This Tip looks at the implications of specifying the various types of proprietary products.
Proprietary products are those products that are mass-manufactured in a factory environment, then delivered to site ready for installation.
Many of these products come with publicly published manufacturer instructions on how to handle, store, install and maintain them and they usually have a standard warranty.
There are 3 levels of proprietary products and how each is dealt with in the Spec is different.
The first is that product that is totally reliant on the manufacturers publicised instructions. Specifying these is easy. They are simply scheduled and the Spec deals with proprietary products in a Preliminaries clause.
Repeating manufacturer instructions in the Spec is not advised as things can get missed and you get ‘double-up’ information which can lead to confusion and chance of discrepancy. Also, for the sake of consistency, if you repeat manufacturer instructions in the Spec once, you need to do it for all products, which is totally impractical.
The second is that product that, depending on the manufacturer, may come with instructions, or may not. Weatherboards are a good example, with fully manufactured weatherboards (eg fibre cement boards) coming with full instruction, while timber weatherboards have none. In the latter example, full Spec detail is required.
Finally, there is that proprietary product that comes with no manufacturer instruction. A good example is bricks. Again, full Spec detail is required.
You want to be sure your Master Spec has all this covered.
PROMOTIONAL NOTE: The ArchiAssist Master Specification covers, in a positive and supportive way, all the issues of concern mentioned in this advisory.
To know more about ArchiAssist, you can download a FREE SAMPLE Specification from the website.
