Constructability Review
Change orders are rarely a surprise to the person who reads the drawings carefully. They are visible in the documents weeks before bid, sitting in the gaps between disciplines, the details that reference nothing, and the sequences that cannot physically occur in the order shown.
A constructability review finds them while they are still a comment rather than a claim.
Read the drawings the way a bidder will read them
A design team's job is to describe the intended result. A contractor's job is to price and build exactly what is drawn. The gap between those two activities is where projects lose money, and it is entirely predictable.
We review construction documents from the builder's perspective: what will a bidder be unable to price, what will require an RFI, what has been drawn but not specified, what has been specified but not drawn, and what sequence does this design implicitly require.
Most change orders come from a lack of information, inaccurate information, or inconsistent information. All three are visible in review if someone is looking for them.
What we look for
Site knowledge matters
A review performed without knowledge of the site is a paper exercise. We walk the project, read the geotechnical report, check the actual access and staging conditions, and confirm what is really in the ground before commenting on what the drawings show. Many of the most expensive omissions we find are things that are true about the site and absent from the documents.
When to review
The highest value review occurs at roughly the ninety percent construction document stage, when there is enough drawn to evaluate and enough time remaining to fix what we find. Reviews at design development are also valuable and catch different, more systemic issues. Reviews after bid still have value, but at that point resolution costs change order money.
Deliverable and follow through
We deliver a comment log keyed to drawing sheet and specification section, with each comment categorized by severity and accompanied by a recommended resolution. We then track designer responses to closure, because an unresolved comment is worth no more than an unwritten one.
Review scope
- Full document set review, all disciplines
- Civil and grading document review
- Site utility coordination review
- Structural and architectural coordination
- Specification and drawing cross check
- Bid package scope gap analysis
- Site walk and existing conditions verification
- Geotechnical report reconciliation
- Agency condition of approval verification
- Phasing and sequencing feasibility
- Comment log with recommended resolutions
- Designer response tracking to closure
What you receive
Every engagement is scoped in writing before it begins, so you know exactly what is being produced and when.
Comment log
Every finding keyed to sheet and specification section, categorized by severity, with a specific recommended resolution rather than a question.
Executive summary
The five to ten findings that carry real cost or schedule consequence, separated from the routine coordination items.
Cost exposure estimate
Where a finding carries quantifiable risk, an estimate of the change order exposure if it goes to bid unresolved.
Bid package gap analysis
Identification of scope that falls between packages or is duplicated across them, before it becomes two claims or none.
Site verification notes
Findings from the site walk that contradict or are absent from the documents, with photographs.
Response tracking
Follow through on each comment to designer resolution, with a final report on what was addressed and what was accepted as risk.
Questions owners ask about this service
Will our architect be offended?
Good design teams are not. A constructability review is not a design critique and we do not comment on design intent, aesthetics, or code interpretation. We comment on whether a contractor can price and build what is drawn. Most designers find the process useful, and the ones who resist it are usually the ones who need it.
How long does a review take?
Two to five weeks for most projects, depending on the size of the document set and the number of disciplines. We can accelerate for a fixed bid date, though a compressed review finds less.
Do you review at design development or only at construction documents?
Both, and they find different things. Design development review catches systemic issues like phasing feasibility, site constraint conflicts, and scope definition gaps. Construction document review catches coordination errors and missing information. Owners with the budget for both get meaningfully better documents.
What is the return on a constructability review?
It varies, but the arithmetic is favorable. A review fee is typically a small fraction of one percent of construction value. A single significant coordination conflict found before bid frequently exceeds the entire fee, and most reviews find several.
Talk to us about Constructability Review
Send us the project details and we will tell you what a defensible scope of work looks like and what it would cost. Initial consultations carry no fee.
Send us the project
Tell us the site, the scope, and the deadline. Initial consultations carry no fee and no obligation.