Preconstruction
Five Ways a Florida Site Loses Two Months
Nearly always in the first third of the job, and nearly always in the ground. All five are visible in preconstruction if anyone looks.
Send the geotechnical report and the site plan. You get a written read on the water, the excavation and the risk.
The five
None of these is exotic. They are the ordinary ways Florida ground takes time out of a program, and every one of them is cheaper to find on paper.
- The discharge permit for dewatering, started late and taking longer than anyone allowed.
- A refusal layer nobody checked, discovered when the driving rig is already mobilized.
- Organics found at excavation, turning a slab into a piling package mid-job.
- Adjacent structure movement triggering a stop while the response is argued out.
- Dewatering priced as a line item rather than programmed as the critical path.
What preconstruction is actually for
Not to produce a nicer number. To find the five items above while they are still a document review rather than a mobilized crew standing still.
A geotechnical review, a permit path for the discharge, a pre-condition survey and agreed monitoring thresholds cost very little against a two-month delay, and they are the four things most often skipped when a schedule is already tight.
The uncomfortable one
The most expensive version of all of this is a fixed price accepted without borings, because the risk does not disappear — it just moves to whoever accepted the number, and then arrives as a change order everyone is angry about.
We would rather delay an estimate for a week than issue one built on a guess. That is occasionally unpopular in preconstruction and it is never unpopular later.
FAQ
Common questions
- How early should dewatering be planned?
- At design. The discharge permit alone can be the longest lead item on the package.
- Can preconstruction really prevent this?
- It prevents the surprise, which is what costs the time. The condition is what it is either way.
- What does a pre-condition survey cost?
- Very little against the disputes it settles. It is one of the best-value items on the job.
- Who should hold the ground risk?
- Whoever can actually investigate and manage it. Pushing it to the party with the least information is how change orders are made.
Next step
Find out what is actually wrong with it.
An inspection, photographs of what we found, and a written scope. If the honest answer is that it can wait another season, that is the answer you will get.