Damaged cable by others during construction

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nhfire77

Senior Member
Location
NH
Say you pre wire a fire alarm. Cable on the bar joist, specs call for it. Another contractor screws material to snow bracing, self tapping 3/8" screw used. It leads to a ground fault discovered when ringing it all out just prior to paint. I was making sure what's in place is good to go.

Takes 3 hours to track down (on the weekend because you find it Friday 4p, paint starts Monday). You make a video of the damage, shows screw came straight up into the cable. Clearly we didn't drag the cable across a screw.

How/should you bill for this? Nothing like this is covered in contract, not sure yet who the other guy is, probably works for GC. I work for the customer. FYI, this job has been a protracted battle with all parties, execept customer. Big cost overruns, change orders etc.
 
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petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
JMNSHO.

This is an easy one.

You have a contract with a customer. You are forced to do extra work, for whatever reason, beyond the scope of your deal with him.

IMO, you send him the bill and he deals with it.

You have no contractual arrangment with anyone else.
 
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nhfire77

Senior Member
Location
NH
Yep. I think this too, just wanted a gut check on something so innocuous. It's just getting rediclious. We dont have all the change orders approved yet, the they will be more than 100% of the original price because we stepped in before the first guy started. Long story.
 
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cdslotz

Senior Member
Bill the owner, and when they complain tell them you will forget about if they will approve your changes.

Couldn't hurt
 
kwired

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
nhfire77 said:
Say you pre wire a fire alarm. Cable on the bar joist, specs call for it. Another contractor screws material to snow bracing, self tapping 3/8" screw used. It leads to a ground fault discovered when ringing it all out just prior to paint. I was making sure what's in place is good to go.

Takes 3 hours to track down (on the weekend because you find it Friday 4p, paint starts Monday). You make a video of the damage, shows screw came straight up into the cable. Clearly we didn't drag the cable across a screw.

How/should you bill for this? Nothing like this is covered in contract, not sure yet who the other guy is, probably works for GC. I work for the customer. FYI, this job has been a protracted battle with all parties, execept customer. Big cost overruns, change orders etc.
Click to expand...

Just another thought, who specified you run the cable where it would be subjected to damage by these screws? Or was use of these screws or whatever they were used for attaching not part of the specs?

Has the other contractor been notified of what has happened?
 
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nhfire77

Senior Member
Location
NH
kwired said:
Just another thought, who specified you run the cable where it would be subjected to damage by these screws? Or was use of these screws or whatever they were used for attaching not part of the specs?

Has the other contractor been notified of what has happened?
Click to expand...

No specifications on where cables are to be run. In fact no specs, we were told to just design it and get it done without any coordination available with anyone for anything so it that's why it's been so difficult. I argued in favor of Advanced coordination, no one was willing to play nice. My contract says any work not specified is not included so I'm covered there. I just found it on Monday there will be notifications made we'll see what happens

The plans do not show specific attachment points for the offending material. Everything else has plans just not us. Again this was a last-minute decision with no forethought and none of the stakeholders going to accept responsibility so I limited myself to only the bare minimum on our contract so everything else is a change order
 
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nhfire77

Senior Member
Location
NH
You think it would even matter what the specs say? it was red cable on a white ceiling clearly visible. It feels like a known or should have known situation, nothing concealed,
 
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