A Comprehensive Guide on Pacing Delays in the Construction Industry

In construction projects, so much is going on simultaneously that it gets difficult to avoid disputes and conflicts. Most of the disputes arise due to delays in the completion of activities. While you cannot completely avoid the occurrence of such events during your construction project, you can hire professional Delay experts to deal with them in the best possible way.

Pacing delays are one of the most controversial kinds of delays in the construction industry. Their occurrence is deliberate on the part of a contractor.

This article aims to provide awareness regarding the pacing delays

Interesting information on Pacing Delays in construction

Pacing delays are not as uncommon as they are unheard of. The topic remains controversial to date in the construction industry. You might want to know the key pieces of information on the topic. They are as follows:

1.      Definition of Pacing Delay

A delay is an event when activity in a construction project doesn’t complete according to plan or the schedule. Pacing means prolongation or spreading out of something. So, a pacing delay is an event where a contractor deliberately slows down the progress of construction work due to a certain reason. The reason is often one: a delay on the part of the owner is expected.

2.      Types of pacing delays

Pacing delays are generally of two kinds. The explanations of those two are as follows:

· Direct pacing

When the deliberate pacing delay in one activity occurs due to a delay in the activity preceding it, and the progress of the activity in question is dependent on the predecessor activity, it is direct pacing.

In this scenario, the cause of the delay of one activity is the result of a delay in another activity and that is what makes it different from a concurrent delay.

· Indirect pacing

Not all activities in a project’s schedule depend on each other for progress or completion. Some activities are independent but still face pacing.  This happened when the owner caused a delay is in an entirely different area of the project and the contractor still prolongs an activity in anticipation.

An example would be that the owner caused a delay is related to finishing steps of the project, and the contractor prolongs the progress of equipment acquisition for an activity before it. 

3.      Examples of Pacing delays

In the owner furnished, the contractor installed situations that are common in bigger projects like that of power plants; contractor opts for pacing. They do so to reduce the labor burden and take advantage of the owner caused delay.

Secondly, projects where there are multiple contractors for one project, the contract is called a parallel prime contract. When one of the contractors finds out about the chance of delay in the work of one of the contractors, they slow down their work too.

Want to avoid pacing delays in your construction project?

If you are about to begin with, your construction project or have already started laying out the plan to be ready for the dispute and claims that will arise due to delays in various activities. Instead of waiting for an invisible power to help you in such situations, hire a Delay expert beforehand from a reputable construction consultancy to ensure a timely cure for any issue that may come your way.

Construction projects face delays, but sometimes the matters worsen to the extent that the projects take years to complete. Make sure you avoid such a situation with the help of trustworthy consultants!