The Paper That Changes a Job: RFI to Change Order

Why this matters

On a commercial job, scope changes arrive on half a dozen kinds of paper, and only some of them mean "go build it." A crew that treats every answer from the engineer as an instruction ends up doing extra work nobody agreed to pay for. A crew that treats every instruction as a question to argue stalls the job and gets blamed for the delay. The skill is knowing, for each document, three things: what it is, whether it lets work start, and whether it touches price or time. Everything about getting paid for changed work follows from reading those three correctly on the day the paper arrives.

The instruments, one row each

Names vary by contract form and by owner. These are the common ones, with the AIA form numbers where a job uses that family of documents:

INSTRUMENT    WHEN          START WORK?        PRICE/TIME
ADDENDUM      before bid    yes, it is scope   in the bid
RFI ANSWER    any time      not by itself      none
ASI (G710)    construction  yes, unless you    none claimed
                            gave notice
BULLETIN      construction  no, price first    proposed
CCD (G714)    construction  yes, now           settled later
CHANGE ORDER  construction  yes                agreed
  (G701)

What each one is

Addendum. Issued during bidding, before the contract is signed, to change or clarify the bid documents. It becomes part of the contract, so the work it describes is base scope, priced in the bid. The bid form usually asks you to acknowledge each addendum by number; a bid that misses one may be bid on the wrong documents (see related: How to Check an Addendum Against Your Bid).

RFI (request for information). A question from the contractor and the designer's answer (AIA G716 where used). An RFI is a request for clarification, not a request for a change and not an authorization. When the answer only clarifies what the documents already require, build it. When the answer adds or changes work, the answer alone is not the instrument that pays for it, and the contractor's move is a written notice that the answer changes scope and asks for one of the instruments below (see related: How to Write an RFI That Gets a Usable Answer).

Architect's Supplemental Instruction (ASI, AIA G710). A minor change or clarification the architect issues without changing the contract sum or time. Under A201 Article 7 (7.4 in the 2017 edition), where the contract uses it, the architect may order minor changes that do not involve an adjustment in sum or time, and if the contractor believes a proposed minor change will affect sum or time, the contractor notifies the architect and does not proceed to implement it. So an ASI lets work start only when you agree it is free. Building it without objecting is, in practice, agreeing.

Bulletin. A package of revised drawings or specifications, often with a request for the contractor's price (some forms call this a proposal request, AIA G709). A bulletin asks "what would this cost and how long would it take," and on most jobs it does not authorize work until a change order or directive follows. Install from a bulletin before that and you have built on a proposal.

Construction change directive (CCD, AIA G714). A written order to proceed with a change now, before price or time is agreed, signed by the owner and architect. Under A201 Article 7, the contractor proceeds promptly, and the adjustment is then settled by an agreed method or by documented cost. A CCD is the instrument that keeps the job moving when the price argument would otherwise stop it.

Change order (AIA G701). The agreement: a change in scope, the adjustment in contract sum, and the adjustment in time, signed by owner, architect and contractor. It is the only instrument on this list where all three are settled.

Two things that are not on the list. A verbal instruction from a superintendent or owner's representative is not an instrument at all, whatever the contract allows that person to do in writing (see related: The Verbal Change Order Trap). And a field sketch handed to a foreman becomes part of an instrument only when it is attached to one. Whether any particular document binds the owner to pay, and what notice the contract requires to preserve a claim, is a legal question for the shop's own attorney; this is not legal advice. What the shop controls is reading the document type before the crew picks up a tool.

Worked example: one conflict, four documents

A plumbing shop is installing sanitary waste on a tenant fit-out. The 4 in sanitary main on P-101 runs straight through a steel beam that the structural sheets show at the same elevation. The crew stops.

Day 1, RFI-007. The shop's project lead writes: "P-101 routes 4 in SAN through the beam at grid C/4, invert 10'-4" per P-101, bottom of beam 10'-6" per S-201, so the pipe's crown sits above the beam's bottom flange. Please advise routing." The crew moves to other work.

Day 4, the answer. "Reroute below beam per attached sketch SK-P-2." The sketch drops the main under the beam and back up: 14 additional feet of 4 in pipe, four additional fittings, a second hanger run and one more cleanout. The lead takes it off at 7.5 labor hours plus material. The answer changes scope, so the lead does not hand it to the crew. Same day, the lead sends written notice to the general contractor: the RFI response adds work, estimated at 7.5 labor hours plus material; the shop requests a change instrument and will not proceed on the RFI alone.

Day 5, an ASI. The architect issues ASI-3, incorporating SK-P-2, marked "no change in contract sum or time." This is the fork. Proceeding now would be implementing a minor change the shop believes affects the sum, which the contract's own minor-change rule says not to do after giving notice. The lead replies in writing that the shop disagrees with "no change in sum" for the reasons in the day 4 notice, and asks for a CCD or a change order.

Day 6, a CCD. The general contractor needs the main in before the ceiling closes, so the owner and architect issue CCD-2: proceed with SK-P-2, adjustment by cost plus the contract's markup. Now the crew starts, the same day. The lead sets up the paperwork the CCD method requires: a separate cost code, daily time sheets signed by the general contractor's superintendent, and material tickets kept apart from base scope (see related: Commercial Change Order Pricing: Cost-Plus vs Unit-Price vs Lump-Sum).

Days 6 and 7, the work. Two plumbers complete it in 8.0 labor hours against the 7.5 estimated, 0.5 over, which is about 7 percent. Signed time sheets show 4.5 hours on day 6 and 3.5 on day 7, and 4.5 plus 3.5 is the 8.0 claimed.

Day 20, the change order. CO-4 is executed for the documented 8.0 hours and the material at the contract's markup. The time adjustment is zero days, because the reroute used float in the plumbing schedule and nothing downstream moved; claiming days the schedule does not show would have been the weak point in an otherwise clean change.

Count the paper. One conflict produced four documents: an RFI, an ASI, a CCD and a change order, and only the CCD put work in a crew's hands; the change order settled the price after the work was done. The day 4 notice and the day 5 reply are what kept the shop's position intact in between.

The clock on each document

Most of these instruments start a clock, and the clocks are in the contract, not in this card. A201, where used, requires a claim to be started within a set number of days after the event or after the contractor first recognizes it (Article 15, 21 days in the 2017 edition), and many subcontracts shorten whatever the prime contract allows so the general contractor has time to pass a notice upstream. A bulletin usually asks for a price by a date. A CCD usually asks the contractor to say within a short window whether it agrees with the proposed adjustment method. Missing any of these does not make the work free in every case, but it hands the other side the argument. So the office logs every instrument the day it arrives, with its type, the date, and the response date the contract sets, and the lead's day 4 notice in the example went out the same day the answer came back, not when the work was done.

What a crew needs to know, on one card

A crew does not need the contract. It needs one rule: build from the drawings you were issued, plus addenda, CCDs, change orders, and ASIs the office has released, and nothing else. An RFI answer, a bulletin, a sketch or a conversation goes to the office first, and the office releases it in writing or holds it. The office's half of that rule is to release fast, because a crew that waits two days for a CCD the office could have chased in two hours is a cost too (see related: The RFI Log SOP).

What changes the answer

• Public and federal work uses its own names (contract modifications, field orders, unilateral and bilateral modifications) and its own rules on who can sign. The question is the same; read the contract's definitions first.
• Unit-price contracts can absorb a quantity change without a new instrument when the change sits inside the unit prices and the quantity bands the contract sets.
• Emergencies. Many contracts let the contractor act without an instrument to prevent injury or property damage, with notice and an adjustment after. Stopping a flood is not a change-order question; getting paid for stopping it is.

References

• AIA Document A201, General Conditions of the Contract for Construction, where the contract uses it (Article 7 on changes in the work), and AIA forms G701 Change Order, G709 Proposal Request, G710 Architect's Supplemental Instructions, G714 Construction Change Directive, G716 Request for Information.
• See related: Commercial Change Order Pricing: Cost-Plus vs Unit-Price vs Lump-Sum
• See related: How to Write an RFI That Gets a Usable Answer; The RFI Log SOP
• See related: The Verbal Change Order Trap; The Change Order as a Contract Amendment, Not a Formality