CONSTRUCTION CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION:

Construction Contract Administration is a developing specialty in our firm. Even with
thorough Construction Documents, the first three rules of successful construction
are compliance, compliance and more compliance NOT price price price!  
Compliance  with the construction contract, building and zoning codes, city, state and
federal regulations. The key to success may be document, document & document as
though you will wind up in Federal District Court as a Witness for the Plaintiff (YOU)
against the Construction Contractor and the Bonding Company. If you end with not
needing it, GREAT but you can't turn back time.

We pride ourselves on our record keeping during the construction process.
Managing bi-weekly job meetings and tracking salient issues from meeting to  
meeting is jemain to preventing items from getting lost in the maze of activities.
We track work completed the last period and work planned to be completed during
the next period. Task planning is reviewed in the context of computerized critical path
scheduling systems. We track Contractor Request for Payments via electronic
spreadsheet. The comparative numeric data is overlaid on and viewed in graph form.
This information is reviewed to compare expenditures with performance ove the
contract  time. We use Expedition information tracing to manage shop drawing and
sample  submissions and approvals, timely manage RFIs, inquiries from government
agencies, lenders, community groups and the public in general.
Construction Contractor commences with construction on a 3 million dollar  
negotiated contract, after being allowed extra time to rebid sub-contracts to
assure his/her cost, almost immediately makes claim for a 15% increase in
Contract Sum because of sub-contracting problems.  Doesn't get it, goes fishing.

Construction Contractor, without prior approval, written or otherwise, of the
Architect or Structural Engineer, increased the structural void in exterior structural
cavity walls causing the construction to be forced to STOP!  The remedy to the
instability caused by this unauthorized change was to increase the steel supports
to for the face brick on all faces of the building.
Construction Contractor was required, after the construction term,  to have windows
independently tested for excess air infiltration. Several of the test group failed.
INCOMPLETE FIRE PROTECTIVE  
ENCLOSURES ARE VIRTUALLY  NO
FIRE PROTECTION AT ALL!  Federal
Standards for senior citizens were
demanded for fire protection. These
violations were missed by city
inspectors, we went back to double
check.
EXIT FROM BLDG. - First try
EXIT FROM BLDG. - 2nd  try
with City approval.
EXIT FROM BLDG. - Ultimately AS REQUIRED
Low Panic Hardware height and improper direction of entrance mat. The
way mat as installed will not clean shoes as intended and may cause
instability in the direction of exit traffic.
SELF LEVELING UNDERLAYMENT - SLU

Self-Leveling Underlayment, a cementuouus compound applied to pre-cast concrete plank  
used for structural floor construction in finished buildings was installed without priming, the
product manufacturer's  REQUIREMENT!  In addition to doing our job to help assure that the  
Owner and the Government gets what it is paying for with tax-payers money, we had concerns
about the separating and crumbling of this product under the carpet finish and becoming a
tripping hazard for senior citizens. We were so concerned that we filed our own compliant with
the Regional Inspector General to require independent adhesion testing over the objections of
the Owner and a US Public Trust Officer (PTO) who expressed that she didn't want to "do
anything to harm the Contractor" The test failed but the PTO accepted a nominal economic
adjustment below the Architect's and HUD's own internal cost estimates.
Managing Construction Contracts: