Week of February 18 - February 22, 2013

I received a call on Monday morning from the sprinkler company's underground contractor in regards to the tap at the water main along the street. It was his understanding for some reason that this had already been taken care of, but when he arrived on site he found that it had not (the work bid in this job was to the property line, which does not include tapping the main at the street). In talking to the owner in the preceding weeks, I described this as one of his responsibilities given the limited fee that I am working under and the fact that he has had contact with the underground contractor who the utility company indicated should be used to make the tap. Regardless of fault, the tap was not completed, so I apologized to the underground subcontractor and told him that instead of having him wait around all day, he should proceed to another job and I would get the tap done and notify him as soon as possible. I next called the owner, who stated that he had been unable to reach the utility company's recommended underground contractor the past few times he tried. I instructed the owner to try again, while I contacted the sprinkler contractor's underground contractor to get a price from him for the same work. On Tuesday, I received a price of $3,500 for this work from the sprinkler contractor's underground contractor. I was not sure what to think of this number, as the price previously given to us by the utility company's underground contractor was $500. By the end of the day on Tuesday, the owner notified me that he was able to get up with the utility company's underground contractor, who was still willing to honor the price of $500 and could come out to the site to complete the job on Thursday. I told the owner to give him the go-ahead for Thursday, then called the sprinkler company's underground contractor to notify him that the tap would be completed by the end of the day on Thursday. With his company's work schedule, he said it would make the most sense for them to get started on their portion of the work on the following Monday, February 25, and this was agreeable to me.

Also on Monday, I received a call from the general contractor saying that he went downtown to the inspections department to pick up the building permit and, after picking it up while headed for the door, he was notified that he would need to submit a phasing schedule for construction to the city before starting work if children were to remain in the building while work was to be completed. I was unsure of where this was coming from, as we discussed this issue and our plans for it at length with the chief building inspector for the city weeks previously and no mention of a phasing schedule submittal was made. After some further investigation, we realized that the source of this direction was a man unfamiliar with the project who actually works in the zoning department. With a building permit in-hand and no reason otherwise to further delay the process, I notified the general contractor to proceed as scheduled. They would start with patch-work in the upstairs portion of the building on Wednesday.

On Thursday, I received a call from the GC's superintendent, letting me know that the underground contractor was working on tapping the main at the street, and also informing me that the sprinkler contractor had begun installing heads in the downstairs area without consulting the GC on changes in wall locations and shifting ceiling grids. I immediately asked to speak with the sprinkler contractor's lead installer, who informed me that somehow he did not have a set of architectural plans showing the changes to be made in the layout of the building. I explained the changes to him over the phone, and luckily he had not yet moved past an area of the downstairs that is remaining unchanged. I told him to make sure he coordinated head locations with the GC, and arranged for a copy of the architectural plan set to be delivered to his crew immediately.

Lastly, I called the GC and the owner on Friday to inform them of the developments over the week.