Site Inspection, just what does it mean ?

A lot of industry standard contracts such as the Australian Standards suite here in Australia have a site inspection provision embedded in the ground or latent conditions clause which may read as follows:

Latent conditions are physical conditions on the site and its near surrounds, including artificial things but excluding weather conditions, which differ materially from the physical conditions which should reasonably have been anticipated by a competent Contractor at the time of the Contractor’s tender if………………… the Contractor had inspected the site and its near surrounds.

The FIDIC 2017 has more extensive wording under Clause 4.10 Use of Site Data as follows :

To the extent which was practicable (taking account of cost and time), the Contractor shall be deemed to have obtained all necessary information as to risks, contingencies and other circumstances which may influence or affect the Tender or Works.

To the same extent, the Contractor shall be deemed to have inspected and examined the Site, access to the Site, its surroundings, the above data and other available information, and to have been satisfied before submitting the Tender as to all matters relevant to the execution of the Works.

In NEC4 Clause 60.2 it states the Contractor is deemed to have taken into account information obtainable from a visual inspection of the Site.

?So a visual site inspection is a key requirement under all standard industry contracts.

In the FAR Contracts in the USA it states Site Visit (Apr 1984)

Offerors or quoters are urged and expected to inspect the site where services are to be performed and to satisfy themselves regarding all general and local conditions that may affect the cost of contract performance, to the extent that the information is reasonably obtainable. In no event shall failure to inspect the site constitute grounds for a claim after contract award.

So you can see that a site inspection is crucial.

It is well worth any tenderer fully documenting any site visit during the tender period. So photograph and document what you see and take samples if you can.

Coming from a dredging contracting background it was always felt that a visual site inspection of a to be dredged area which is underwater is effectively meaningless & useless (what can be seen?) however the contractor that does not undertake a site investigation of the Site and its surroundings runs a real risk of missing an essential feature which may arise during the execution of the project.

I was involved in a new port development in India some years ago. The project had differing scope such as channel dredging, land reclamation, quarrying for armour rock and marine drilling and blasting of a underwater rock pinnacle. Each of these scopes was the subject of a ground conditions claim.

When I visited the site as part of the drilling and blasting claim preparation I retraced the steps taken by the person who had undertaken the land based site inspection. However it was clear there were a number of differences from his report as the later site inspection highlighted road cuttings and the quarry face which were not present during the original site inspection.

Photos from my report are included in this article.

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The coastal rock exposure at the top of this article is an interesting one as it shows two features of one of the claims most notably a dark dolerite sill and a massive perched boulder. Both these features were encountered during the drilling and blasting.

The thing to be remembered is the underwater rock pinnacle is a drowned geological feature. Present sea levels are many tens of metres higher than thousands of years ago so when looking at a present coastal feature it is not unreasonable to extrapolate what you are seeing visually to an underwater perspective.

Needless to say the Contractor did not get too far with his drilling and blasting claim as it was patently obvious that a site inspection revealed virtually identical conditions.

So the takeaway is document your visual inspection of the Site as it may come in handy down the track.