Construction project rework costs continue to rise, but visual construction reality capture solutions can help mitigate these costs.
Let’s not kid ourselves: Construction plans change, and mistakes happen, regardless of the job site or crew. Every time an issue is discovered, it comes with a flood of questions: What happened? Why? How? And, ultimately, who’s going to pay for it? How will this dispute be resolved—and how painful will it be to resolve it?
Fortunately, reality capture can help mitigate the resource burn associated with construction rework. Here’s how:
Reality capture simplifies discovery for construction rework
Construction rework and change orders are inevitable, and all too often, the issues that need attention are hidden behind drywall or buried in a slab. Regardless of who made the mistakes, someone must find and resolve the issue as smoothly and cost-effectively as possible to prevent a rapidly escalating bill. When that time comes, instead of destructive discovery or using expensive X-ray equipment, reality capture technology allows stakeholders to navigate digital floor plans and see high-resolution images of a hidden problem area directly on a smartphone or tablet.
Considering the costs associated with construction rework, which have continued to increase year over year, such an investment makes a great deal of sense.
Construction rework costs have surged since 2015
In 2015, a study by the Navigant Construction Forum of 179 projects across various verticals estimated that the cost of rework was roughly 7–11% of total project costs. A year later, Zurich North America-sponsored research estimated that the cost of settling new defect claims in the US alone reaches into the billions of dollars each year.
Then, in March 2024, Neuroject reported that these costs had risen to an estimated 12–15%, with the Construction Industry Institute reporting rework costs as high as 20%.
A month later, in April of 2024, Risk & Insurance reported that while construction costs were rising across the board, construction defect claims were “perhaps the biggest challenge the industry faces.” That makes perfect sense, considering that two years prior, the “Get it Right Initiative,” a group of United Kingdom-based construction professionals, launched a report which estimated as much as 30% of all construction work is due to defects and rework.
Depending on the region, statutes of repose hold developers, contractors, and subcontractors liable for defects that occur from one to up to ten years after projects are completed.
Reality capture lowers the cost (and stress) of every aspect of rework, from discovery to dispute resolution to remediation.
Construction photo documentation systems enable you to see exactly what is inside walls, ceilings, and floors with sufficient detail to determine the dimensions of a pipe or locate the precise position of a post-tension cable.
The old saying is “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Still, in this industry, professional construction photos indexed by time and location to digital architectural plans can be worth tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of dollars in rework and dispute resolution savings.
This was certainly true for the Collegiate School in New York City, which used Multivista for reality capture every step of the way.
“We found the problem,” said Mark Gordon, Director of Facilities at the school. “The Multivista photos showed all these walls without insulation. The progression photos in other parts of the building show the areas with no wall, then studs, then piping and electrical, then insulation, then Sheetrock. We used Multivista to verify which walls didn’t have insulation and contacted the contractor. Without those photos, we would have had to cut into every wall to see where insulation was missing. The system worked perfectly.”
Gordon added that avoiding all these potential destructive discoveries saved the school as much as $1.7 million.
Facchina Construction of Florida had a similar experience.
“The detailed photos gave us the information needed to effectively avoid remediation costs of approximately $50,000 when we had to repair a drainage pipe in the slab on grade,” said Jon Cervasio of Facchina Construction. “The remediation work would have included excavation, repair to waterproofing, repair or replacement of P/T cables… The photos helped us avoid piercing cables in the deck slabs, which would have cost an estimated $2,500 per cable to repair or replace.”
“We are approaching the completion of a residential high-rise project on which Multivista has saved us at least $75,000 to date,” Cervasio added. “Rather than using a ground penetrating radar machine at a cost of $26,000, we were able to use the Multivista Documentation to determine if and where we could core sleeves for additional MEPs without hitting the post tension cables or existing MEP in the slab.”
To learn more about how professional visual construction documentation systems can save your project money and avoid time-consuming destructive discovery, call us for a demo.
