you could or PC, you could do that. But yeah, basically, you're going to issue that progress claim. OK, with the progress claim, basically, it's a full, broken out document between all the divisions. So you've got concrete, you've got your windows, you got furniture, you mechanical, etc. And they're going to put percentages under in this kind of columnized format, this kind of big Excel document. So for example, if it's the start of the project, they've done their digging, they've done some footings, they may claim 25 percent for concrete. And then you as the architect have to go review this progress claim that is issued each month and go, is 20 percent correct? Yeah, that looks about right. That looks fair and reasonable. If they claim, say, 75 percent and they haven't done the walls yet, well, you would push back and say, no, please don't include that. Or another thing, maybe the mechanical, they say, look, we're charging 50 percent of mechanical units. Well, the mechanical units aren't on site yet. If you're going to claim it, it has to be on site, right? There is ways that you can do kind of like storing in a warehouse and getting bonding. But the safe way is to make sure if it's on site, then they can claim it. Or if it's installed, of course, it's on site. And that's basically what I'm clear. So they're going to have, like I said, have all these percentages. You can review them each. All the consultants can review them and basically approve this progress claim, this PC. OK, so now we've got the certificate of payment, COP. OK, so we've reviewed the progress claim and now we have to basically pay the contractors. And so, for example, make it very simple math. If it was a 12 million dollar job going for one year, ideally that progress claim, that request for money, should be billing, the contractor should be billing out about a million dollars per month. Right. So 12 million divided by 12 months, million bucks a month. That's what they should be billing in order to make that contract date. OK. And sometimes it's going to be up. You know, you'll find some of the progress claims going back to that for a second. You might see those really high and then sometimes not really low. It all depends. But as we're going through that certificate of payment, we're basically we approve the progress claim, we're put into a final document and this will even include some of these changes that we've done, the change orders. And we may only say, well, half that change is already done. So we're only going to allow for 50 percent to be accounted for that. But it's basically a certificate of payment where again, the architect, the owners will sign up and they put their final information to it. And then it gets issued out to site. So one more document is the field review. Now, the field review is something that you typically do once a month, at least probably more. OK. So when you have your monthly site meetings. Basically go to site, you do your site meeting and typically you'll do a walk around the site. And some people will just have a pen and paper. Some people are going to take photos from their iPad or their phone or they may be using an intelligent app that they can track stuff. And, you know, doing their field review right on site at the same time and issued out before the leave. And that's the most practical. But again, everyone's different in how they know their office runs. So when you're out there, you're walking around, the stuff that you're looking for is again, it might just be a general observation. Steals are underway. Excellent. You know, nothing needed need about it. Or maybe the beams out of line. This is not following the drawings. I'm going to make a note of that and say in the contractor, this is a deficiency and they need to review it. OK. You only review what you're responsible for. So if it's steel in that example, maybe pointing out the beams in the wrong location, but structural is the one that's going to really make that call. All right. Maybe the window envelope is not correct. You may make a note of it, but at the end of the day, the building envelope is the one that's going to do it. Or same thing with mechanical electrical and you kind of get where I'm going with this. OK. But you're making observations of what you're seeing on site and you're pointing out to the contractor and you should be tracking all these observations because you want to make sure that these things are fixed before they do anything. So critical times before like the foundations are backfilled. Again, that's a good time where, you know, drainage like the team usually wants to make sure before they backfill, they want to go out there and do make make sure a good check that all those pipes in the right location. Because they backfill and they go, hey, I want to take a look at this too late. The contractor has to dig out, dig it all up, right? Or they better pull out some photos to show that they've done their job. So good contractors going to basically coordinate with the team saying, look, before we do this backfilling or another one is boarding, we're going to board the walls up. Well, I can't see behind the walls now. Once they do that, I want to make sure everything is done. Another kind of thing is checking for life safety, code life safety issues. And that's meaning like you have pipes running through, you know, a fire rated stairwell. Well, if you had to do that per the design, those better be fire cocked, you know, fire separated, et cetera. Right. Those are things that always come up on the reports. I mean, it's like those are almost the most critical things. And with speaking of field reviews, have a set of drawings with you when you go out. You know, you need to know if that was a fire rated wall. Doing it all by memory. Once you start working with lots of sites, drawings, have them at your fingertips at that point. But that's kind of your observing, taking notice of it. And then after the site meeting, either you're issuing again off your fancy app on your phone or you're going back to the office, putting together, signing off and issuing out to the contractor. At that point, the contractor has a copy and becomes a to do list for him to go through all the items and so on. But that's kind of the end of the day. That's what a field review is. And it should be done monthly. There might be a couple because, again, they did a board. Anytime you go to site, you want to be doing that. So very, very important in that sense. But I think it's again, it's really for the life safety. And again, going back to my first comment about why we're doing this, you want to have a set of records of all these field reviews, because at any given moment, if you know, if it becomes an issue, you've got this proof that you were on site looking at it, ensuring that the building was being built to the intentions of the drawings. So that's kind of our wrap up here of kind of your construction administration, CA 101, all the basic terms. And, you know, if you are watching on YouTube, please drop a comment below, you know, ask a question if I missed anything or, you know, if there's terms that you've heard and I didn't cover today, we could easily do a part two of this. But absolutely between that, you know, let me know. I'd love to hear your feedback on this and let alone any other episodes that you want to hear about this. So, you know, like I said, maybe a possibly part two. Again, there was a lot taken in and covered today, but not in full detail. But last, not least, until next time, architects keep designing and contractors keep making those blueprints a reality. We'll see on the next one.