You will pay the utilities directly or indirectly. If they are in your name you might as well do it directly.

There should be a primer coat of paint too. The number of finish coats is up to you. There is no reason for this work to be an allowance. Agree on thr amount of special colors and type of paint in order to avoid future up charges.

Asphalt saturated felt paper should be either 15# (15 pounds per square) or #30 (number 30) which is approximately the same weight. Don't be fooled by sloppy terms and symbols, a spec should use real words and be specific.

Ice & water shield should be at the eaves valleys and penetrations.

Thanks, we are looking over a preliminary spec sheet. We have a meeting to pick brands and colors etc. so we get a real quote on the materials we will be using. For paint I will have to ask about the primer, its not listed but 1 coat of paint seemed like it wasn't enough. Thanks for your input.

For paint, we specified brand and type. For example, primer + 2 coats of Benjamin Moore regal in matte or eggshell finish.

You should also specify the trim and ceiling- we did 2 coats of water based satin impervo for trim and flat for ceiling.

And color changes for the walls and ceilings.

Try to avoid Allowances. They are like small Cost of the Work contracts and not to your advantage.

Huh? Allowances are bad now? Explain in detail, pls.

Listing any kind of work as an Allowance with no agreed upon unit prices is the same as contracting for that work as a "Cost of the Work with a Fee". The obvious disadvantage is that you lose the pricing control you would have with a Fixed Price contract. A common builder approach is to propose a low Allowance amount and then add a markup to the much larger actual cost. It is also not uncommon for a contractor to require you to use their favorite sub or supplier who has already added an unknown markup. It is also not uncommon for the supplier to give the contractor a discount that should be passed on to you but is not.

The only advantage of an Allowance is that you don't have to decide what you want until later which is often a costly convenience.

I recommend that an Allowance only be used for materials not labor (labor should already be in the fixed Price); that quantities and unit prices be established when possible even if they are approximate; and adding a clause that says you can get a credit for a particular Allowance and supply the materials yourself if you wish.

Allowances have been discussed many times in this forum. If you search for "allowance" you will find those discussions. You will be able to see the stress and loss they have caused members.

This post was edited by Renovator8 on Sun, Jul 7, 13 at 7:35

We don't have allowances per se but listed products and what credit we would get should we choose something else. We needed only some appliances so we picked them, they are listed, and then there is a dollar value next to them in case we change our mind we know what we are working with. I don't have any ambiguous allowances....yet. We are still hammering out the specs.