Professional and Career Topics

General Notes are not only an important piece of the contract documents, but of any submittal.  General Notes can cover the basics, such as defining the governing code or very specific installation procedures.  With the boilerplate format of notes, number of different projects, and breadth of content, it's easy to overlook important and relevant notes.  What are some tips for ensuring important notes are read and understood?  How should general notes be formatted in a way that highlights important information, but retains common standards?

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Chad Morrison P.E., F.ASCE
Professional Engineer
Greenville RI
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Hi,
Based on my 13+ of experience in consulting services, I understand that the general notes are created by the local building code/dept code/developed form. Everything is available in the code; the major drawback is finding out from the code quickly. You can check energy-building websites for any quick tools to get the desired items and solutions. 

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Md. Khairul Islam Sohag, SE, M/ASCE
Professional Structural Engineer
Dhaka, Bangladesh. 

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Mohammad Sohag S.E., M.ASCE
CEO & Structural Engineer
Structural Design & Engineering Assessment
Dhaka
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When you write general notes you need to consider how the notes relate to the rest of the contract documents and consider the following fact: general notes can overrule the carefully crafted details you have work on.
In our office we have the following rules
The engineer who authenticates (seals) the drawings, reviews the drawings, then writes the contract specifications for our portion of work and after writes the general notes to coordinate all the parts of the documents.  It is best if the engineer has training in the writing style for contract specifications.   
This approach has us well especially if there are any contract disputes. 

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David Thompson P.E., M.ASCE
Principal
KTA Structural Engineers Ltd.
Calgary AB
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