Question

discribe how a request for information (RFI) from the contractor can lead to a Change Order

Answer 1

An RFI is common and accepted practice for a contractor to convey his/her concern about the unclarified points or issues in the design and seek further clarification of the building owner's intended use or their official acceptance of the specified design. It is also acceptable for the contractor to use an RFI to call attention to an inferior quality material that may not meet the building owner's needs, and use his/her expertise to recommend the better/correct material.

If the design submitted by the owner has gaps and errors in it once the contractor has begun the project, regardless of how small or big the error is, the contractor will submit a request for information (RFI) to get clarification on the issue. Depending on the complexity of the issue, the contrcator would compile all necessary supporting documents to accurately describe the issue in the prescribed format.

Once the RFI is submitted to the owner, if it is a simple issue as selecting a shade of the paint, the architect would himself solve the issue but if the issue is complex, the owner would involve the design team, engineers and architect to respond to the contractor as soon as possible as it would be hampering the progress of the project.

After a solution has been found, the RFI is submitted back to the contractor. Based on that solution, the contractor calculates all the additional costs, new schedule, delay analysis, requirement of labours and equipments and submits it to the owner in the form of a document called change order as it is a change to the original design.