Here is the latest in our ongoing series of construction screw-ups. I had the engineer out to review the preparations to the garage slab. Since he designed the slab, he wanted to see it pre-pour, otherwise it would be too late to determine if the pad was built to his specs.
The crew unfortunately had not thickened the edge of the slab adequately, such that he couldn't pass the work. I had to call back the company owner and give him the bad news. Fortunately they were willing to return quickly and make corrections, so our pour date is not jeopardized.
When the engineer calls for a 16 inch thickened edge, he actually means he wants 16 inches. This is how it looks now that the excavation increased from 12 to 16.
This type of situation can often decay relationships between the builder and the contractor. Undoing and re-doing work is something nobody wants. For me, I just want the pad prepped correctly, and I don't want to pay for it twice. Construction has become a game of passing responsibility on to someone else, and of course the expense that goes with it.
My job here is to make sure I have evidence of documentation on what specification the job was quoted to by the contractor. Very often the response to this type of failure is something like 'we built it according to the plan you gave us, etc'. I was able to pull out two instances where I had provided the engineer's drawings to the contractor before work began. This goes a long way toward minimizing disputes about charging for extra work.