This Tip looks at Specification provider (or author, or marketer) content decisions that can affect you.
ArchiAssist knows of only three Australian providers of full-version Master Specifications. ArchiAssist is one of them. Never use a short-version Specification; you will not receive adequate protection if things go awry.
Also, be wary of ‘own office’ created Master Specs, which usually are created piecemeal, inconsistently (with many different contributors each with their own bias and language), and incompletely (without full-time professional maintenance).
Each provider, author and marketer of a Master Specification, and also each designer that uses the Master, all have their own ideas about what actually should go into their Specification. Therefore, each completed Specification is different in some way from another.
ArchiAssist has its own documentation expectations, experience, and needs as an author of a Master Spec made to cater for many designers, covering all project sizes, classifications and types across Australia.
However, there are some fundamental basics that any good Specification should address, which are:
- Ease and speed of Spec production (how ArchiAssist does this convincingly; you can quickly discover this in the short preamble to the sample Specification available for free download from the website).
- Text should generally present only ‘hands-on’ construction descriptions which occur day after day on building sites across Australia (kind of thinking like an intelligent tradie). These descriptions should be back-up info to the project specific detail to be shown on the drawings & schedules.
- Contractual administrative detail should not be mixed up in the Spec and should be in the General Conditions of Contract.
- Mention of ‘Tender’ should not exist in the Spec because Tender ceases to exist at the time of contract.
- The Spec should be aligned with, but not repeat or refer to, specific content from other ‘outside’ TECHNICAL documents (from which relevant content should be designed/documented into the project), and includes regulations (including the NCC), standards.
- The Spec should be aligned with but not repeat specific manufacturer recommendations (the builder should source these).
- The Specification should not contain the materials/finishes schedules. These are started (and almost finished) long before the Spec is started. Also, everyone is comfortable with the drawings and schedules, and the Spec is used irregularly only for back-up detail.
There are more things but that is a good basic list.
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.
