Construction stage services
Before your project is ready for the site construction stage, you will need prices from a number of builders. To get detailed quotes, you’ll need tender drawings and specifications. You may also need drawings from a structural engineer to indicate what steel, or reinforced concrete is needed to achieve the completed building to Irish Regulations standards.
Our standard service includes preparing the architectural tender documents and we will liaise with your appointed engineer or other consultants as the need arises during this stage.
The tender documents then go out to a number of builders, and we will report back to you on the result of the competition.
When your construction project gets to site, the “tender” drawings usually become the “contract” drawings for use by the chosen builder on site. We write a building contract, you and the builder sign it and, once we have notified the local authority of the commencement date, construction can commence.
We then provide a works monitoring service which includes regular site visits to inspect the works to make sure they are in compliance with the contract drawings, advising or instructing the builder on design matters, materials, construction details, compliance etc. We won’t be there all the time, but at crucial stages before important aspects of the construction are covered-up.
Building contracts don’t allow for paying builders “up-front” for anything; at least not the contracts that we use. We, as administrators of the building contract, will value the works that have been completed satisfactorily at pre-agreed frequencies, and issue certificates of interim payments that you then honour.
Sometimes, when the building is nearing completion, things don’t quite get finished as well as one would have hoped for. Although, hopefully not as bad as this bridge!
But we will be there to snag the works as completed and carry on inspecting and snagging until the final result is satisfactory. Also at the end of a job, we will often be approving (or otherwise) what the final bill ought to be from your builder. If there were additional works carried out or omitted, we’ll take the value of these into account as well.