Dear Friends,
I my understanding time schedule is Contractor’s means and wise. Therefore floats are allocated to the project and particulrly to the Contractor in order to adjust duties and standard methods statment of his own works.
Engineer is to approve the logic of execution as presented by the Contractor.
Contractor’s liability can be called if he didnot make a good use of his own methods.
Engineer and Employer cannot use such float against the Contractor and couldn’t take advantage from existance of floats.

Ernest J.

What about the consideration that total float only exists in Time. Once a project has been resourced (by application of prelims, supervision, plant etc) float disappears. After that point in time any change to the programme can have an effect on cost if not completion date.

Anyway you got no real work to do Richard?

Richard has basically got it right.

A contract is primarily about the apportionment of risk.

Some risks you win, some you lose and that goes for Client and Contractor - you can’t have your cake and eat it although many try.

Generally, if the risk of time is with the Contractor (as it usually is), he makes a promise to do X amount of work in Z time - if he betters it he wins, if he doesn’t he loses.

He doesn’t promise (normally) to do X + Y amount of work in Z time - and can he if at the time of contract he doesn’t know what the Y amount of work is.

But if, as is often the case, he ends up doing X + Y amount of work and if the Y amount of work can be accomodated within the time Z, he doesn’t get any extra time related costs. ie the Employer gets the benefit of any float. Only if this extra work causes a delay to the completion date, (ie affects critical activities) does the Contractor get any more time related money and an EoT. (He may get disruption costs but that’s a completely different subject)

In the case where the Contractor decides he can finish a 40wk job in 36wks but does not make this known to the Employer and the contract period remains at 40wks, then if he takes 40wks due to additional work - tough, he doesn’t get an EoT but he may get prolongation costs for being on site longer. These would be very difficult to prove however if he’d kept his intention to finish early from the Employer and showed his original construction period as the 40wk contract period. Again, it comes down to commercial risk and how the parties play it.

If the Contractor makes it known to the Employer and the Employer signs up to the shorter period then the Contractor will get an EoT or prolongation costs depending on the circumstances.

Under the NEC contract as long as the Contractor showed the shorter time on the Accepted programme as terminal float the contract expressly protects this. Most other forms unfortunately don’t say anything and so, as usual, it comes down to the wording and intention of the parties at the time of executing the contract. (I wish I got a £1 for every time I write that last sentence as I’d be retired by now!!!)

Hi Richard,

I hope my queries had provoted further questions & imagination. As stated, this is healthy.

If nothing else, it had already started you down the path in answering/arguing your point interesting...ly.

"If you get a quotation...", If I asked for a quotation, then it is for a specific scope of work but lucky, I did not ask for a quote & justed stated that I engaged a guy to paint my fence at £100/day. Wow!! that was close..

In view of this thread, which is on "FLOAT" I guess it is a contracting issue.

Yes, it is correct that when I paid on a daywork basis & my budget is £500, then as long as I used up MY BUDGET, then it is okay. If I did not specify what hours he had to work and generally agreed that I will open the side gate at 9:00am and lock the gate at 5:00pm and the agreed period is 5 days at £100/day, then I could ask that after he finish the fence , he start on the shed.
If he turn up at 7:00am and continue until 9:00pm after the gate is locked at 5:00pm, then is is his choice to work longer at his own cost. As far as I am concern, I paid £100/day for 5 days within the 8hours day. He could complete the fence & paint hald the shed & disappear on after the 5th days.

CLIENT & FLOAT
In a Contracting senarior, the price & programme are agreed on a specified scope of work.

If the scope of work varied, not totally change and it is obvious that the original programme have sufficient float built in, should the client pay again for the time in this float that he had already paid for(Preliminary items eg the site manager or the foreman)?

The client is going to pay for the varied work as per valuation. What I am confuse or difficult to grass is why the preliminary cost within the period of "Float" which he had already paid does not belong to him.

Hope my argument make sense!!!

Hi,

I am no programmer but I was comtemplating regarding this issue.

In a progract, say 40weeks duration.
In the preliminaries section of the BoQ, the contractor priced all the preliminaries on the project based the the 40 weeks duration, say the team of staffs also at 40weeks and it is £xxxx per week.

If the client already paid for the whole duration of the project, shouldn’t the client own the float too?

Why 1st come 1st serve?

From a payment point of view, the client agreed to pay for the whole duration so he owns the float??

Thanks

As far as i know, There are two concepts regarding the float ownership:

1. First come - First serve
2. Distributed Float

1. First Come - First Serve:
Whoever uses the float first he owns it.

2. Distributed Float:
The total float of a path is distributed over the different parties, using the formula
Total activity duration / Total Path Duration * Total Float of that path.

It depends on your contract, which concept you will be using to allocate the float ownership.

Moe

A tricky question much discussed on here. There’s very few standard form contracts that deal directly with the issue. The NEC says the Contractor owns any terminal float.

My personal thoughts are that the project generally owns the float and who ever needs it uses it - but, if in using it the party causes the other party loss and expense then the party suffering the loss should be compensated.

Since that you’ve prepared the schedule and that the consultant reviewed/approved this schedule, then it’s your responsibility.

Regards.