Record the ordinary days too
Your ordinary days show what normal output looks like, and without them you cannot show what the disruption cost. A diary that only speaks when something goes wrong looks as if it was kept for the claim, and your main contractor will say so.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
Why it matters
A disruption claim is a comparison: what the gang did on a normal day against what it did on a disrupted one. If the diary only records the bad days, there is no normal day to compare against. The ordinary entries show output when nothing went wrong, so the shortfall in the bad weeks can be measured, not just claimed. They also show the diary was a routine, kept whether or not anything happened. That is what makes the disrupted entries believable.
How to do it
- Set a short template for every day: weather, labour by trade, plant on site, areas worked, output, visitors and instructions.
- Fill it in every working day, quiet ones included, and write normal output rather than leaving the line blank.
- Record output in the claim's units, such as metres, square metres, fixings or pours, so good weeks can be set against bad ones.
- Keep ordinary and disrupted entries in the same diary and the same format, so nothing looks added later.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A drylining subcontractor's gang of six should fix 400 square metres of board a week. For 4 weeks other trades are working in the same rooms, and output falls. The subcontractor wants to claim the lost productivity.
What happens
- The diary shows the 8 ordinary weeks before at 380 to 420 square metres, with the gang size and areas.
- The 4 disrupted weeks show 220 to 260 square metres with the same gang, and name the trades in the way each day.
- The commercial manager values the shortfall: 640 square metres lost over 4 weeks, at £15 a square metre for labour.
Output, ordinary weeks against disrupted weeks
| Period | Square metres a week |
|---|---|
| Ordinary weeks, average | 400 |
| Disrupted weeks, average | 240 |
| Shortfall a week | 160 |
The outcome
The £9,600 claim is backed by 12 weeks of comparable entries and settles at £8,500. Without the ordinary weeks there would have been no baseline, and no loss anyone could measure.
To have this set up for you, see our Delay & Disruption Loss Prevention service.