ᐅ If you ask the homeowners, you will get an answer.

Silent010 schrieb:
Yes, but that includes a year of planning.

[...]

An example: Our HVAC technician later chiseled a passage through the wall plaster for the underfloor heating pipes. In the process, he hit an electrical cable. If he had just called briefly to ask, I could have immediately told him where the cables run at that spot, but instead, he just started chiseling.

Basically, I completely agree with you that when in doubt or lacking information, it’s better to ask. There is currently another thread about a similar situation—a missing specification regarding the depth of the window sill. So something was installed without consulting the customer or builder, and now it looks bad and the customer isn’t happy. A two-minute phone call would have certainly saved a lot of cost and trouble.

I have some difficulty with your example because the routing of fundamental installations should actually be part of the execution planning. I would wonder what you planned for a whole year if you didn’t consider beforehand where the supply ducts (WD), drain ducts (DD), and floor ducts (BD) should be located. In some cases, the structural shell builders and structural engineers also need this information for the ceiling elements and reinforcement design. In this specific case, the planning was rather sloppy… and the craftsman on-site must be able to rely on something; otherwise, it’s exactly as @ypg says. Then you would have to consult before every tool is used. At that point, one might as well question the purpose of execution planning at all…

What bothers me more is the thoughtlessness or careless attitude toward other trades. For example, the screed was poured in the morning, and in the evening I went back to the site for inspection and saw fresh footprints in the screed. It turned out the drywall installer forgot to take a measurement that could have waited at that time. But no, whatever, it’s not their trade. And I am not as relaxed about that and don’t just see the result as the only thing that counts. The process is important to me as well, and I want to understand why a tradesperson thinks they have to do it differently or “better” than the plan states. If nothing is specified or it can’t be done as planned → call the site management (architect, client… whoever is responsible—ours is the architect), explain the problem, suggest possible solutions, briefly explain their pros and cons, let the site management decide, and then implement it accordingly. Anything else is questionable to me.

We built with a general contractor, but of course there were subcontractors involved. Overall, it went very well. The trades worked together on an equal footing.

I would recommend everyone to visit the construction site once in the morning and talk to the people on site. It also helped me that during the first interior finishing phase, I spent two weeks helping to lay cables. By the way, anyone can do this, and it saves a lot of labor time. It naturally improved communication as well. Every evening, I reviewed what had happened during the day. Balancing this with my regular job was not easy.

I always wrote my mobile number in large letters on the wall: "Homeowner: 0123 4567 Call me! 🙂" It was mostly the younger workers who actually called or sent a message. But some of the more experienced ones also noticed it.

Also, respect and communication on equal terms are essential. So, using first names from the start. Work pants are more useful than a suit and tie. Anyone who expects tradespeople to be incompetent will probably get exactly that in return.

I believe the construction industry needs a change in mindset. You can’t plan everything in advance. In business, more and more companies are moving away from waterfall planning—with long planning phases, execution times, and final acceptance—only to realize six months later that they wanted something completely different. Instead, more agile methods are being used, where requirements are developed together on short notice and the results are reviewed together shortly after. This allows for much faster and better responses to problems and changing requirements.

We also selected finishes before each trade began work. I wouldn’t have been able to choose my tiles just by looking at the plans. It was great to do this in the almost finished house.

ruppsn schrieb:
What annoys me more is the carelessness and indifferent attitude towards other trades.

I can relate to that. Often, problems were just passed on to the next trade. I think this was even more the case for us because we hired the companies entirely separately, so they weren't coordinated under one main contractor.

Maybe it sounds more chaotic than it was, but in our project, not every cable and wall opening was planned from the very beginning. During construction, we also took inspiration from good ideas, sometimes recommended by the tradespeople.

When facing a problem and more than one solution is possible, I expect, as the client (and payer), to be consulted.

DNL schrieb:
I always wrote my mobile number huge on the wall: "Client: 0123 4567 Call me! 🙂

Great idea.

DNL schrieb:
I believe there needs to be a shift in mindset in construction. Not everything can be fully planned in advance. In business, many areas are moving away from waterfall planning with very long planning and execution phases, ending with acceptance, only to find half a year later that things should have been done quite differently. Instead, the trend is toward more agile methods, where requirements are developed together on short notice and the work results are reviewed collaboratively shortly afterward.

Oh dear, as a big fan of agile methods, I can only shake my head here. The methodology must fit the problem and its type. One of the reasons people expect a lot from agile methods is that we increasingly operate in rapidly changing markets, requiring quick adaptation to changes in direction. Disruptive processes no longer allow market trends to be predicted early on through analytics and for preparations to be made accordingly. According to the Cynefin framework, cause-and-effect relationships are not “simple” or “complicated,” but rather “complex” or even “chaotic.” Agile approaches promise faster responsiveness for these types of problems.
In my opinion, a PDCA approach—which underlies many agile methods—is counterproductive on a construction site and tends to prolong projects and increase costs. On one hand, you have lead times and setup times (for example, precast concrete manufacturers currently cannot deliver your ceiling elements just-in-time but require four to six weeks’ lead time). On the other hand, housebuilding is neither complex nor chaotic as per the Cynefin classification. Instead, the cause-and-effect relationships are well understood; at best, the problem type is “simple” or “complicated.” Proven approaches (best and good practices) work very well here.
Additionally, caution is necessary when transferring methodologies from the development of intangible products to the world of tangible products—due to supply chains or simply because virtual things can often be more easily modified afterward than physical ones. In my view, the greatest need for agility is not a specific methodology but internalizing the values and mindset that form its basis: showing flexibility (not saying “no, can’t do that, it’s not in the plan” whenever there’s a change), transparency (making the consequences of changes understandable, clarifying what the actual goal is—for example, no HVAC installer is passionate about a 50cm x 10cm (20 inches x 4 inches) wall opening in a specific place, but wants to lay the underfloor heating to the manifold via the shortest route), continuously questioning one’s own working methods to improve, and, last but not least, interacting with each other on equal footing.
And you can promote this attitude very well even with the waterfall model; you don’t need Scrum, Kanban, or whatever. There’s nothing wrong with waterfall if it fits the problem. In an emergency room, for example, I wouldn’t want to see Scrum. And a screwdriver is still the best tool for driving screws into a wall; sure, you can also set nails with it, but there are better tools for that. Sorry, this turned out to be a bit off-topic [emoji51]
Aside from that, I fully agree—especially regarding working on equal footing. My impression is that there’s quite a bit of catching up to do on construction sites. And not only on site but also earlier in the process, between clients and architects/general contractors/builders—whoever. Basically, I consider respectful interaction essential, and nothing else is meeting on equal terms. Unfortunately, in many areas I get the impression that development is heading in the wrong direction.

Silent010 schrieb:
Maybe it sounds more chaotic than it actually was, but for us, not every cable and opening was planned from the start. We also got inspired by good ideas during the construction phase, sometimes based on recommendations from craftsmen.

I completely agree with what you wrote (the entire post). However, I’m a bit skeptical when it comes to openings, because ceiling penetrations have structural importance and you can’t just say: “Oops, there’s no opening here, I’ll quickly use the hammer drill.” Even with simple recessed spotlights, you can’t just say, “I’ll see how the rooms look first and then drill the holes.” The concrete contractor and structural engineer want to know in advance where the ceiling structure will be weakened. Adding a light switch here or an extra outlet there is usually no problem with conventional wiring, but suddenly adding another heating circuit can be tricky if the penetrations don’t fit. Not to mention that this would also affect heating load and the overall energy balance. In other words: local changes later on are rarely problematic; global changes are usually problematic and/or expensive – and should therefore be addressed accordingly during the execution planning. [emoji4]

ruppsn schrieb:
I am only cautious when it comes to openings, as ceiling penetrations have structural significance

You are absolutely right, of course. However, in this case it was just a 20x4cm (8x1.6 inches) slot cut into the floor, because we—or rather the heating installer—shortened the route of the underfloor heating pipes from the manifold. Structurally, everything is according to plan :-)