Providing a comfortable and attractive interior space for the building’s inhabitants is a primary concern of the design team. A large component of this is preventing water leaks to the interior of the building. The recommendations and considerations in The Construction Specifier feature, “Key considerations for designing fenestration systems for success” serve as Part 1 of this article (the article can be found in the August 2023 print issue of The Construction Specifier), and they discuss what will help prevent water leakage into new buildings. This article will discuss what can happen when some of those recommendations are not followed due to the nature of construction.
Sometimes these changes may be due to value-engineering decisions communicated between the owner and contractor to reduce the project budget, which, unfortunately, the design team may not know about until construction is underway. Other times, changes may occur due to incomplete shop drawings, unknown or unforeseen site conditions, construction sequencing, or supply chain issues which can lead to the construction team figuring it out and making changes at the time of installation.
Submittals process
During construction, the first place the design team will review information for the project is during the submittal process. Some of the most important submittals for the fenestration system include product data, lab test reports, and shop drawings.
The most important and often most complex part for the fenestration submittal process is the shop drawings. The shop drawings should show all relevant information for the product, flashing, waterproofing, anchorage, and tie-ins to the surrounding construction (for coordination, even if it is not in the fenestration contractor’s scope).
All too often, a set of shop drawings will be submitted several times and will not include the surrounding detailing, making it difficult to accurately depict the adjacent construction and intent for how to drain incidental water that travels through the fenestration system. This is when the language included in the specifications in the design phase, requiring project-specific shop drawings and fully coordinated drawings including adjacent trades, can be referenced.
Usually, a submittal will require reviews from multiple parties, resulting in a rushed review if one or more parties are not on schedule. This can lead to problems with reviews being incomplete or submittals being approved, despite missing critical information, just to keep the project on schedule.
