Principles to determine the impact of weather delays on construction projects
Prepared by the Schedule Delay Analysis Standard Committee of the Construction Institute of ASCE, The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Schedule Delay Analysis, Standard ANSI/ASCE/CI 67-17 (ISBN (print): 9780784414361; ISBN (PDF): 9780784480861) “…presents guiding principles that can be used on construction projects to determine the impact of delays.”
Schedule Delay Analysis uses ambiguous language about weather
Weather is one of the top three reasons for missed milestones and schedule delays in the construction industry and built environment, with negative impacts costing billions of dollars each year in the US to contractors, owners and operators. However, Schedule Delay Analysis uses ambiguous language about weather events and the subsequent impact of weather delays.
In Chapter 9, Responsbility for Delay, 9.1 A SCHEDULE EXPERT TYPICALLY CAN IDENTIFY THE PARTY RESPONSIBLE FOR A DELAY FROM THE CONTEMPORANEOUS RECORDS, INTERVIEWING PROJECT PERSONNEL, AND READING DEPOSITION TESTIMONY, AND MAY RELY ON TECHNICAL EXPERTS OR FACT WITNESSES IN OPINING ON LIABILITY states:
Responsibility for delay can be classified as:
- Owner-caused,
- Contractor-caused, or
- Beyond the control of the parties involved (i.e., third-party-caused).
There are also delays beyond the control of the parties. Examples include unusually severe weather and force majeure events. The excusability and compensability of these issues may depend on the contract. Ordinary weather is typically the responsibility of the contractor, and adverse weather must be unusually severe to warrant a time extension as outside the control of either party.
Differentiating ordinary weather, adverse weather and unusually severe weather
However, Schedule Delay Analysis, Standard ANSI/ASCE/CI 67-17 offers no definition of the keystone terms ordinary weather, adverse weather and unusually severe weather, and that the issues may or may not depend on the form of agreement between owner and contractor. Further, “…adverse weather must be unusually severe…” but how do the owner and contractor differentiate between “severe” adverse weather and “unusually severe” adverse weather, in the event of a delay.
More in the next blog post about schedule delay analysis, weather delays, weather planning, Weather Controls®, and weather risk management…
(Source: “Schedule Delay Analysis.” Schedule Delay Analysis | Standards, American Society of Civil Engineers, ascelibrary.org/doi/book/10.1061/9780784414361.)
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