Pricing construction work is ordinary contracting. Defining what has to be done is the harder part, and it is where a cost-of-repair figure most often goes wrong. An estimate built on an incomplete scope is precise about the wrong thing.
Scope before price
The first question is not what the repair costs. It is what the repair actually consists of, in the building as it stands, with the defect in the location it occupies.
That means working from the condition rather than from a unit-price assumption. A defective assembly in an accessible location and the same assembly buried behind finished work are the same defect and two very different corrective scopes. Repair scope work starts from what has to be reached, removed and put back.
What a complete scope includes
Estimates commonly omit the work around the repair rather than the repair itself:
- Access. What has to be opened, removed or dismantled to reach the defective work.
- Removal and disposal. Of the defective work and of the sound work that has to come out to get at it.
- Reinstatement. Putting back everything that was removed for access, to the finish standard that existed.
- Protection. Of adjacent work, finished areas and building contents during the correction.
- Sequencing and coordination. The trades involved, in the order the work requires.
The reinstatement and protection items are the ones most often missing. They are also frequently the difference between an estimate that is defensible and one that is low by a wide margin.
Occupied buildings change the scope
Where the building stays in use during the correction, the work has to be phased around continuing operations. That affects access windows, working hours, protection, dust and noise control, and the sequence the trades can follow.
None of that is a contingency added to a number. It is scope, and it belongs in the scope before anything is priced. Renovation in occupied facilities is its own discipline for exactly this reason.
Costing the work
Once the scope is defined, pricing is conventional: labour, material, equipment, and the trade coordination the sequence requires, at rates appropriate to the market and the time period at issue.
Two points are worth stating explicitly in a report. First, whether the figure is a repair cost or a diminution figure, because they are different measures and mixing them invites a challenge. Second, what the estimate assumes about conditions that could not be verified without destructive investigation, so that the assumption is visible rather than buried.
Where a specific rate, allowance or market figure is needed for a particular matter, it is developed for that matter rather than carried over. [Paul to confirm any project-specific rates before they appear in a report.]
Rebuttal work
A large share of cost-of-repair work is reviewing someone else's estimate. The questions are consistent: is the scope complete, does it match the defect actually established, does it include access and reinstatement, and are the quantities supported by the condition rather than assumed?
Disagreements between estimates usually come from scope rather than from rates. Two estimators pricing the same defined scope tend to land close together. Two estimators pricing different scopes will never reconcile, and identifying which is happening is normally the fastest route to resolving the gap.
Keeping it traceable
Every line in a defensible estimate should trace back to a condition documented at the property and a corrective step that follows from it. That is what allows the figure to be tested rather than merely disputed, and it is the same discipline that runs through reports, rebuttal and testimony.
Discuss a matter
If you are evaluating a construction defect claim in Chicago or Cook County, send the parties, the property and the key dates for a conflict check and a scope discussion. Paul Gaston can be reached at paul@expertwitness.co or on 773-619-1226, or through the contact page.