Specifications

Introduction

Writing specifications should be simple; and so should the specifications themselves. That is to say, specifications should:

• be written in simple language as far as possible;
• be brief and to the point; and
• give clear instructions (possibly with a set of drawings to help) so that there is no doubt about what should be priced and what needs doing.

Unfortunately this is often not the way of things.

Mind your language

Normally sane individuals with a reasonable command of the Queen’s English seemed to feel a sudden compulsion to adopt legalese or embellish the specification. A document with 500 clauses all starting ‘the contractor should allow for’ is likely to be just a little tedious to the poor estimator on its third reading.

So think before you write: write more or less as if you were speaking an instruction to the contractor, and adopt a logical progression to the specification – which might mean specifying by trade to help with pricing up on a large job, or room-by-room for smaller projects, or simply following the format of a Schedule of Dilapidations.

'System' specifications

Probably the most widely used system is that produced by the National Building Specification (NBS), a company that is part of RIBA Enterprises Ltd, and owned by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Originally, the NBS published a technical handbook, index of suppliers and products, and a book of standardised specification clauses and guidance which could be incorporated into a specification using pads of pre-drafted outline clauses for projects, to be completed by the typist from a marked-up draft copy. Now this has been digitised and a software version enables you to prepare and adapt drafts much more easily.

The specification formats are divided into 3 main categories, which effectively mirror the expected level of complexity and the JCT Contract forms (see Building contracts and tenders).

The specification provisions are broken down by trade specialism to assist the estimator in pricing.

The NBS format offers some useful features.

• It creates a checklist for the specifier and helps ensure nothing is forgotten.
• It conveniently groups operations by trade function.
• It saves time because it provides a convenient form of words to cover preliminaries (CDM, health and safety issues, and so on).

However, there is a tendency for some users to become bored with reading and choosing from among the large number of clauses; instead it's tempting to include everything in the specification from the software draft, whether appropriate or not. This not only defeats the object of the specification exercise but you end up with an overwhelmingly long and tedious document, out of all proportion with the size of job.

On small projects, it is far better to draft a simple, though perhaps less impressive, document which actually answers the needs of the brief (perhaps using the standard clauses for inspiration only).