Building or Refreshing Your Dental Practice. American Dental Association

will adversely affect your budget. Only two people can provide this written information for the engineers, your dental equipment consultant/supplier and your architect. Spend more up front to hire the companies willing to create a custom dental equipment specification sheet for you. They will save you many times the cost of this investment, as well as time delays and complications.

      Custom Dental Equipment Specification Sheet Checklist

      The more written details included in your custom dental equipment specification sheet, the better your protection against change orders. A thorough custom dental equipment specification sheet should be completed before the engineering phase begins and before the construction documents go out to bid to the contractors, and should include the following:

       A detailed list of every piece of dental equipment and dental manufactured cabinetry going into a given office, either now or in the future, no matter if you are buying equipment new from a dental equipment company, moving used equipment, or buying it on eBay®.

       An assigned numerical identification, followed by the quantity, for every piece of equipment, to identify the exact location in your office that you want it located.

       Columns for cold water, hot water, drain, air, vacuum, natural gas, nitrous oxide, oxygen, and vent. Any piece of equipment that requires any of these features receives a check in the corresponding box.

       The number of electrical amps each piece of equipment draws, as well as whether it requires a 110- or 220-volt circuit.

       Identification of any equipment that requires dedicated circuits, low-voltage wiring, a remote switch, or any unusual nema (plug) configurations.

       A “remarks” column carrying descriptions more detailed than those the bidding electricians and plumbers will see in their corresponding pages in the construction documents.

       Columns clarifying who is responsible for providing and installing every piece of equipment or cabinetry going into your new office.

       A highlighted comment on each of the engineer’s respective mechanical, plumbing, and electrical pages. This comment might read: “Please refer to dental equipment specification sheet for further dental equipment requirements.” It will alert the bidding subcontractors to additional equipment requirements that aren’t on their sheets, which they will request from their contractor.

       A list of “Dental Equipment General Notes,” equipment requirements that require further clarification.

      Spend more up front to hire the companies willing to create a custom dental equipment specification sheet for you. They will save you many times the cost of this investment, as well as time delays and complications.

      When your architect is ready to send the finished set of construction documents to the city for review, ask him to delay sending them out to bid until your equipment consultant/supplier has reviewed the plans one last time. The consultant/supplier should review the mechanical, electric, and plumbing pages for any remaining omissions, discrepancies, or errors in the dental equipment requirements.

      The consultant/supplier can then meet with the architect and create a list (addendum) of these remaining missing requirements. The addendum becomes part of the official construction documents that will be sent to the contractors to bid. These requirements must be on paper to protect you from “change orders” during the construction phase of your project. This extra effort from your dental equipment consultant/supplier and architect is worth its weight in gold.

      Designing Cabinetry for Your Office

      The architect and the contractor are both qualified to design cabinets for your new office, but it may be preferable to have your architect be responsible for cabinetry design and include the drawings in your construction documents.

      First, when your construction documents go out to the contractors for bid, a separate line item indicates the cost to build your new dental office cabinetry. If these drawings are not included in your construction documents, the cost quoted for building your cabinets may only be a wild guess. Remember, any contractor trying to win your project will have an incentive to quote a cost in the low range if specific design features are not detailed. This situation can leave you vulnerable to change orders.

      Second, the cabinetry design phase can be quite time consuming, as can the construction itself. If this process doesn’t begin until after tenant improvements are underway, you run the risk of project delays when the cabinets aren’t ready to install at the appropriate time. If your architect has included the cabinetry design in your construction documents, delays will not become an issue.

      Monitoring the Contractor Bidding Process

      Monitoring a construction bidding process involves much more than looking for the lowest total bid. If three contractors are bidding on your project, the architect will typically develop a spreadsheet with three vertical columns. At the top will be the name of each construction company. Below those names will be a series of horizontal line items, including, for example, plumbing costs, electrical costs, millwork cabinetry costs, flooring, fire sprinkler system, and painting. The goal is to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison. If a line-item cost is missing from one of the contractor’s bids, the architect will call the contractor to see if this overlooked cost might be included in another line item. If two of the contractor’s costs for a particular line item are similar, and the third is substantially lower, the architect will again call to ensure that this lower cost indeed covers all the requirements pertinent to the line item in the construction documents. Architects act much like the referee in a basketball game, making the players play within the rules. Rely on them to navigate you through this sometimes very tricky process.

      The architect and the contractor are both qualified to design cabinets for your new office, but it may be preferable to have your architect be responsible for cabinetry design and include the drawings in your construction documents.

      Beware of the contractor trickery that involves allowances. Let’s assume that the architect has called for specific lighting fixtures for your new office in the construction documents. Two of the bidding contractors quote you a similar cost for these light fixtures. The third quotes you an “allowance” for these fixtures of a much lower dollar amount. What the allowance indicates is that the contractor will only cover the costs of these fixtures up to a maximum of this lower dollar figure. The remaining costs will be added onto your final construction costs. This is a ploy to gain an edge on competitors by appearing to have a lower bid. Any time allowances are involved, the total cost quoted for your project ends up being a mirage.

      Completing the Design Phase for Your New Office

      The interior design phase of your construction documents is typically done by the architect during the time that the engineers are working on their piece. Occasionally a contractor, rather than an architect, does this for a client after the bidding process, which can present several disadvantages. First, the bids you receive from the contractors will probably contain multiple allowances because no firm design decisions have been made in your construction documents. The other disadvantage to having a contractor do the design phase after tenant improvements have begun is the risk of delays. Often