around Christmas our spec writer of 25 years left. the guy who took his place left after 6 months, hated the job. New plan is for PA's to write specs.
Anyone want to make predictions on how this will end up?
Work is govt, commercial, and industrial
SneakyPete
Aug 22, 18 4:57 pm
Short term? Terribly. Long term? With any luck you'll develop standards and methods like you have for other aspects of the job and you'll have a tighter set of CDs. The idea of consultant spec writers has always pissed me off. It's literally the MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE CDS.
archanonymous
Aug 22, 18 5:59 pm
Couldn't agree more - I worked as a PA at an office where standard practice was to have one guy write all the specs for all the projects, and it was terrible. PA with some help from experienced staff needs to write the specs, or at least outline them.
SpontaneousCombustion
Aug 22, 18 6:31 pm
SneakyPete I didn't think the OP was talking about a consultant spec writer, I think he meant an in-house staff spec writer? I don't like consultant spec writers either - they're usually doing too many different firms' work at once and they don't do anybody's standards well or know enough about any firm's best practices. But an in-house spec person can be tremendously valuable, if they stick around, even if other staff also share in the spec writing.
mightyaa
Aug 22, 18 6:57 pm
Agreed. This really should be done by PA's who are most familiar with the design intent, and should learn a lot by reading specifications (like the proper installation and details which can be put back into the detail drawings). Overall, it will be good for the firm.
SneakyPete
Aug 23, 18 11:44 am
I stand corrected. Sorry, shellarchitect.
Flatfish
Aug 22, 18 5:12 pm
Frankly I'm surprised that any spec writers stick it out for longer than a few months at any firms. Mostly what I've seen is that any firm large enough to have their own spec writer(s) have many many ongoing projects, each with teams of design and management staff - anywhere from 3 to 20 people working on the drawing set for any given project - and one spec writer handling 4, 6, 8, 20 projects, with, at best, an administrative assistant or receptionist doing a little typing assistance. For a drawing set with a few hundred sheets the project manual can easily have 1000+ pages, with one person to coordinate all of it. And when the design and production team finally hits its deadline and collapses in a heap for three days afterward, the spec writer is right onto the next project and might have another three deadlines in those three days, and they're supposed to not only know everything about every product and construction, but everything about every project they're working on.
The same people who pride themselves on running out a red pen marking up a drawing set will avoid delving into the specs as if the project manual will give them leprosy - and yet the spec writer gets all the grief when there's a change order for anything spec-related.
In my opinion everybody should have to put together a project manual at least once, just to get permission to start the license exam.
Rusty!
Aug 23, 18 12:01 pm
I feel like you are writing my biography here. Make me sound handsome and stuff.
thisisnotmyname
Aug 22, 18 5:51 pm
If the PA's work together and devote some time to generating some good spec writing practices, you may be ok. Look at investing in some structured training on spec writing or form a study group. It will certainly make the individual PA's skill set stronger and more well rounded.
You really need to have good specs if you are doing government work that has to be bid publicly.
mightyaa
Aug 22, 18 7:02 pm
My experience was the opposite. It is the government guys who have standardized specifications you must utilize. The private sector rarely has the need to develop a standard set of specs since they don't have multiple buildings and would like to only store one brand of flush values in operations warehouses like the government guys.
geezertect
Aug 22, 18 6:18 pm
In the long run it might be a good idea, but unless the firm specializes in a particular building type it's going to be a bumpy transition. A lot of folks inexperienced in specifications learning on the job with the employer taking on the legal exposure. Great for their professional development, but if I was the boss I'd be very nervous. Who is going to do the PA's work while they are taking on this additional burden? Are they adding staff for that?
Rusty!
Aug 23, 18 12:12 pm
On a random project a PA was really eager to do some spec writing themselves. I said go for it! Took them 3 days plus entire weekend to write a single spec. It was a pretty complex spec, but still. Decent way to allocate time for specification services is one hour per spec (and then it gets less than that for multiple passes), and some specs can be put together in 5 minutes and others may take half day.
Any experienced architect should theoretically be able to write specs. The issue is being efficient at it. Dedicated spec writer will also have a much larger palette to draw from. What may be a completely new product or system to any PA, I've specified it dozens of times before.
JBeaumont
Aug 23, 18 1:26 pm
Inexperienced people are likely to copy specs or parts of them from past projects without necessarily understanding what they're "writing", and add things that sound good to them, without always understanding whether they're creating conflicts or increasing the likelihood of change orders. It's fine to let them do it, how else are they going to learn after all, but there will need to be a schedule in place that allows extensive review and corrections, and someone or someones available and with the skills to do that extensive review. If your spec writers have already left, who is going to do that? You might want to hire a consultant spec writer on the first few of these projects, not to write the specs but to review and give recommendations on the specs that the folks in your firm write.
mightyaa
Aug 23, 18 4:03 pm
Oh, and don't create from scratch. Get MasterSpec or one of the various packages. I know there is one that bootstraps to Revit off the family groups too. I liked MasterSpec because it also contains a lot of educational stuff to help you select options correctly and adjust the document based on choices you make.
shellarchitect
Aug 24, 18 7:04 am
We do use masterspec. The above makes me feel better about the whole thing. I'm mostly worried about how much time it will take to do something I've never done before, with no one to review it
Rusty!
Aug 24, 18 9:50 am
Masterspecs are a great baseline for simple to medium complexity projects. They will not hold up in big A architecture though. They are only scratching the surface. This is why an exterior building envelope consultant will produce an 80 page document on curtainwall, compared to my own 30 page doc for the same, compared to 10 page edited down spec that masterspec will produce.
Non Sequitur
Aug 24, 18 7:37 am
Most of the senior arch staff do their own abridged specs directly on CDs on smaller projects. For the large ones, there are 3 people (2 arch and one tech, all equity partners) who will produce the 800 page book. We constantly have issues and I’ve been made to look like a fool on site or in client meetings more than once. I’m actually pretty tired of apologizing due to a spec hole or circular reference.
shellarchitect
Aug 24, 18 9:03 am
I'd rather go without, the mistakes are really embarrassing
.
Rusty!
Aug 24, 18 9:56 am
Now I'm really curious who you work for in Toronto. CMS and NMS are super watered down versions of how specs are done in the US. At this point it's actually embarrassing that Canadian arch profession is holding on to this short form way of communicating information. They are objectively awful ways for documenting anything.
Non Sequitur
Aug 24, 18 10:51 am
Rusty, I'm not in Toronto. 8-)
Our offices's "book spec" is the Canadian National Master Construction Specification, and I agree, there are plenty of holes. One problem is that we can't / don't rely much on american standards as we have our own (UL vs ULC for example) and I guess the market is too small for someone to upgrade for us.
Bloopox
Aug 24, 18 11:05 am
I'm confused by that, as I'm constantly having to edit out the Canadian standards from our specs. We use BSD SpecLink and it defaults to listing both the Canadian and US versions of everything (so it will say "UL or ULC", or "ASTM blah blah/ blah blah M"), and then I have to get rid of all the metric or Canadian references, lest some contractor submit a product that meets ULC but not UL...
around Christmas our spec writer of 25 years left. the guy who took his place left after 6 months, hated the job. New plan is for PA's to write specs.
Anyone want to make predictions on how this will end up?
Work is govt, commercial, and industrial
Short term? Terribly. Long term? With any luck you'll develop standards and methods like you have for other aspects of the job and you'll have a tighter set of CDs. The idea of consultant spec writers has always pissed me off. It's literally the MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE CDS.
Couldn't agree more - I worked as a PA at an office where standard practice was to have one guy write all the specs for all the projects, and it was terrible. PA with some help from experienced staff needs to write the specs, or at least outline them.
SneakyPete I didn't think the OP was talking about a consultant spec writer, I think he meant an in-house staff spec writer? I don't like consultant spec writers either - they're usually doing too many different firms' work at once and they don't do anybody's standards well or know enough about any firm's best practices. But an in-house spec person can be tremendously valuable, if they stick around, even if other staff also share in the spec writing.
Agreed. This really should be done by PA's who are most familiar with the design intent, and should learn a lot by reading specifications (like the proper installation and details which can be put back into the detail drawings). Overall, it will be good for the firm.
I stand corrected. Sorry, shellarchitect.
Frankly I'm surprised that any spec writers stick it out for longer than a few months at any firms. Mostly what I've seen is that any firm large enough to have their own spec writer(s) have many many ongoing projects, each with teams of design and management staff - anywhere from 3 to 20 people working on the drawing set for any given project - and one spec writer handling 4, 6, 8, 20 projects, with, at best, an administrative assistant or receptionist doing a little typing assistance. For a drawing set with a few hundred sheets the project manual can easily have 1000+ pages, with one person to coordinate all of it. And when the design and production team finally hits its deadline and collapses in a heap for three days afterward, the spec writer is right onto the next project and might have another three deadlines in those three days, and they're supposed to not only know everything about every product and construction, but everything about every project they're working on.
The same people who pride themselves on running out a red pen marking up a drawing set will avoid delving into the specs as if the project manual will give them leprosy - and yet the spec writer gets all the grief when there's a change order for anything spec-related.
In my opinion everybody should have to put together a project manual at least once, just to get permission to start the license exam.
I feel like you are writing my biography here. Make me sound handsome and stuff.
If the PA's work together and devote some time to generating some good spec writing practices, you may be ok. Look at investing in some structured training on spec writing or form a study group. It will certainly make the individual PA's skill set stronger and more well rounded.
You really need to have good specs if you are doing government work that has to be bid publicly.
My experience was the opposite. It is the government guys who have standardized specifications you must utilize. The private sector rarely has the need to develop a standard set of specs since they don't have multiple buildings and would like to only store one brand of flush values in operations warehouses like the government guys.
In the long run it might be a good idea, but unless the firm specializes in a particular building type it's going to be a bumpy transition. A lot of folks inexperienced in specifications learning on the job with the employer taking on the legal exposure. Great for their professional development, but if I was the boss I'd be very nervous. Who is going to do the PA's work while they are taking on this additional burden? Are they adding staff for that?
On a random project a PA was really eager to do some spec writing themselves. I said go for it! Took them 3 days plus entire weekend to write a single spec. It was a pretty complex spec, but still. Decent way to allocate time for specification services is one hour per spec (and then it gets less than that for multiple passes), and some specs can be put together in 5 minutes and others may take half day.
Any experienced architect should theoretically be able to write specs. The issue is being efficient at it. Dedicated spec writer will also have a much larger palette to draw from. What may be a completely new product or system to any PA, I've specified it dozens of times before.
Inexperienced people are likely to copy specs or parts of them from past projects without necessarily understanding what they're "writing", and add things that sound good to them, without always understanding whether they're creating conflicts or increasing the likelihood of change orders. It's fine to let them do it, how else are they going to learn after all, but there will need to be a schedule in place that allows extensive review and corrections, and someone or someones available and with the skills to do that extensive review. If your spec writers have already left, who is going to do that? You might want to hire a consultant spec writer on the first few of these projects, not to write the specs but to review and give recommendations on the specs that the folks in your firm write.
Oh, and don't create from scratch. Get MasterSpec or one of the various packages. I know there is one that bootstraps to Revit off the family groups too. I liked MasterSpec because it also contains a lot of educational stuff to help you select options correctly and adjust the document based on choices you make.
We do use masterspec. The above makes me feel better about the whole thing. I'm mostly worried about how much time it will take to do something I've never done before, with no one to review it
Masterspecs are a great baseline for simple to medium complexity projects. They will not hold up in big A architecture though. They are only scratching the surface. This is why an exterior building envelope consultant will produce an 80 page document on curtainwall, compared to my own 30 page doc for the same, compared to 10 page edited down spec that masterspec will produce.
Most of the senior arch staff do their own abridged specs directly on CDs on smaller projects. For the large ones, there are 3 people (2 arch and one tech, all equity partners) who will produce the 800 page book. We constantly have issues and I’ve been made to look like a fool on site or in client meetings more than once. I’m actually pretty tired of apologizing due to a spec hole or circular reference.
I'd rather go without, the mistakes are really embarrassing .
Now I'm really curious who you work for in Toronto. CMS and NMS are super watered down versions of how specs are done in the US. At this point it's actually embarrassing that Canadian arch profession is holding on to this short form way of communicating information. They are objectively awful ways for documenting anything.
Rusty, I'm not in Toronto. 8-)
Our offices's "book spec" is the Canadian National Master Construction Specification, and I agree, there are plenty of holes. One problem is that we can't / don't rely much on american standards as we have our own (UL vs ULC for example) and I guess the market is too small for someone to upgrade for us.
I'm confused by that, as I'm constantly having to edit out the Canadian standards from our specs. We use BSD SpecLink and it defaults to listing both the Canadian and US versions of everything (so it will say "UL or ULC", or "ASTM blah blah/ blah blah M"), and then I have to get rid of all the metric or Canadian references, lest some contractor submit a product that meets ULC but not UL...