Ready-written specifications; a compendium of clauses for direct use in architectural specifications

Preface

SPECIFICATIONS are a load assumed with bravado, borne with groans, and shifted, when they can be shifted, universally without regret.

The architect who is not a specialist in writing them, is apt to look on them as a set of quasi-magic formulae, which he does not fully understand nor really care to understand, but repeats dutifully and wearily, as a ritual handed down to him by wiser men. He believes, or half believes, that the word has power to save, that if he repeats often enough “to the approval of the Architect” and “guaranteed complete in every respect,’’ then the house that is a-building should blossom in the perfect likeness of the house already built in his imagination. And yet, alas, he never feels completely sure. The road of the specifier is wearisome, since he is uncertain of the way.

In most cases the evil goes back to the first independent “‘job”’ of the budding architect. In office and in atelier the young man has been trained in drawing, in designing and in detailing; his maiden contract drawings are familiar work to him. He may have studied theoretical construction in some great school of architecture, or even done practical superintendence as a clerk of works, yet not one young architect in a hundred has ever had real instruction in the actual preparation of specifications. In his emergency he does what all other architects have done, he begs from some friend of older practice the specifications of some other undertaking as like in character to his own as he can find, and then cuts, pastes, writes in and crosses out as well as he knows how, to make a patchwork that will apply, more or less well, to the structure he has planned.

So he adopts his ritual, and ever after that he follows it, each new specification being just an alteration of those that have gone before. Paragraphs that have led to trouble are revised or stricken out, new devices and touches of personal technique are introduced, until on some happy job the work goes through with ease and speed to the complete satisfaction of all concerned. How much of this success is due to honest and skilled contractors who have the tact to supplement or to ignore his written word, the architect rarely can suspect! To him, the specifications of his best-starred job have turned the trick, and in spite of the omissions, the contradictions, the meaningless phrases which are inevitable in any such random growth, all future specifications that he writes will echo that first successful compilation.

Once at least, in almost every architect’s career, he solemnly resolves that he will build up from the ground a model form of specification for his work. It shall be logically composed, well studied, scientific, free from the “vestigial remains” of his youthful borrowings. But the task is not an attractive one for holidays and on busy days the drive of immediate work precludes the search for the ideal, so another resolution is handed down to the Infernal Road Commissioner.

vi

Some years ago the authors of the present book together made that same resolve, and circumstances favoring them, have finally seen it through. They here present their collection or store-house of specification material in the hope that it may make specification writing a better ordered undertaking, and with a feeling of greater certainty in the results give some relief from an arduous and ungrateful task.

We claim no great innovations in this work, no marked departures from accepted form, not even from the traditional method of compiling specifications. We started in the ancient way, by borrowing from others. Those we asked were the leading architects of New York and Philadelphia, and they most generously gave us access to any specifications they had. This material we have worked upon for several years, taking what seemed good here or better there, comparing systems, coordinating, arranging, and spending endless hours in pleasant argument on minutiae. Finally the various sections have been submitted to masters of the various crafts concerned, painters, plumbers, heater-men and roofers, to get what an architect rarely gets, the unbiased views of the men who do the work, in regard to the principles and practices of their trades.

The material we have thus compiled covers the greater part of what would be needed for the specifications of any residence, large or small, requiring merely such supplemental clauses as local peculiarities of site or building practices, or unusual fancies of the owner may dictate. For that matter, the material would very largely suffice for many other types of building, such as schools and colleges, churches and country hotels. We assume, of course, that before commencing to specify, the architect has planned his building, knows the material market at his command, and what grade and quality he can afford to use. We have provided for the necessary variations due to locality or cost, by leaving blanks in the clauses, with notes suggesting the nature of the insertions the architect is to supply. Thus we hope to provide a maximum field for our clauses to cover, with a minimum amount of composition on the part of the architect. Wherever possible—as for example in specifying fireplace facings, or stair trim, or supply piping— we have suggested that the material be tabulated, for the greater conciseness and clarity this arrangement provides, as well as for the insurance it gives against omissions.

If our efforts prove of aid to brother architects in the necessary performance of an unpleasant task, they should join with us in thanking those other architects who so freely gave us their specifications and their advice, and those experts in the various crafts who have criticised at length and in some cases have read proof with us. Among them particularly we wish to thank Mr. John Abronski, Mr. William Armstrong and Mr. Warren Armstrong, Mr. Thomas B. Brunt, Mr. L. P. Edwards, Mr. Harry I. Faust, Mr. William Nessler, Mr. Frank Rooney, Mr. J. Fletcher Street and Mr. Harold Watts.

We shall be most grateful for criticisms and suggestions from any who may use this book, so that if this edition should prove its worth, another may be made of greater service still.

vii

DIRECTIONS

To the Architect.

Each section of this book has an index letter, each clause an index number.

When contract drawings have been prepared, read through the book clause by clause. If a clause is applicable to the work in hand, jot down its number on an “Index Sheet.”

Clauses printed on left-hand pages are alternates to clauses opposite them on right hand pages. Alternate clauses are given common index numbers differentiated by 1, 2 or 3, written beneath. Thus “ provides for tin flashing, but if zinc is to be used instead of tin, “2 is the clause to be noted down, and “- is the clause for copper. = “LEAD COUNTER-FLASHING” is, as might be guessed, a clause which may be used with K 5 K 5 ra but would not be used with Om

Where blanks occur in the text, write on your Index Sheet, after the letter referring to the blank, the words you wish to have inserted. The notes in italics in the book indicate the sort of matter to be inserted; they are merely suggestions, however, not to be followed literally.

When it is desired to introduce matter peculiar to the work in hand, not to be found in the book, a new clause with appropriate heading should be written on the Index Sheet, in its proper place between the index numbers of clauses to be taken from the book.

Clauses which are not to be found in the book but which you wish to incorporate regularly or often in your specifications, should be written in the book on the left-hand pages left blank for that purpose, opposite the places on the right-hand pages where the new material would properly be inserted. Give as an index number to each new clause, the index number of the clause which precedes it, plus a decimal. Thus H 21-1 would be a new clause inserted between H 21 and H 22. In this way your own clauses become part of the regular material of the book.

While reading through, it is well to note on a separate sheet any details which you find should be added to the contract drawings.

Finally hand your Index Sheet to your stenographer with the following instructions :—

To the Stenographer.

Copy out of this book the clauses indicated on the Architect’s Index Sheet, filling in the blanks with the words he has supplied. Insert any new clauses he has written, in their proper places as indicated by the index numbers.

Do not copy the index letters or numbers, the letters referring to the notes, or anything whatever that is printed in italics in the book.

Vili

SUGGESTIONS

Tue pages of specifications should be numbered consecutively, either from beginning to end or beginning anew with each ‘‘Heading.” In the latter case a heading letter should be added to the page number.

It is a convenience to have each clause numbered. This is best done beginning anew with each ‘‘Heading.” If the page numbers have heading letters the clause numbers do not need them, and vice versa. An index should be bound in at the front of all specifications, giving the names of the ‘‘Headings”’ in order, with their index letters and the page where each commences.

The titles of the clauses may be written above them to the left, as in this book, thus:-

8. SMOOTH-FINISH COAT

The smooth-finish coat shall be composed of lime putty strained through a screen of 100 meshes to the square inch, mixed with a or the titles may be set in, on a level with the first line, thus:—

8. SMOOTH-FINISH COAT The smooth-finish coat shall be composed of lime putty strained through a screen of 100 meshes to the square inch, mixed with a small portion of white

The second arrangement is slightly more economical of space, but probably requires a little more care on the part of the stenographer.

If carbon paper be placed face up under the first sheets as the specifications are being typewritten, thereby printing on the back as well as on the front, these sheets can be used for blue-printing extra copies, in case all the typewritten copies of the specifications become exhausted.

For general convenience and utility it is better to bind specifications at the left-hand edge, to open like a book, rather than at the top. The blank left-hand pages, formed by the backs of the typewritten sheets, can be used to advantage in the ‘“officecopy” for notes on errors, corrections, time of completion of various parts of the work, and similar matters.

NOTE

Ar the end of the book we print ‘THE GENERAL CONDITIONS OF THE CONTRACT FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF BUILDINGS” as issued by the American Institute of Architects, fourth edition. These are copyrighted and are reprinted here by special permission of the Institute.

The Institute also publishes standard forms for—Agreement between Contractor and Owner;- Bond of Suretyship;- Agreement between Contractor and Subcontractor ;— Letter of Acceptance of Subcontractor’s Proposal. All these are for sale at slight cost at the headquarters of the Institute, the Octagon House, Washington, D. C., and by dealers in all the large cities.

We strongly recommend that architects adopt these Standard Forms, and incorporate the Institute’s General Conditions in their specifications. Our own General Conditions,—the first section of this book,—is included simply as a shorter and more flexible form, for the use of architects who may prefer to evolve their own General Conditions to suit their own particular problems.