It’s time to redo a condominium corporation’s building envelope. Let me guess: the selected contractor was chosen based on its response to a 180-page tender document that outlined insurance/bonding requirements, terms and conditions reviewed by the corporation’s lawyer, supplementary conditions also reviewed, a detailed scope, drawings, deadlines for submittals, and several sections of pricing to be filled out.

Further, that contractor competed with four or five other contractors, all of them looking at the same tender package. A job showing was done, questions were asked, answered, and shared, and a deadline to submit tenders was observed. The corporation’s engineer evaluated all tenders for compliance and made a recommendation letter to management and the board. Maybe, before hiring the contractor, a further interview was held to go through the tender they returned, just to be extra careful that everyone was on the same page before entering into a multi-million-dollar agreement.

Meanwhile, here’s how the corporation’s consulting engineer was hired by e-mail before planning for this huge project began: “Hello, please send me a proposal to review and replace the siding. Thanks.”

That’s it.

Why do condominium corporations go through all those steps when hiring a contractor? There are a number of very good reasons. The process encourages competitive but responsible pricing, protects both parties from liability, encourages a meeting of the minds regarding expectations and deliverables, runs a fair process for bidders, and avoids a lot of time-wasting.

Why don’t condominium corporations go through some similar, if less intensive, process when hiring an engineer?

They just don’t. In my experience, it’s often just a habit carried forward by momentum and a lack of a template. It’s a blind spot.

There is no sensible reason to avoid engaging engineers in the same spirit as the process for engaging a contractor. Even if you only intend to hire your corporation’s long-standing, trusted engineer without a competitive process — a practice that can have merit — you should still do so with a request for proposals package of some kind.

The feedback I’ve received from engineers receiving RFPs is that it makes their lives easier. It gives them confidence that they’ll be quoting on the same scope as their competitors, instead of guessing how many site visits should be included or how much costing and feasibility precision they need.

I recently had a client who collected engineering proposals informally over time, without an RFP process. The work required was underdefined and resulted in the return of proposals ranging in value from $3,000 to $14,000. At that point, the board is not comparing engineering fees. It is comparing different assumptions. Each proposal was for a condition assessment of the building cladding. It’s easy to think a few engineering firms were taking loss leaders — intentionally bidding low to try to get into the property — but how would one know that? The opportunity for interpretation was too wide.

What the engineers received was a request for a cladding assessment. What the condominium corporation really needed was a building envelope assessment that would investigate the condition of the cladding, the integrity and continuity of the weather barrier, the tie-in of the windows to that barrier, the existing types of cladding and transition details (including which details were failing and in what conditions), the condition of the attics and soffits, the condition of the in-unit vapour barrier, and possible cladding replacement materials and required remedial work. That document would then support a pre-design document that would produce a Class C, for example, project estimate for planning purposes.

Further, an RFP can help protect both sides of the engagement. An RFP can remind the engineer of PEO guidelines and communicate whether the condominium corporation is willing to accept a limitation of liability. These clarifications will be important should something go wrong. The RFP also helps the engineer avoid scope creep and arguments over deliverables. The engineer will know what questions the board of directors needs answered.

You might wonder: Is this whole exercise paradoxical? Do we need an engineer to write an RFP to our engineer?

Well, you could do that, but I don’t think it’s necessary. This is where condominium managers play a vital role. Experienced managers know what kinds of questions to ask based on training and experience. The RFP doesn’t have to answer questions; it’s really an exercise in posing questions to obtain information sufficient for planning purposes and to give consulting engineers enough detail to provide a useful conforming proposal.

In the building envelope example above, the manager doesn’t need to know the details of how to keep water from coming into the building. The manager only needs to know that water often comes in at holes, such as windows, and any spot that isn’t continuous, such as transitions between materials. While this knowledge might be gained through hard-won experience, templates can also be developed in management firms to cover different types of recurring jobs.

Hiring an engineer is not exempt from the ordinary pitfalls of hiring anyone else to perform important work. Don’t assume your engineer will know what you want. If an RFP is not done, the resulting proposal may be too narrow, too vague, too cheap, too expensive, or simply answer a different question than the one the condominium corporation actually needs answered. That does not mean the process needs to become bloated or bureaucratic. It means condominium managers can provide real value by helping their clients develop a fair and reasonably comprehensive RFP process—one that respects the engineer’s expertise, protects the corporation’s interests, produces comparable proposals, and gives the board a better chance of making a decision based on substance rather than guesswork.<

Gerry Bourdeau, BSc, MBA, LLB (Hon), LLM, RCM is an Ontario Licensed Condominium Manager General Licensee. He owns and operates Bourdeau & Company, a condominium management and consulting company in Ontario.

www.bourdeauandcompany.com

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