The owners retained Holloway Consulting as their owner’s construction defects expert on a 4-Star Resort Hotel in Northern California. The building was approximately 300,000 sf of suspended post-tensioned concrete decks. The contractors that placed these slabs failed to satisfy the contractual requirements for slab finish, flatness, and levelness. The concrete subcontractor refused to perform the subsequent necessary remedial floor leveling work. As a result, the general contractor hired other subcontractors to complete the job. The GC backcharged the concrete subcontractor for those remedial costs.
The general contractor held the concrete subcontractor responsible for the floor leveling and slab defect repairs during the job. The GC retained over $500,000 from the concrete subcontractor’s pay apps at the end of the job. Nevertheless, the general contractor made the dubious decision to submit a floor leveling repair cost claim to the Owner. The claim was based on an unrelated contract exclusion that read:
“Excludes design & detailing to accommodate “Structural Movement/Tolerances” per S1.01.”
The Owner, Holloway’s Client, understandably rejected the general contractor’s defects claims. This is because flooring leveling was one of the primary causes of delay to job completion. Both the Architect and the structural engineer concluded that the general contractor was contractually required to perform floor leveling,
CONTRACTUAL REQUIREMENTS
The American Concrete Institute (ACI) Manual of Concrete Practice represents the primary code and technical basis for the engineering, design, detailing, construction and testing for structural concrete. The structural engineer was responsible for performing the structural engineering and preparing the structural/concrete engineering plans and specifications. As the detailer, fabricator, and concrete installer, the concrete subcontractor was responsible for detailing and preparing the placing drawings, which are the working drawings that show the number, size, length and location of the reinforcement necessary for the fabrication and placement of the concrete materials. Following approval by the structural engineer, the concrete subcontractor’s post tensioning, formwork and reinforcement design drawings were used by the concrete subcontractor’s reinforcement fabricator and jobsite materials placement personnel to complete the concrete.
Along with other provisions of ACI, UBC and ASTM, the general contractor and the concrete subcontractor were responsible for complying with Standard Specifications for Tolerances for Concrete Construction and Materials (ACI 117-90) and Guide for Concrete Floor and Slab Construction (ACI 302.1R-96). These documents provide the various construction requirements, such as those for constructing and measuring slab finish, flatness and levelness for these suspended concrete slabs. Both the general contractor and concrete subcontractor knew or should have known that ACI specified that remedial measures for suspended post-tensioned concrete slabs include the use of concrete grinding and floor self-leveling products
(See Holloway Consulting’s hotel construction resume here)
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