New 3-Part Section Format Published

A new 2008 edition of CSI/CSC’s SectionFormat™—the document that defines the recommended arrangement of topics in specification sections (the “Three-Part Format”)—has been published and is for sale at www.csinet.org for $60 ($75 for non-members). If that price seems a little steep, just keep reading to see how BSD is going to be revising SpecLink sections in the light of this new standard. There is also a diagram of the Parts and Articles (levels 1 and 2), before and after, as implemented by SpecLink.

SpecLink Section Template Revised: The easiest way to get a feel for the SectionFormat changes is to review SpecLink’s 3-Part Section Template, which has been revised this quarter to refl ect the changes recommended in the new edition. This template section is what is used to populate a new User Section when “Add New Section” is used and is located at the bottom of the folder tree (Section 99 9999 / 99999). Here is a brief description of the changes, which fall into several major categories:

1. Article title name changes:

• Related Sections: to Related Requirements.
• References: to Referenced Standards.
• Environmental Requirements: to Field Conditions.
• Systems Startup: to System Startup.
• Schedules: to Attachments.

2. Relocation of topics within PART 1:
A new article Price and Payment Procedures, corresponding to Section 01 2000 in Masterformat 2004, now houses Alternates, Unit Prices, Allowances, and measurement and payment for these.

A new article Administrative Requirements now houses project coordination, pre-installation meetings, sequencing, and scheduling. Some of these topics appear in Project Conditions, which is being eliminated as a level 2 title—other topics that appear in Project Conditions will be relocated to more appropriate articles.

Articles titled Environmental Conditions will be changed to Field Conditions, to preclude confusion with environmentally-related product properties, which would go in PART 2. If the latter topics appear in Environmental Conditions, they will be moved to the appropriate location in PART 2.

The level 2 article Extra Materials will be eliminated, moving the provisions on this subject to Submittals. Submittals now covers 4 main groups: Action submittals, Informational submittals, Closeout submittals, and Maintenance Material submittals, in that order.

3. Relocation of topics from PART 1 to PARTs 2 and 3:
The articles System Description, Design Requirements, and Performance Requirements will no longer appear as article titles. These topics will be covered as properties of the systems and products specifi ed in PART 2. Where any of these articles have been used to “tie together” systems that span multiple sections, such statements will now appear in Related Requirements. Another discussion of this issue appears in the LinkLine Summer 2007 issue, at www.bsdsoftlink.com/linkline/current/2007summer/sum07_csi_sectionformat.htm. The article Maintenance Service will be move to near the end of PART 3 and re-titled Maintenance. This will cover maintenance required as part of the contract as well as separate maintenance contracts.

4. A major revamp of PART 2:
The changes to PART 2 are intended to make it easier to specify whole systems and multiple products in a single section. The product descriptions now read down from the large to the small, or the more global to the more specific, rather than the other way around. For instance, for a product like a window, the old format required describing the parts the window was made out of before describing the overall product. The product specs will now start with the system or assembly, followed by its parts, then the individual materials, and finally any separate accessories. Topics like fabrication and finishes are handled as properties of the products rather than in separate articles.

SpecLink Schedule and Status: Some of the PART 1 changes have already been made and will continue. Name changes will be made globally next quarter. Any necessary revamping of PART 2 will occur only when a major update to the content is required. Quite a few SpecLink sections already follow the new PART 2 organizational philosophy; BSD’s participation on the SectionFormat/PageFormat Update Task Team was instrumental in getting this improved organizational principle adopted into SectionFormat.

For the full-size, printable pdf of the SpecLink implementation chart, click here.