Rain, Late Casework, and a 25-Day Extension Request
You are managing a 150-calendar-day, $4.5M school addition with liquidated damages of $1,500 per day. The baseline CPM schedule shows the masonry walls as critical, followed by roofing and interior finishes. During construction, three things happen: 12 days of rain that exceed the historical monthly average for the period; the owner's casework supplier delivers 9 days late, and casework sits on a path carrying 3 days of total float; and because the roof stayed open longer than planned, your drywall crew loses 4 days of productivity from water damage and rework. You submit a 25-day time extension plus a $210,000 claim for extended general conditions and acceleration. The owner responds with an offer of zero days and zero dollars.
1. Break the 25-day request down day by day. What are you actually entitled to, on what theory, and where is it weakest?
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Component analysis - never present a bundled number, because bundling invites a bundled rejection.
- Rain (12 days claimed): whether this is excusable depends on the weather clause. If the contract says weather beyond the normals is excusable non-compensable, you get time only, and only for days that actually affected critical work - not 12 days of rain if masons worked under tarps on 4 of them. Prove it with daily reports, NOAA records, and the schedule update showing critical-path impact. Money: zero, absent a differing-site-condition or owner-delay hook.
- Casework (9 days claimed): an owner-furnished item delivered late is a classic excusable and compensable delay - but only to the extent it consumed critical path. It had 3 days of float. So the first 3 days of lateness absorbed float and caused no delay; only 6 days are potentially compensable. This is your strongest component.
- Drywall productivity (4 days claimed): this is a consequence of the roof being open, so you must show the roof delay was itself owner-caused or excusable. If the roof was open because of the rain, this is double-counting the rain days and will be struck.
Realistic entitlement: roughly 6 days compensable plus the excusable weather days that truly hit critical path. Weakest point: the claim for acceleration absent a written directive to accelerate - you generally cannot recover acceleration costs you incurred voluntarily.
2. The owner argues that the casework delay is not compensable because the casework path had float and the schedule was already behind from rain. How do you answer on concurrency and float?
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Two doctrines, two answers.
Float: float is generally not owned by either party for the purpose of excusing delay, but consuming it does not shift liability. The owner's argument proves too much: using 3 days of float means the first 3 days of lateness produced no delay - which you should concede, and which costs you 3 days. It does not mean the remaining 6 days are free. Once float is exhausted, the activity is critical and delay to it is delay to completion.
Concurrency: true concurrent delay is independent delay on parallel critical paths at the same time. Here the rain and the casework may overlap in time, but ask the functional question - if the rain had not occurred, would the casework delay still have pushed completion? If yes, the casework delay is on the controlling path and the owner is liable for it. If the rain alone would have delayed completion regardless, the delays are concurrent and the usual result is time but no money for the period of overlap.
How to prove it: a time-impact or collapsed as-built analysis on the accepted baseline, updated contemporaneously. If your updates were not maintained monthly, your position weakens badly - courts and boards discount after-the-fact schedule reconstructions.
Practical posture: concede the 3 float days proactively. Trading a defensible concession for credibility on the 6 contested days is the better deal than defending an indefensible 25.
3. The owner offers zero. What are your next moves, and what do you do about the continuing field cost?
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Sequence:
- Preserve and particularize. Submit a line-item response with the schedule analysis attached and a specific dollar figure for the 6 days plus any excusable time. A claim of "$210,000" invites rejection; a claim of "6 days, $42,300 extended general conditions, schedule attached" invites negotiation.
- Formal notice. Confirm you have met the contract's notice and claim-submission deadlines. If the dispute-resolution ladder requires a decision by the architect or a mediation demand within a window, start it. Deadlines, not merits, lose most of these.
- Do not stop work and do not unilaterally accelerate. Stopping creates your own delay exposure; accelerating without direction forfeits the acceleration claim.
- Ask for direction in writing. "Please confirm whether the Owner directs acceleration to recover the 6 days; absent direction, the Completion Date will be adjusted by 6 days." That single letter often produces a settlement, because the owner's own downstream commitments - school opening, furniture delivery - make the days worth more to them than to you.
- Cost control: keep the general conditions on the affected period separately coded so the extended-cost number is auditable rather than allocated.
On the LD exposure: if you finish late, $1,500/day is your risk, so a 6-day extension is worth $9,000 in avoided LD alone - plus any schedule-related leverage. Price the settlement accordingly; you may rationally accept partial payment on the money to lock the time.