What a specification document contains

The parts of a clause

Reference

The observation number the clause answers. A clause with no reference is an opinion, and is not issued.

Instruction

What is to be done, written so that it could be priced by somebody who has not seen the property.

Extent

The area, the length or the count the instruction applies to, taken from the survey rather than estimated.

Standard

The condition the element is to be left in, described rather than named, so it can be checked on completion.

Access

What has to be standing, closed, drained or moved for the work to be carried out.

Evidence

What is to be recorded while the work is open, and handed back at the end.

Six parts is the whole of it. A clause that needs a seventh is usually two clauses that have been written as one, and splitting them is the easier repair.

The sequence the clauses are written in

Clauses are issued in the order the work has to be done rather than in the order the defects were found, and the two orders are rarely the same. A joint high on a wall is observed late in a survey and repaired early in a programme, because the scaffold that reaches it is also the scaffold that reaches everything below.

The sequence is written as a plain numbered run with the access requirement attached to each step, so that the point at which a tide, a road closure or a dry spell is needed is visible before anybody prices it. Where two steps can be run in either order, the specification says so rather than implying a dependency that does not exist.

On a coastal frontage the sequence usually has one hinge: the step that can only be done at low water in settled weather. Everything else is arranged around it, and that step is named at the head of the sequence rather than left to be discovered in the middle.

How a change is recorded once work has started

Fabric opened up is fabric newly observed, and a specification written before it was opened cannot have anticipated everything behind it. A variation is therefore recorded in the same form as the original clause, with a new observation number of its own, the date it was raised and the condition that produced it.

That keeps the whole document readable as one sequence afterwards. An owner reading it a year later can see which instructions were written from the survey and which were written from what appeared once the work was under way, without having to reconcile two documents that disagree.

The drawing register is revised at the same time. A drawing superseded by a variation keeps its number and gains a revision letter, and the superseded sheet stays in the register rather than being removed from it.