Weather Delay Clauses in a Service Agreement

Why this matters

The argument after a weather hold is almost never about the weather. It is about who decided, whether the customer was told, whether the delay costs them anything, and what they owe for the half of the job that got done. A shop with no written answer to those questions makes one up on the phone, under pressure, differently each time, and the customer remembers the version that suited them. A short clause written in plain language settles all of it before the forecast turns.

This card gives a sample clause and annotates each sentence: what it is doing, what it deliberately avoids, and where shops get it wrong. This is not legal advice. Contract law, consumer-protection rules and home-improvement statutes are state law, and the clause below is a starting draft for your own attorney to review against your state and your contract type, not a finished document.

What the clause has to settle

A weather clause earns its place by answering five questions in advance, and a clause that skips one leaves that question to be argued on the worst day:

• Who makes the call. If the customer can insist the crew work in rain, or the crew can leave on a cloudy morning without a reason, the clause has failed before it starts.
• On what basis. Not "bad weather". The basis is the product and equipment limits, which is the rule this whole shelf rests on. See related: Weather as a Work Condition: The Rule for Every Trade.
• How and when the customer hears. A hold the customer learns about from an empty driveway is the one that ends up in a review.
• What happens to the price and the schedule. The usual position for a fixed-price job is that the delay moves the dates and does not move the price. Saying so is what stops a homeowner from assuming a discount and a shop from assuming a surcharge.
• What happens to open work and to partial work. Tarping an open roof overnight is labor and material. A job stopped at 60 percent may sit for a week. Both need a stated answer.

The sample clause

Seven sentences, numbered so the annotations can point at them. Plain language on purpose: a customer who cannot follow the clause is not bound by it in any practical sense, because the conversation will happen anyway.

WEATHER AND SITE CONDITIONS

[1] Some of this work can only be done when
    temperature, moisture and wind are inside
    the limits set by the product makers and
    equipment ratings.
[2] Our crew lead decides each day whether
    conditions meet those limits, and may stop
    work already under way if they change.
[3] If we hold or stop work for weather, we
    will tell you by phone or text as soon as
    the call is made, and before the crew's
    scheduled arrival when we can.
[4] A weather hold moves the schedule; it does
    not change the agreed price.
[5] We will book the next available date with
    you within two business days of the hold.
[6] If work is left open overnight, we will
    protect it at our cost, as part of the
    agreed price.
[7] If you cancel after a weather hold, you
    pay for work completed and materials
    ordered for this job, as itemized on the
    final invoice.

Sentence by sentence

[1] The basis. This sentence is the one that lets the rest work. It ties every hold to an outside standard the customer can check (the data sheet, the equipment rating), not to the crew's comfort or the owner's mood. It also covers the case customers find hardest to accept, the hold on a sunny day, because a cold surface or a dew point spread fails while the sky is clear. The words "temperature, moisture and wind" are deliberately broad; listing "rain" alone invites "it did not rain" as an argument.

[2] Who decides, and the right to stop mid-job. Naming the crew lead puts the call with the person reading the surface and the forecast, which is where it belongs operationally. The second half matters more than it looks: without it, a customer can argue that a crew that started has accepted the conditions for the day. What this sentence gives the shop is a written, dated statement of who had authority; whether a court treats it as decisive in a given dispute is a question for your attorney, not something the sentence settles on its own.

[3] The notice promise. This is the sentence shops most often over-promise. "We will give 24 hours notice of any weather delay" cannot be kept, because the deciding reading is often taken at 7 a.m. on the porch. The sample promises speed ("as soon as the call is made") and qualifies the advance notice ("when we can"), which is a promise the office can actually keep. How the message is worded is owned by The Weather Reschedule Communication SOP; the clause only commits to the channel and the timing.

[4] Delay moves the schedule, not the price. For a fixed-price job this is the fair default and the easiest to defend at the kitchen table: the shop priced the work, not the calendar. It cuts both ways, and that is the point. The customer does not get a discount for a slipped date, and the shop does not get to add a remobilization charge for its own rain day. A shop that wants to recover remobilization cost on long jobs (a crane rebooked, a lift rental extended) has to say so here, with the basis, because sentence [4] as written gives it up.

[5] The rebooking commitment. Two business days is an operational default, not a legal figure; tune it to how far out your board runs. The commitment exists because the second-worst outcome after a hold is a job that drifts with no new date while the customer wonders whether you are coming back. The scheduling side of this, booking a rain date at the time of the sale so sentence [5] is usually already satisfied, is covered in How to Build Weather Holds Into the Schedule.

[6] Open-work protection. Stating that protection is at the shop's cost and inside the price removes the most common surprise line on a final invoice. It also commits the shop to doing it: an open roof that leaks into a bedroom overnight after this clause was signed is the shop's problem in plain words. The method belongs to How to Tarp an Open Roof So It Stays Put Overnight and How to Weather-Protect an Open Wall or Window Opening Overnight. Note what this sentence does not cover: damage from a storm event beyond any reasonable protection. Whether that falls on the shop, the homeowner's policy or neither is an insurance question for your agent and your attorney, and the clause is better silent on it than wrong.

[7] Cancellation and partial work. This is where the money question lives. "Work completed and materials ordered" is a measurable basis, and "itemized on the final invoice" commits the shop to showing it. Two traps sit inside this sentence. Special-order material that can be returned should be credited less the restocking charge, not billed in full; and cancellation of a sale made away from the seller's place of business is regulated separately (the FTC's federal cooling-off rule at 16 CFR Part 429, plus state versions that can go further), so sentence [7] cannot override a customer's statutory right to cancel. Have your attorney check it against both.

A worked example: the repaint that lost day two

A painting shop signs a fixed-price exterior repaint of a two-story house. The estimate breaks the scope into four parts, which the shop prices as shares of the contract: prep and wash 20 percent, prime bare wood 15 percent, body color 45 percent, trim and doors 20 percent. Booked for Monday through Thursday, with Friday the following week held as the rain date.

Monday. Wash and prep done, 20 percent complete.

Tuesday, 6:45 a.m. The crew lead reads the north and west walls: the siding surface sits 3 F above dew point after a clear, calm night, and the primer's sheet asks for 5 F. The hourly forecast shows rain from 1 p.m. The primer's rain-safe time on the sheet is several hours at mild temperature. Under sentence [2] the lead holds the day. At 6:55 the office texts the homeowner (sentence [3]), before the 7:30 arrival.

Tuesday, 9:00 a.m. The office offers Friday of next week, the booked rain date, and the homeowner takes it (sentence [5], same day). Scraped areas of bare wood on the south wall are left exposed to a wet afternoon; the crew covers the worst runs of bare sill and fascia with sheeting before leaving (sentence [6], no charge).

Wednesday. Dry and mild. Primer goes on, then the body color is started: 20 plus 15 is 35 percent complete by noon, and by end of day the crew finishes body color on the north and west walls, which the estimate counted as one third of the body-color work.

Thursday. The homeowner calls. A family matter means the house is going on the market and they want the job stopped where it is. Sentence [7] applies.

The final invoice. Prep 20 percent plus primer 15 percent is 35 percent. Body color is 45 percent of the contract, and one third of it is 15 percent of the contract. Work completed: 35 plus 15 is 50 percent of the contract price. Materials: the body color was ordered in a custom tint, so the unopened gallons cannot be returned; the shop lists them by count at cost. The trim color is a stock color the supplier will take back, so it is credited, less the supplier's restocking charge, which is passed through and itemized. The tarp and sheeting from Tuesday are not billed, because sentence [6] put them in the price.

What the clause did. Every number on that invoice traces to a sentence the homeowner signed: the hold to [1] and [2], the text to [3], the unchanged price on the completed half to [4], the billed half to [7]. Nobody had to argue whether Tuesday's sunny morning was "really" weather.

What would have changed it.

• A commercial contract with a completion date and liquidated damages. Commercial agreements usually carry a formal excusable-delay clause tied to a notice period and to weather that exceeds a stated normal for the season, and a missed notice can forfeit the extension. Sentence [3]'s "as soon as" is too loose there; the general contractor's form governs, and your attorney reads it before you sign it.
• A remobilization-heavy scope. If Tuesday had cost a crane or a rental lift day, sentence [4] as written would have left the shop absorbing it. A shop that regularly rents equipment for exterior work should carve that out in writing.
• A state with home-improvement contract rules. Several states require a home-improvement contract to state, in substance, approximate start and completion dates (California Business and Professions Code 7159 and New York General Business Law Article 36-A among them); check your own state's statute in its current text. A clause that moves dates should sit alongside the dates the statute requires, not replace them.

What goes wrong with weather clauses

These are failures of drafting and use, not of the weather:

• The clause nobody reads aloud. Buried on page three, it is news to the homeowner on the day it applies. The office mentions it in one sentence at booking: "If weather holds us, we text you that morning and the price does not change."
• Billing open-work protection after promising it. A tarp line item on a contract with sentence [6] is the fastest way to lose the argument about everything else on the invoice.
• A percentage-complete basis invented after the fact. If the estimate never broke the scope into shares, the partial bill is a negotiation. Put the shares in the estimate, as the example did.

References

• Federal Trade Commission, Rule Concerning Cooling-Off Period for Sales Made at Homes or at Certain Other Locations (16 CFR Part 429), for the federal floor on cancellation of sales made away from the seller's place of business; state versions may go further.
• Your state's home-improvement contract statute (for example California Business and Professions Code 7159, New York General Business Law Article 36-A), read in its current text with your attorney.
• See related: Weather as a Work Condition: The Rule for Every Trade
• See related: The Weather Reschedule Communication SOP
• See related: How to Build Weather Holds Into the Schedule