Specification quality check · Worked example
This is the published NBS sample specification for the Lakeside Restaurant, issued by the NBS Technical Solutions team and prepared by NBS Schumann, their professional specification-writing service. We ran both published editions, CAWS and Uniclass 2015, through Avoice QC, unmodified. Below is a selection of what came back.
From the cover of the analysed document, as issued: “Prepared by: NBS Schumann · Building design: HOK.” Downloaded unmodified from thenbs.com/downloads/nbs-chorus/sample-specification.
Nine of the findings, shown against the issued pages. Avoice QC boxes the offending line on each excerpt.
The named facade panels are Class B. The same section requires infill panels at A2-s1,d0 and the walling to be non-combustible. The product physically cannot comply.
A fire conflict at contractual status. Post-Grenfell, that’s not a snag. It’s professional accountability, with your name on it.
The same window is specified to non-fire-rated standards in item 3, and required to achieve E30 / I30 in item 12. Mutually exclusive certification regimes.
If the fire rating goes missing, the document says it was your call.
The clause describes a buffered stainless door stop. The product reference is a robe hook. Prescriptive section, so it is procured exactly as written.
The contractor bills the variation. And remembers who drafted it.
Both signage clauses, including the statutory “Fire door keep shut” discs, reference an air transfer grille. A different product category entirely.
Building control flags it at handover. The trail ends at your spec.
35 g/cm³ is 35,000 kg/m³, four times the density of steel. And 0.22 W/m·K is 10× too high for phenolic board (0.019 elsewhere in this document).
When the U-value fails, the calc trail leads back to your clause.
The product reference names the 40 mm board; the thickness attribute demands 120 mm. Cavity width, wall ties and U-value all hang on which governs.
The RFI, the delay, the re-pricing. All argued at your expense.
The product option says “No handrail.” The same clause specifies grade 316L stainless handrails, plus an aluminium top rail. Three answers to one question.
The fabricator prices the cheap reading. You fund the difference.
Description: rectangular. Size: 380 mm diameter, which is a round basin. One product reference, two geometries.
A remade worktop, invoiced to the design team.
Leaf and frame are carbon steel, but the clause cites BS 4873, the aluminium doorset standard, copied over from the clause above.
No certificate at handover. And it’s your clause that caused it.
Solid grade laminate worktop required to achieve Class A2-s1,d0 and EI 60. Performance the material can’t reach.
Mineral wool insulation cited to BS EN 13167, the cellular glass standard. (13162 is used correctly elsewhere.)
Euro cylinder referenced as the 45 mm product. Specified size: 60 mm. Two different products.
Grout described as “rapid setting”. The named product is a Standard Set grout.
Seam layout clauses for roll materials, applied to 457 mm tiles and planks. Inapplicable as written.
Contractual clause issued with an unresolved placeholder: “Submit representative samples of the following: ……….”
NBS publishes the same Lakeside Restaurant specification in Uniclass 2015. Run through the same check: 36 open issues, including the same critical facade fire conflict and plenty of its own.
The same conflict as the CAWS edition, restated in Uniclass: surfaces accepted at Class B-s2,d2, the system required to be non-combustible, and the specified units still Kalwall FRP composite panels. The three statements cannot all be met.
A fire conflict at contractual status. Post-Grenfell, that’s not a snag. It’s professional accountability, with your name on it.
The system demands E30 / I30 fire resistance and Class A1 reaction. Its only specified window product is expressly non-fire-rated, powder-coated aluminium.
If the fire rating goes missing, the document says it was your call.
A restaurant kitchen furniture system retains a clause headed “Classroom Storage”, and the product is a “Bespoke Sink Resource Area”. Education-catalogue terminology, carried over from a schools template into a contractual issue.
Boilerplate ships to tender. Everyone reads it but you.
The specified screed is a premium ultra-rapid product: coverings after 2 days, fully dry in 48 hours. The same system mandates a seven-day cure under polyethylene sheeting.
The contractor picks whichever reading suits the claim. You arbitrate it.
The system description requires non-gypsum boards. Its mandated execution clauses are written for plasterboard, down to protecting the “paper or gypsum core.”
Wrong boards, installed to your instructions.
An HDI aluminium picket balustrade is specified around the external decking. The decking kit itself includes a timber balustrade and gate. Two balustrade systems for the same deck, with no split stated between them.
Both get priced. The clash gets resolved at your cost.
“Jackson Fencing” and “Jacksons Fencing”. One decking kit, two manufacturers named.
Block compressive strength “Category: M4”, a mortar class, not a valid BS EN 771-3 category.
Reaction-to-fire class cited to BS EN 13501-2, the fire-resistance standard. (13501-1 used correctly elsewhere.)
FD60 hygienic doorset: product reference says GRP frame, materials clause says grade 304 stainless. On a fire-tested assembly.
Curtain wall watertightness “Class 9A” cited against BS EN 12154. A window classification, cited against the curtain-walling standard.
Green-roof membrane: “vapour resistance… 1200 g/m²·d”. A transmission rate labelled as a resistance. Technically meaningless as drafted.
Every specification passes through a chain of human hands before it reaches tender. Each handoff is a chance for an error to enter, and no step re-reads the whole document.
Every other tool already made this move.
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