Sometimes our customers are confused and a little put off when we will not proceed with ordering additional material, working overtime or sending extra men to a job site without getting the financial terms in writing first in the form of an executed change order. We often hear, “Isn’t a verbal go ahead or e-mail sufficient? Why do you guys insist on this being so difficult?” The answer is, we do this because there are unethical general contractors out there and we must protect ourselves.
Let me provide you with an example. We bid a renovation to King Springs Elementary School in Smyrna, Ga., to a local, small time GC in June 2011. The job was scheduled for turnover to the owner in October of that year. The job wasn’t that attractive and we might have passed on it due to its small size except for one thing, I attended King Springs many moons ago, and I and several of our employees live a short distance away.
There was some ambiguity in the drawings as to material types in some locations and we were concerned about what was to be Aluminum Composite Material (ACM) panels and what was to be brake metal. When asked, the GC responded that the roofer was picking up the material at the clerestory and the glazer was picking up the material at the entrance vestibule, so we specifically excluded those areas in our quotation. It turns out that this inept GC never bought out these scopes from the roofer or the glazer and approached us about doing the work as a change order to our scope in early 2012 (yes, they were already months behind schedule).
Now, shame on us for thinking they were honorable people and for going ahead with ordering material and commencing the extra work without a signed change order. We could have saved considerable hassle had we simply refused to proceed without an executed change order. Instead, we went ahead and performed the work, the GC was kicked off the job for poor performance, the building was finally turned over to the owner in May 2012 (and it has been plagued by leak problems ever since), and here we are still awaiting final payment after going to arbitration. At least we can take some solace in knowing that this GC will never perform work in Georgia’s third largest school district (Cobb County Public Schools) again. We are told by the county that they are banned.
GET IT IN WRITING! LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKE!
Scott Stafford is the head estimator at The Miller- Clapperton Partnership Inc. in Austell, Ga. For more information, visit www.millerclapperton.com. Scott Stafford is the head estimator at The Miller- Clapperton Partnership Inc. in Austell, Ga. For more information, visit www.millerclapperton.com.