Handling Claims on the Jobsite
Entitlement, notice, and causation
Claims are not complaints; they are requests for time or money supported by the contract and records. Establish entitlement first: a contract clause, a written direction, a differing site condition, or a delay caused by the owner or another trade. Give notice within the stated period, even if the final amount is unknown. Prove causation: the event affected work on the critical path, not just any work. Separate owner-caused delay from installer-caused delay and concurrent delay. Mitigate by resequencing, shifting crews, or using float. A claim for all delay without a time impact analysis is a global claim and is easily rejected.
Documentation and quantification
Keep a claim file: notice letters, correspondence, daily reports, signed T&M tickets, photographs, schedules, meeting minutes, and cost records. Quantify idle labor as crew size times days times burdened rate. Add equipment, extended supervision, and extended general conditions. Do not claim profit on idle labor unless the contract expressly allows it. Use a time impact analysis that inserts the delay into the accepted schedule and shows the critical path extension.
Worked example
A general contractor delays access to a 4,000 sf area for five days. Four installers and one supervisor are idle. Burdened installer cost is $360 per day; the lift costs $250 per day; supervision costs $500 per day. Installer idle cost = 4 × 5 × $360 = $7,200. Equipment = 5 × $250 = $1,250. Supervision = 5 × $500 = $2,500. Total = $10,950. The installer gave notice within 48 hours, kept daily reports signed by the superintendent, and showed the area was on the critical path. If the crew could have been moved to another area, the claim should be reduced by the avoided cost; mitigation is part of the analysis, not an afterthought.
Traps that cost marks
- Waiting until final payment to raise a claim.
- Claiming every delay without critical path proof.
- No contemporaneous daily records.
- Claiming profit on idle labor by default.
- Failing to mitigate or resequence.
- Submitting a global lump sum without causation.