Russell, The reason that some are saying consult your attorney is that depending on the type of project, the trade contractor has a set of expectations for the bid documents and your attorney can better define your right for recovery of costs.
Depending on whether the project is a "private" or "public"; if "private" then the contract documents should spell out what takes preference, drawings, documents or code. First and foremost, the design of the automatic fire sprinkler system is the responsibility of the design professional under most state engineering laws and according to the SFPE "White Paper" a trade contractor and/or design technician can only prepare fire protection shop drawings in conformance with engineering design documents (bid documents from the Owner) or in strict compliance with the NFPA standards. If a "public" project then the Owner's design professional needed to provide to the contractor, documents that are complete, clear and accurately defines the scope of work as established in U.S. Supreme Court, U. S. v. Spearin, 248 U.S. 132 (1918). The court found that a contractor has a right to expect the Owner to provide construction documents that are complete, correct and accurate. Federal case law supports the premise that contractors are not responsible for defects in plans and specifications, and a contractor's duty to check plans does not impose an obligation on the contractor to ensure the design will meet its purpose. There are various facets of the law that varies by legal jurisdictions and your attorney can best define the rights that the contractor hasto recover cost and delays. Have a fire safe day! Jim Davidson Davidson Associates 302-994-9500 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Russell Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 11:01 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Spec's. vs. Drawings We generally approach projects with humility just to be sure we don't get on the wrong side of the AHJ whom we will most likely be working with in the future, including the general contractors. We have had some of the contract documents state the items that have precedence but that is most often not the situation. Probably 90% or more documents have spec's. that are generic and just pulled off a shelf and stuck into the project and are loaded with lots of things that are not even closely related to the project at hand. We will RFI some things sometimes considering the impact but in this case I did not feel an RFI was needed but after the system was completed is when the architect wanted to go by the spec's. and not the drawings. It's not a big deal to make the alterations so we are going to roll over just to keep good relations but this instance did bring up the question of is it on paper or just understood when there is nothing noted in the spec's. or on the drawings stating the precedence without RFI'ing every item which may not agree with each other which in some cases be quite a lot. Doing that, I have found, can make me come across to the G.C. and engineer as being very picky which gives them the feeling that we are going to be hard to get along with. This I work hard to make sure doesn't happen unless there's a lot of money involved! Thanks all for the input. Russell Rewis Brown Automatic Sprinklers, Inc. 107C Hemlock Street Valdosta, Georgia 31601 229-244-8130 [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field) _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
