Thanks again for your edition of the QS News which I read with great interest and often amusement – particularly the letters. The great debate on how to ‘measure’ a hip rafter was definitely one which rustled a few feathers in that very diverse profession of a ‘professional quantity surveyor’. From a contractor’s surveyor point view, I read this with a smile in that firstly: a) they have time to debate such an issue and, b) is measurement their only cause for concern?

As contractor’s surveyors we receive little recognition within the surveying profession yet we are the very surveyors who often have to manage the professional QS’s basic lack of skills. As the speed of projects from inception to completion spirals endlessly upwards we often tender and contract on drawings and specifications. Often a BQ is included but the old get of jail card ‘fixed price based on drawings and specifications’ usually is printed somewhere (discretely) in the invitation to tender documents.

So why worry about measuring ‘hip rafters’. Just give us a drawing and specification and let us measure and price. Simple you would think, but when the contractor’s price is at a distinct variance with the professional QS measured value we are often hailed as being ‘Robin Hood’ for being too expensive, or ‘non compliant’ for being too low. The term ‘reality’ is what we contracting surveyors like to label this conundrum as.

So spare a thought for the contractor’s surveyor, the one who manages the QS’s lack of skills, the many sub-contractors we employ and manage where we often have to measure and bill their scope of works due to lack of, or incoherent original QS information, and the company accountant who can’t understand why we are not negotiating better with the QS in reaching settlements. We wonder why, but reality bites I suppose!

Source

QS News

Postscript

David Turtle, quantity surveyor