Building and Construction Specifications Consultants – What Do They Do?
Building & Construction Specifications Consultants, otherwise known as manufacturers representatives, work at a professional level with builders, architects, quantity surveyors, builders, engineers and the senior construction team to ensure that the materials used in any building project is of the correct specification for both the environment and the conditions that the project will be built in. The construction that these professionals work on could range from a single roomed dwelling to a multi-level development for residential or commercial uses, shopping centers, parking garages, stores, piping networks, dams and any construction project of any kind.
At the time of planning the construction engineers, architects and project managers will “spec” the project and decide on the materials to be used and this will be put out to tender to suppliers. In order for the tender to be complete a bill of materials is supplied with the specifications required for each and every item to be used in the construction. The specification will cover every single item from the simplest screw to the most sophisticated and largest components to be utilized.
The building specifications consultants and construction specifications consultants ensure that each component is able to withstand the environmental, fire and building regulations as promulgated by that state or area. In this way a project is built to the finest quality and longevity.
The building specifications consultant will draw on the manufacturers product specifications for each item plus the training that that manufacturer would have given the consultant and the product specifications literature to make the decision to supply the best possible material required that meet the specifications, as provided in the Bill of Materials for the tender process. An example of a summary of a product specification for Steel Wire for concrete would be like this: This specification covers as cold-drawn or galvanized steel wires to be used as such, or in fabricated form, for the reinforcement of concrete.The steel shall be made by one of the following processes: open-hearth,electric furnace, or basic-oxygen. The wires shall be cold drawn from rods that have been hot rolled from billets. The tests described include tension, bending, and reduction of area tests. After undergoing tension test, the tensile and yield strength properties of the test specimen shall conform to the requirements of a reference material based on nominal area of the wire. The specimen for bend test shall withstand being bent at room temperature without cracking on the outside of the bent portion. The reduction of area shall be determined as described in a reference document.
From here the product specification would go into excruciating detail as to how the material is likely to react under a wide range of circumstances. From this it can be seen that good building specifications consultants or construction specifications consultants have an extremely important and onerous task in any construction project and someone who has followed this discipline for years has a wealth of information and experience to offer every project.