Question

You are field manager for the general contractor on a multi-story office building under construction. The project has risen all 15 floors above the foundation. The roof is on and the exterior façade of the structure, consisting of alternating blue glass ribbon windows and red granite panels, has “dried in” the project many weeks ago. On the third, seventh and fifteenth floors, the executive offices located on the corners of the building have blue glass doors that lead outside to small balconies. Interior work (walls, electricity, hvac, water, sewer, sprinker, suspended ceiling, millwork, carpet, etc.) is well under way on several of the lower floors. After carefully checking the blueprints, shop drawings and bulletin drawings completed and approved by Architects & Engineers, the superintendent for the plumbing contractor stops by your office to mention that the design doesn’t seem to provide for floor drains on the exterior balconies. A quick conversation with the architect reveals that a serious design error has occurred. Floor drains and the necessary piping will need to be retrofitted that tie-in to the vertical pipe for the roof drain, located near the center of the building. There is vertical air space (plenum) available (approx. 2 feet) on each floor between the bottom of the concrete floor slab above and the top of the ceiling grid that can be used to route the connecting pipes to each balcony drain. However, many specialty contractors have already installed their work on several floors in the plenum space. Another problem is the length of connecting piping needed for each balcony drain. Following the minimum slope for the drain pipe allowed by building code, the distance is so great from each balcony to the vertical roof drain in the center of the building that the connecting pipe would be visible below the ceiling grid, which is not acceptable to the project owner. So, the piping for each balcony drain will have to be routed at the minimum slope above the ceiling grid partway to an interior column, where a vertical pipe and floor penetration will be needed. Each balcony drain pipe will continue in the plenum space on the floor below in order to reach the roof drain. The vertical piping next to certain interior columns can be hidden with studs and drywall. In this manner, each of the retrofitted balcony drains can connect to the vertical roof drain pipe without being visible in the interior office space on each floor.

List Five things/actions that you as a Manager could do to keep the project going and solve the problem as well as what parts and how could your Schedule be affected:

Another Problem would be Who Pays: Who and Why?

Answer 1

The five actions I need to do as a manager are:-

1. Stop all the interior work (walls, electricity, hvac, water, sewer, sprinker, suspended ceiling, millwork, carpet, etc) so that the plumbing work could be done first.

2. Make space for plumbing pipe in vertical plumen by adjusting other works in plumen

3. Have a meeting with the owners and the architect about the extra cost and who is going to pay that cost

4. Ask architect to design interior again so that the plumbing pipe can be hidden in the ceiling grid.

5. Go though the design again, so that , if that is any other problem in the building design or structure which you have not attended earlier can be attended and rectified

Secondly,

The amounts shall be partially paid by the contractor and the architect because it is a mistake of the architect so the extra cost occuring due to it has to be beared by the architect and the original cost as planned has to be paid by the contractor.