Drawings nobody reads, records nobody keeps and money that quietly dies: writing on the problems this industry has learned to live with, from twenty-five years on site. Details changed where they need to be.
It usually happens on a walkaround. Somebody senior from the main contractor stops, looks at the work, says something like "that'll need to come out and go back in the other way round, crack on and we'll sort the paperwork", then walks on to the next thing.
Read essay →There's a document on every NEC job that quietly decides who holds the whip hand over money and time. Most people would guess the contract itself.
Read essay →Here's a question that decides more money than almost anyone realises: when your work has to land on somebody else's work, do the two specifications actually agree on what close enough means?
Read essay →Somewhere between three and six billion pounds of subcontractors' money is being held back in retentions at any given time in England alone.
Read essay →There's a lot of noise about AI in construction at the moment and most of it is written by people who have never had to find a drainage detail with a gang on standby at 7am.
Read essay →Here's a test worth applying to every diary entry you'll ever write: will this mean anything to somebody reading it in two years, in a meeting room, with money on the table?
Read essay →Every drawing on a modern job carries a little block of text called the status code. Understanding what these codes mean and what behaviours they should trigger is critical.
Read essay →Every commercial argument I've ever watched eventually boils down to the same question: what actually happened out there and who can prove it?
Read essay →Most commercial events announce themselves first as technical queries. Here is what happens when you assess the whole register in one pass.
Read essay →The most expensive misunderstanding in NEC contract administration, and how it shows up on live civils packages.
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