Every change order should state its effect on contract time in days — including when the answer is zero. A signed change order is an amendment to the contract. If it changes the price and says nothing about time, the completion date has not moved, and the days the change consumed come out of the builder's schedule rather than the owner's. On a contract with liquidated damages, that can mean paying for delay the owner caused. The fix costs one line on the form: days added, revised completion date and the reason.
A signed change order amends the whole contract, not just the price
A change order is not an invoice. It is a written agreement between owner and contractor that modifies the contract — its scope, its sum and its time. Most standard change order forms carry a separate line for contract sum and contract time for exactly that reason. When the time line is left blank, the agreement still says something about time. It says the date did not change.
Many contracts go further. The change order form or the general conditions behind it often state that a signed change order is full compensation for the change, "including all direct and indirect costs and time." Once both parties sign that, a later request for days on the same change is a request to reopen a settled agreement. Whether a court or arbitrator would let it be reopened depends on the contract wording and the jurisdiction. It is not something to plan a job around.
A worked example, with illustrative figures. An owner adds a covered porch after framing is complete. The change order is priced at $18,400. The porch needs footings and a footing inspection, the framing crew has to come back, and the roofer's scope grows. Realistically that is six working days on the critical path. The change order is signed price-only. The contract carries $250 a day in liquidated damages. The house finishes six days late — $1,500 in exposure on paper, plus six days of supervision, site costs and overhead that nobody priced. The owner got the porch and kept the original date.
Zero days is an answer. Blank is not.
Writing "0 days" on a change order that genuinely has no schedule impact is not a formality. It records that someone looked at the schedule and made a call. A blank line records nothing, and it can be read two ways later: that the change had no time impact, or that nobody thought about it. Neither reading helps the builder in a dispute.
Zero days also protects the days that are claimed. An owner who has seen eight change orders marked "0 days — no critical path activity affected" has reason to take the ninth seriously when it says "4 days — delays drywall start." A builder who leaves every time line blank and then asks for three weeks at the end of the job has given the owner every reason to doubt the number.
The blank line does the most damage on small changes. A paint colour switch, an added outlet run, a relocated window — each feels too minor to mention time. Five of them in one phase can still push a trade start by a week. If each was signed with nothing on the time line, the builder has agreed five separate times that the date did not move.
How to arrive at the number
A change order time extension is only as defensible as the reasoning written beside it. "Owner requested" is not a basis. "Adds 3 days to framing, which is on the critical path to dry-in" is. The sequence below is what produces that sentence.
- List the schedule activities the change touches — new work, rework and anything downstream that waits on it.
- Check whether those activities sit on the critical path or have float. Work with float may genuinely be zero days.
- Add time the original schedule never carried: material lead times, a new inspection, an engineer's review or a permit revision.
- Add remobilisation. A sub who has left site and has to come back rarely comes back the next morning.
- Convert to the unit the contract uses — calendar days or working days. Getting this wrong can quietly halve or double the extension.
- Write the revised completion date on the change order, not just the number of days, so both parties sign the same date.
Float deserves a note of its own. Some contracts say float belongs to the project, which means a change that eats float earns no days even though the buffer is gone. If a change consumes float, say so on the form — "0 days; uses 4 of 6 days float on cabinetry" — so the next change is assessed against what is actually left.
Sometimes the number cannot be known at signing. A specified fixture has no confirmed lead time, or a structural detail is waiting on the engineer. In that case, write the days that can be defended now and a stated reservation: additional time to be requested within a set number of days of the supplier confirming delivery. A reservation is weaker than a number. Some contracts void them and some owners will not sign one. It is still better than a blank line, which reserves nothing.
Days and dollars for days are two separate lines
An extension moves the completion date and stops liquidated damages accruing for those days. It does not pay for them. A job that runs six days longer carries six more days of superintendent time, temporary fencing and toilets, equipment rental, dumpster swaps, builder's risk coverage and general overhead. Those are real costs and they belong in the change order price.
This is the distinction between excusable time and compensable time, and the contract decides which one a given change earns — the types of construction delay and how claims work sets out how the categories differ. For owner-directed changes, both are usually on the table. Pricing the time-related costs is part of how a change order should be priced in the first place, not an extra to be argued for afterwards.
The line most likely to cost money is not on the time field at all. It is the sentence near the signatures saying the change order is full and final settlement, or covers "all costs and time." If that sentence is present and the time line says 0 or is blank, the builder has likely given up any further days for that change. Strike it, add a carve-out for stated reservations, or make sure the days on the form are right before signing.
Notice deadlines and the running total
Many contracts require written notice of a claim for additional time within a fixed window after the event that caused it. A change order signed three weeks later does not necessarily cure a missed notice. The safer habit is to give notice of the likely time impact when the change is first requested, then confirm the number on the signed change order.
Days also need to be visible in aggregate. The monthly change order log is the natural place: alongside the running dollar total, carry the running total of days added and the current contract completion date. An owner who sees the date move by two days each month is not surprised when the house finishes three weeks after the original date. An owner who sees it for the first time at handover usually is.
What the software records, and what it does not
In BuilderSolve, change orders carry an audit trail — who drafted it, what changed between versions, who approved it and when. The schedule is built from the estimate, so a change that adds line items has scheduled activities it lands on. The AI assistant can draft the change order and the schedule shift it causes together. A person approves or rejects both. Neither is applied automatically.
What it does not do matters as much. The software does not decide whether the contract entitles the builder to a change order time extension, and it does not read the general conditions for waiver language. That is a contract question, and on a disputed claim it is a question for a construction lawyer. The BuilderSolve operations team can check change order wording against the contract and track notice windows on active jobs. It is a back-office team, not a law firm, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.
What to do this week
- Pull every pending change order on active jobs and add a days figure and a revised completion date to each, including the ones that are zero.
- Find the signed change orders with a blank time line. On any job carrying liquidated damages, check the contract's notice window and whether a reservation can still be raised.
- Change the change order template so the time line cannot be left empty — it takes a number, even if the number is 0.
- Read the signature block on the template for full-and-final language and decide, once, how the business handles it.
- Add running days and the current completion date to the change order log sent to owners each month.
None of this needs a new contract. It needs every change order to answer one more question before it is signed: how many days does this add? Asked on every change, a change order time extension stops being a negotiation at the end of the job and becomes a line the owner already agreed to.
Common questions
does a change order automatically extend the completion date
No. A change order extends the completion date only if it says so. A signed change order amends the contract, and if the time line is blank, the agreed completion date usually stays where it was. Write the days added and the revised completion date on every change order, including "0 days" where the change genuinely has no schedule impact, so both parties sign the same date.
can I ask for more time after signing a change order
Sometimes, but it is much harder. If the signed change order says it covers all costs and time, a later request for days on the same change is a request to reopen a settled agreement. Whether that succeeds depends on the contract wording and jurisdiction. A written reservation on the change order, with a deadline for requesting more time, gives a better footing than silence.
what to write on a change order that adds no time
Write "0 days" and the unchanged completion date, with a short reason such as "no critical path activity affected." That records that the schedule impact was assessed rather than ignored. If the change uses up float, note how much, so the next change is measured against the buffer that actually remains. A blank line records nothing and can be read either way later.
is a time extension the same as being paid for delay
No. A time extension moves the completion date and stops liquidated damages accruing for those days. Being paid for the delay is separate and covers extended general conditions — superintendent time, temporary facilities, equipment rental, insurance and overhead for the added days. The contract decides which a change earns, so price the time-related costs into the change order rather than assuming the extension covers them.
what if the owner won't sign a change order with added days
Do not sign a price-only version to keep the job moving. That version agrees the date did not move. Put the time impact in writing, give notice under the contract, and use the contract's mechanism for disputed changes, which is often a construction change directive. Keep the schedule records showing which activities the change delayed, because a time claim depends on records made at the time.