Stop 4 of 8 · Daily

Specification sheets

Cut sheets and test reports in, a specification sheet out in the studio format, with the substitution note written so a contractor cannot read it as an open door.

Sixty sheets, one format

A commercial tenant improvement leaves Nadine's studio with somewhere between forty and eighty specification sheets, and the plan checker, the contractor and the supplier all read them differently. The format is the studio's, it has not changed in years, and the reason it works is that every sheet answers the same questions in the same order, so a reader can find the substitution note without reading the sheet.

Typing that format from a cut sheet is the most repetitive hour in the week. It is also the hour where a transposed size or a missing standard survives into a submittal. Claude is good at the transcription and it is not allowed to be good at the judgement.

What the sheet is made of

1. Section number and title, matched to the studio's section list.
2. Basis of design: manufacturer, model, and the document the data came from.
3. Finish, colour code, size, imperial first with metric in brackets.
4. Performance data, each value with the test standard it was measured to.
5. Installation notes, including the substrate and what the trade provides.
6. The substitution note.
7. Sheet and room references from the schedule.

Numbers two through four come out of the attached documents or they do not appear. Numbers five and seven come out of the drawing set. Number six is the one Nadine writes once per product family and reuses.

[attach the cut sheet and the test report]

Write the specification sheet for this product in my Project format, in the order my instructions give. Use only the attached documents for every manufacturer, model, finish, size and performance value, and put the document name and page next to each performance value. Any field the documents do not cover is [confirm] followed by the test standard the value has to come from. Imperial first, metric in brackets. Word document.

Write the substitution note for this product. Name it as basis of design. List the three performance criteria a proposed substitution has to match, taken from the attached test report, each with its test standard and its value. State what the contractor submits, how many days before the bid closes, and that a substitution accepted without those documents is not accepted. Five sentences or fewer, no or equal.

Here are twelve specification sheets and the finish schedule. [attach them]

Tell me every disagreement between them: a product named on a sheet that is not in the schedule, a finish code that differs, a size that differs, a section number used twice, a sheet with no room reference. List each one as sheet, schedule, and what differs. Do not fix anything.

Mark stop 4 done