Scope gaps: the hidden problem behind many facade failures
There’s a question we ask a lot at LockMetal: Who owns the interface?
It could be the interface between the balcony balustrade and the balcony cladding; the window surrounds and the masonry; or the parapet and the adjoining waterproofing.
And it’s worth reminding ourselves that water, fire, wind, and movement don’t respect package boundaries. Contractors might understand their own package, but problems emerge when nobody is sure who is responsible for what happens at the point these packages interact.
Where scope gaps begin
In the construction industry, this is known as a scope gap, and it’s often a hidden problem behind many facade failures. A recent Housing Forum report into the cost of procurement highlights a wider industry problem that helps explain why they happen.
The report identifies how lengthy procurement, unclear risk allocation, and inconsistent specifications can drive up the cost of building new homes. Crucially, it calls for a shift in mindset from transferring risk to managing it, with earlier contractor involvement helping risks to be understood and mitigated before they become expensive problems.
It’s one of the reasons we place so much emphasis on early specialist involvement and clear responsibility across facade packages. Find out more about the LockMetal approach here.
Facades are where everything meets
Facade packages are particularly vulnerable to scope gaps because they involve so many different specialisms and interfaces. You might have separate masonry, render, rainscreen cladding, curtain walling, waterproofing, and fire-stopping packages. Each contractor can be competent within their own area, but there still needs to be joined-up thinking between them.
A small change in one package can affect several others. The problem, however, isn’t having specialist packages. That’s a good thing. It’s assuming that the interfaces between them will coordinate themselves. Because a facade isn’t a shopping list of products; it’s a coordinated system.
The tender stage is where assumptions become expensive
It’s worth saying here that procurement teams can’t be expected to have detailed technical knowledge of every facade interface. That’s why the right technical disciplines need to be involved in the tender process, communicating across packages rather than looking at each scope in isolation.
Otherwise, assumptions can creep in. At LockMetal, if we identify a scope gap at the tender stage, we’ll highlight it or price for what we believe is required and explain why. That gives the contractor an opportunity to understand and resolve the issue while there’s still time to do something about it.
Technically, the consequences of getting that wrong can range from water ingress and poor drainage to thermal bridging, incompatible fixings, failed tolerances, or breaks in fire-barrier continuity. And of course, it all comes out later on: as a commercial problem, a programme problem, a buildability problem, or a maintenance problem.
The best time to close a scope gap is at tender or early design stage. The worst, and most expensive, time is when the scaffold is up, the panels are made, and the missing interface is now visible on site.
Risk needs managing, not moving
That brings us back to one of the Housing Forum report’s central arguments: shifting the industry mindset from risk transfer to risk management. It’s an approach we strongly support at LockMetal.
We resist the shifting of risk onto us, just as we don’t simply shift risk onto our suppliers. But where we have the competence to understand and manage risk, we take responsibility for doing so.
Fire barriers are a good example. Given the right information, we can establish what barriers are required, where they need to go, the sequence in which they need to be installed, and how they interact with the panel facing and the structure behind.
Understanding the risk properly allows you to manage it properly. That can control costs rather than simply adding another contingency for something nobody fully understands.
Earlier decisions need earlier expertise
The Housing Forum also warns against mandating products or systems without market testing or justification, because doing so can restrict competition and innovation and increase costs.
There’s an important facade point here, too. The new building safety regime is rightly moving decision-making earlier in the programme, and I’ve written previously about why specialist Tier 2 input matters at Gateway 2 – but locking a specification down early only works if the people making those decisions understand how the different packages work together.
Specify two products or systems that don’t interface properly, and you may find an additional product or detail is needed to make them work. If there’s no flexibility to change the original specification, complexity and cost can quickly increase.
Someone has to own the interface
Moving decisions earlier is the right direction of travel, but it also means moving expertise earlier. That’s why our in-house design team works across packages, as well as with our commercial and installer teams.
We’re willing to look at the whole detail, not just our own panel, and ask the questions that define exactly where one responsibility ends and another begins. Because the earlier we establish who owns the interface, the lower the chance there is of a scope gap becoming a design, programme, or compliance problem later.
If you’re working through a facade package where the interfaces aren’t yet fully defined, take a closer look at how we approach specialist facade design and delivery here.
