Westcon

Writing Residential Specifications:
How to Avoid Ambiguities
Presentation By: John Raeber, FAIA, FCSI, CCS

Our March dinner meeting on architectural specifications offers an opportunity for Western Construction Consultants Association members to hear the opinions of a practicing specifications writer who has also been an expert witness in cases relating to construction responsibility, materials failures, access for persons with disabilities, and general code issues related both to construction failures and to personal injuries.

John Raeber, with an established architecture practice in San Francisco since 1982, will cite some specific divisions in which architects and builders should pay particular attention such as:
• Roof ventilation and insulation
• Waterproofing (roof, wall, foundation) membrane material compatibility
• Air barriers and waterproof barriers in wall assemblies (masonry, stucco,
siding)
• Drainage on decks, overflows on decks
• Expansion joints and control joints (decks, walls, roof)
• Waterproof seals of dissimilar materials

John Raeber has been writing architectural specifications since 1973 and has worked with over two hundred architectural firms in the Bay Area, on more than three thousand projects over the last thirty years. He taught classes on building codes, specifications, and materials and methods of construction at California College of the Arts between 1985 and 2006. Mr. Raeber was a member of the committee that produced the Construction Inspection Manual, 5th and 6th Editions, and was the Executive Director of the 7th Edition.