Watching a time-lapse video of a construction project confirms the old saying that construction is organized chaos. And by the very nature of the construction process, there is also truth in the other old saying that the electrical contractor is the last to start but must be finished first.

Being the last to start and first to finish, the electrical contractor has a unique perspective of the organized chaos of a construction project whether the delivery system is design-bid-build, construction management, design-build, or some variation incorporating fast tacking, for example.

Thus, in addition to the general contractor, the electrical contractor is in a position of knowing the pulse of the project start to finish and can be a wealth of information.

To control costs of an electrical construction defect investigation, it is important to get the investigative engineer together with the electrical contractor early to talk shop and thus cut to the chase which streamlines the process of sorting through the “terabytes” of data that can be generated by a construction project.

Talking shop between two people that understand the design and construction industry results in communication at a more comprehensive or deeper level.

Talking shop and painting the picture first will result in lower investigation cost and a more convincing understanding of what happened or didn’t happen. Waiting until the last minute to involve the investigative engineer to talk shop with the electrical contractor can result in a less than an optimal outcome.