CE 49800 Chapter 24-25: Chapter summaries

• School: Purdue University
• Department: Civil Engineering
• Course: CE 49800
• Professor: Robert Jacko

Document Summary

Contingencies represent degrees of uncertainty that result from a variety of causes. Some are inherent and unavoidable, and some can be minimized. There are two types of contingencies: design contingency and construction contingency. Allowances for contingencies are carried from the conception of a project through conceptual and final design and into construction. In general, allowances for design contingency should decrease as design information becomes better defined. Regardless of the quality of construction documents, a project should never go into construction without some allowance for construction contingency. Despite competent design effort and careful review, construction drawings and specifications are never perfect. For civil engineering projects, it is recommended that a 5% to 15% contingency factor be included in the construction budget. The actual contingency depends on the uncertainties and risk to be assessed by the engineer for each particular project. An average of 10% is used for most projects. Escalation is the increase in project cost to account for future inflation.