Apologies for the missed post last week, plenty of things going on!

As you can see from the above photo things continue to move forward at a good pace on site. External cladding is now underway, roofing is predominantly complete, windows are all in and full enclosure is not far away.

The past few weeks have seen a bit of wet weather so I thought we could talk about how building contracts deal with delays. Essentially most building contracts will note wet weather as a reason for delay. The differences can be however, does the overall program for the project allow for wet weather days or are they considered additional to the program.

In the contracts we are mostly using for our single home projects the option exists to nominate an amount of days, that the builder needs to allow for in their overall program for wet weather delays that do not effect the overall program and completion date for the project.

In other words, it is expected over any 6-12 month build cycle that some time will be lost to rain. By allowing a number of days within the contract pre execution (we tend to allow for 10 days every 6 months as a reasonable and fair measure) it is acknowledged by the builder that no delay claim can be made if the days lost do not exceed the allowance.

We do this for a number of reasons including managing the expectations of the client regarding completion, limiting the time required to process delay claims from the builder which require consultancy time and therefor money and acknowledging that wet weather is likely.

Remember though, any day it rains is not necessarily a day to be advised by the builder as lost, or if the allowance is exceeded, a day for which the builder can claim an extension of time.

The rain needs to have affected the ability for work to continue that will effect the critical path of the project timeline. Most legitimate rain delay claims will come before the building is at lock up stage and watertight. After that works can mostly occur inside to keep things moving.

in summary, when assessing claims from your builder for rain delay, confirm that the rain has directly affected the critical path for the project before approving the extension of time. Or, have an architect in place that will manage this for you :). Also remember that delays cost money, particularly if you are having to pay rent, eat out or whatever it may be because you are not in your own home. Every week adds up.