How to Prepare a Submittal for Your Own Scope

Why this matters

On a commercial or tenant-improvement job, nothing you install gets ordered until the design team has seen what you intend to furnish. The package you send up is the shop's statement of exactly which products, in which configuration, with which options, go on which tags. When it is vague, two things happen: it comes back Revise and Resubmit and eats weeks of lead time, or worse, it comes back stamped and the stamp turns out to cover nothing you did not explicitly mark. The reviewer's side of that exchange, and what their stamp does and does not accept, is covered in How to Read a Submittal Package and What a Submittal Review Stamp Means and What It Does Not. This card is the preparer's side: how to build a package that says one thing and only one thing.

The rule underneath every step

A cut sheet is a catalog page written to sell a whole product line. A submittal is a cut sheet edited down to one answer. Every option, size, voltage and finish the manufacturer prints that you are not furnishing has to be struck, and every one you are furnishing has to be marked, because the reviewer reads the page as offering whatever is not crossed out. A page that shows a 1.28 and a 1.6 gallon-per-flush bowl with neither circled has submitted both and selected neither.

Steps

1. Pull the spec's submittal list for each section in your scope. Each technical section's Part 1 carries an article, usually headed Submittals or Action Submittals, naming what it wants: product data, shop drawings, samples, certificates, warranty forms, operation and maintenance data. Division 01, commonly 01 33 00, sets the procedure: format, numbering, how many copies or which portal, the contractor's stamp, and the review time the engineer is allowed. Build your list from those articles, not from habit. Skip it and you will submit product data where the section asked for product data plus a seismic certificate and a sample, and the package returns incomplete without being reviewed at all.

2. Gather the tags from the drawings, not just the spec. The fixture or equipment schedule assigns tags (P-1, WH-1, LF-3) and often carries values the spec leaves out: mounting height, rough-in, voltage, a trim option. Every cut sheet you submit names the tag it covers. A package organized by product with no tags makes the reviewer do the mapping, and a reviewer who has to guess which page is which tag returns it.

3. Mark the exact model and every option on each sheet. Circle or highlight the model number, the finish, the trim, the voltage, the accessories you are furnishing. If the manufacturer's model string encodes options, write the complete string you will order, not the base model. This is the step that makes the order and the submittal the same document: the person placing the order later should be able to read the part number off the stamped page.

4. Strike what does not apply. Cross out every alternate size, finish, option and accessory you are not furnishing, on every page. Leave a page unstruck and you have submitted it. If an entire page does not apply, leave it out; do not pad the package with the full catalog section.

5. List every deviation on the cover, in writing. Compare each marked item to the spec paragraph and the schedule line. Anything that differs, however small, goes on the cover as a numbered deviation with the paragraph it departs from and why. This is not optional politeness. Under A201-style general conditions, where the contract uses them, the contractor must call out deviations in writing at the time of submittal, and the reviewer's action does not relieve the contractor of a deviation it did not identify (section 3.12 in substance; check the current edition and your contract). If the product is not on the spec's manufacturer list at all, it is a substitution and belongs on a substitution request instead (see related: How to Write a Substitution Request the Engineer Can Approve).

6. Review and stamp it yourself before it goes up. Most Division 01 submittal sections require the contractor's own review stamp, which says the contractor has checked the package against the contract documents, verified field dimensions where needed, and coordinated it with other work. On most jobs your package goes to the general contractor first, who reviews and stamps it again before it reaches the architect or engineer. Your stamp is a real check, not a rubber one: someone other than the person who assembled the package reads it against the spec and the schedule, tag by tag. A package with no contractor stamp is commonly returned unreviewed.

7. Number it and log it. Use the numbering Division 01 prescribes, typically the spec section plus a sequence number, and record the date sent, the date due back, and the lead time of the slowest item in it (see related: The Submittal Log SOP). The due-back date is what tells you, in week three, that a missing return is already eating your float.

Worked example: the fixture package

A plumbing shop has the fixtures on a small medical-office build-out. Section 22 40 00 Plumbing Fixtures lists two acceptable manufacturers for each fixture and asks for product data, rough-in sheets and warranty information. The schedule on P-601 shows P-1 wall-hung lavatory (4 each), P-2 floor-mount water closet (3 each), P-3 mop sink (1 each). All values below illustrate the method.

The deviation hunt. Four checks of marked sheets against the spec and the plans:

• The spec calls for a lavatory faucet with a 0.5 gpm aerator. The faucet the shop marked ships standard at 0.5 gpm. No deviation.
• The spec calls for the water closet seat in white, open front, with check hinge. The listed manufacturer's open-front seat comes with a standard hinge; check hinge is a separate part number. The shop adds it to the marked sheet. No deviation, once marked.
• The spec calls for the mop sink faucet in a polished chrome finish with a vacuum breaker and hose. The product the shop can get matches everything except it is supplied with a rough-chrome finish. That is a deviation.
• The P-1 rough-in sheet shows a 4 in carrier depth; the plan's wall type at the lavatories is a 3-5/8 in stud wall. The carrier fits a wall of that depth only with a different foot. The shop changes the carrier selection and notes it as a coordination item, not a deviation, because the spec asks only for a carrier to suit the wall.

That is one deviation and one coordination change out of four items checked against the spec, and both go on the cover.

SUBMITTAL COVER         No. 22 40 00-001   Rev 0
Project: Medical Office Build-Out, Suite 330
To: GC  -> Architect / Engineer
Spec section: 22 40 00 Plumbing Fixtures
Item: Plumbing fixtures, trim and carriers
Tags covered: P-1 (4)  P-2 (3)  P-3 (1)  per P-601
Contents: product data 9 pp, rough-in 3 pp,
          warranty 1 p
Options furnished: marked on each page, all
          others struck

DEVIATIONS FROM CONTRACT DOCUMENTS
1. P-3 faucet finish: rough chrome supplied in
   lieu of polished chrome, 22 40 00 2.4.C.
   Function, vacuum breaker and hose per spec.
COORDINATION
A. P-1 carrier selected for 3-5/8 in stud wall,
   wall type 4 per A-501.

CONTRACTOR REVIEW: Reviewed against contract
documents and coordinated with other work.
Field dimensions verified where noted.
By: project lead          Date: day 9

Why it is built that way. The tag count on the cover (4 plus 3 plus 1 is 8 fixtures) matches the schedule, so the reviewer can confirm nothing is missing without opening the package. The deviation cites the paragraph it departs from and states what still complies. The coordination note shows the shop checked the wall type, which is the dimension question the reviewer is not taking on.

What the wrong version looked like. The first draft included the manufacturer's full lavatory page, with three faucet holes, two bowl sizes and four carriers shown, and nothing struck. Reviewed that way, the stamp would have covered no particular configuration, and when the 4 in carrier arrived for a 3-5/8 in wall, the error would have been the shop's on a stamped document.

What changes the answer. If the job's spec had listed only one manufacturer with no "or equal," the rough-chrome faucet would not be a deviation to list but a product the spec does not allow, and it would go on a substitution request with its own deadline rather than on this cover.

When part of the package is not ready

The temptation is to send what you have and follow with the rest. Many Division 01 sections forbid partial submittals of a section, or of related items that have to be reviewed together, and a reviewer may return a partial package unreviewed. Where the section allows it, say so on the cover: list the items included, the items to follow, and the date they will follow. A carrier that has to be coordinated with the wall framing goes with the fixture it supports, not three weeks later, because the reviewer cannot judge one without the other. The opposite mistake is holding a long-lead item hostage to a short-lead one: if the water heater has a 10 week lead time and the fixtures 3, and the spec puts them in different sections, they are different packages, and the water heater goes first.

How to check the package before your stamp goes on it

• Every tag on the schedule appears on the cover, and the counts match.
• Every page has its tag written on it, its model and options marked, and everything else struck.
• Every difference from the spec or the schedule is on the cover, with a paragraph number.
• Every required submittal item the section's Part 1 lists is in the package or explained as following.
• The person who stamped it is not the person who assembled it.

References

• See related: How to Read a Submittal Package
• See related: What a Submittal Review Stamp Means and What It Does Not
• See related: What a Submittal Is and Why It Comes Before the Work
• See related: The Submittal Log SOP
• AIA A201 General Conditions, section 3.12 (Shop Drawings, Product Data and Samples), as incorporated by your contract