Specifications

11/17/2015

The economics of design do not allow for the time it takes to write a specification and assemble a project manual.

You have to be extraordinarily well-organized to spend less than one hour on each spec section. There are usually about 50-70 architectural spec sections. Say 60 hours to produce the spec. If the specification represents 5% of the architect's fee (which I think is about right), then the math tells us that at somewhere above a $3,000,000 project, it might be feasible. This quickly rises to $4,000.000 or more if you aren't as efficient as my example. Or if your spec writer is better compensated. See my math below. You can quarrel with my numbers, but the point is that bound specs aren't affordable on a lot of projects, even public ones.

The solution for smaller projects is to insert succinct General Requirements into the drawings; and then do one of two things to cover the technical specs

use elaborate key notes
use very brief technical specs

Either solution would basically cover just the materials that are required. The Part 1 and Part 3 stuff goes in a specification in the General Requirements. This is referred to by every technical spec using a statement like "All Division 1 General Requirements are part of this specification."

Ideally either solution is made part of the drawings to avoid the time and cost to produce the Project Manual. Specs on the drawings also saves the time spent in looking for the project manual to refer to it (which the contractors won't bother with). Everything is in one set of prints. Or nowadays, in one set of PDFs for you to reference from your desktop, laptop, tablet or phone.

I think bound specifications are an artifact of the 20th Century and will be a quaint idea by 2020.

The math:
60 hours x $35/hour x 3.0 overhead factor = $6,300 cost of specs
$6,300 is 5% of $126,000 architect's fee
$126,000 is the architect's 66% share of the total fee, which is $190,000
And $190,000 is 6% of a construction cost of $3,200,000

RELATED ARTICLES:
Uses For The Specifications Master Table Of Contents
Using Specification Notes = No Specs?

Updated: September 28, 2013
Original Post Date: October 9, 2012

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Brian

9/28/2013 03:54:57 am

I won't address the lackadaisical attitude of some contractors -- the burden for whatever problems arise lies squarely on them; other disciplines cannot waste time and money trying to compensate for them.

The only way to reduce time and money spent on specifications -- which trump the drawings in a court of law, by the way -- would be to limit the use of products on your projects as in a technical 'signature style'. Each building will look VERY similar to another because the same materials are used every time (whether they were appropriate for that use or not).

Printing them on drawing-size sheets would create construction documents so thick and unwieldy that the specs portion would likely wind up being separated from the rest of the set, even if they were included in part on the sheets were they would be most relevant. And then you're back to where you started... Even specs used on 'prototypes' are not the same, project to project.

Specification documents are used in every line of business: manufacturing, automobiles, airplanes, watercraft, many types of equipment, government work, etc.

Cutting back or cutting out specifications is not a solution. Maybe cutting humans out of the process and getting autonomous 'spec-o-bots' is in order?

Frederick Wolnitzek

9/28/2013 06:33:48 am

Thanks, Brian
I appreciate your thoughts on specs.
I would like to think I have the solution, but I don't.
I think real BIM, which is at least a decade away, could hold the solution. When specification capabilities are part of Revit and the guy in the field has a tablet instead of a flip-phone, we'll be real close.
Again, thanks for contributing to the dialogue.