A construction RFI process works when it treats every request for information as a clock. Three facts matter: the date the question was asked, the date it was answered and what stopped on site in between. The form, the numbering and the software all exist to capture those three facts. Get them on paper as they happen and the RFI does its two jobs — it gets the answer that keeps the crew working, and it leaves a record that recovers the time and money the wait cost. Miss them and the RFI is just correspondence.
An RFI has three dates and one consequence
Date asked is the day the question left the builder and reached someone who can answer it — the architect, the engineer or the owner’s rep. Not the day the superintendent noticed the conflict, and not the day it sat in a PM’s drafts folder. If it was written Monday and sent Thursday, the clock starts Thursday, and those three days belong to the builder.
Date answered is the day an answer arrived that a crew can build from. “Reviewing, will advise” is not an answer. Neither is a reply that asks a question back. Log those as activity, but leave the clock running.
What stopped is the consequence — the crew that moved, the inspection that slipped, the order that could not be placed. An RFI answered in two days that stalled a framing crew matters more than one that sat open for three weeks while nothing waited on it. The duration alone says nothing. The duration next to the consequence says what the RFI cost. So the log needs fewer columns than most templates give it, and it needs these ones:
- RFI number — sequential per job, never reused
- Question — one question, in one sentence
- Reference — sheet and detail (A-201, 4/A-501) or spec section
- Proposed answer — what the builder would do if told to proceed
- Needed by — a date, tied to a named schedule activity
- Ball in court — the name of the person holding it today
- Date sent and date answered — two separate columns
- Impact — none, cost, time or both, with a pointer to the daily log entry
Write it so it gets answered once
Most RFIs that run long do so because they bounce. The architect reads a vague question, replies with a question of their own and a week goes by in which nobody did anything wrong. The fix is in how the RFI is written.
- One question per RFI. Two questions on one form get one answer, and the second goes unanswered without anyone noticing.
- Cite where the conflict is. “Header size at the rear slider” is slow. “Header at opening 112 — A-201 shows 2x10, S-101 shows LVL, which governs?” is fast.
- Attach a dated photo of the field condition when the question is about what was found rather than what was drawn.
- Propose an answer. Designers reply “proceed as proposed” far faster than they draft a detail from scratch, and the proposal shows the builder has already thought about cost.
- State the needed-by date and the activity it is attached to.
The proposed answer has a second use. If it carries cost, saying so on the RFI — “this adds a beam pocket and a post, priced separately” — stops the answer from arriving as an instruction everyone assumed was free.
‘ASAP’ is not a date
The needed-by date comes from the schedule, not from impatience. Find the activity the RFI blocks, take its start date from the lookahead and subtract whatever has to happen before that work can start — material lead time, a submittal, a sub’s mobilization.
Example: framing at the rear wall starts on the 14th. If the answer might change the header to an LVL and the yard needs three days to deliver one, the RFI is needed by the 11th — realistically the 10th, so the order goes in a working day early. Write the 10th. Write “rear wall framing, starts 14th” next to it. The designer now knows what the date means, and so will anyone reading the file in a dispute a year from now.
Check the contract too. If it gives the design team a set number of days to respond, write that number on the RFI and count it from the date sent. If the contract is silent, agree a response time at the preconstruction meeting and put it in the minutes. A needed-by date earlier than the contractual response period is a request, not an obligation — mark which one it is.
Record what stopped, on the day it stopped
The answer date proves the clock ran. It does not prove anything waited on it. That proof comes from the daily log, written the same day: “Framing crew (4) moved from rear wall to interior partitions — rear wall on hold for RFI-017, header size.” One line, with the RFI number, the crew and the task.
Delay and cost claims turn on contemporaneous records. A note written that afternoon is evidence. A recollection assembled when the owner disputes the invoice is an argument. The principle is the same one behind documenting weather delays: the cause has to be tied to the specific work it stopped, on the date it stopped it.
Note when nothing stopped as well. If the crew resequenced and lost no time, say so. A log that honestly shows some RFIs cost nothing makes the ones that did cost something far easier to collect on.
When the answer changes the price
Every answered RFI lands in one of three places: a clarification that changes nothing, a change in cost or a change in time. Mark which on the log the day the answer comes in.
An RFI answer that adds scope is an instruction to do more work — it is not a change order. “Add blocking per 5/A-501” or “use the LVL” means material and labor nobody priced. If the crew builds it before a change order is written and signed, the builder is negotiating after the fact over work the owner already has. Open the change order the same day the answer arrives, reference the RFI number and get it signed before the work starts.
This is where RFIs and change orders meet, and where most of the money leaks. The design team answered the question; they did not agree to pay for the answer. The owner may not know the RFI happened at all. The gap between “the architect said to” and “the owner agreed to pay for it” is the same gap behind why verbal change orders fail — memory filling in for paper.
In BuilderSolve’s software, change orders carry an audit trail and sit on the same job as the estimate, the schedule and the daily logs, so the change order can reference the RFI number and the log entry that recorded the wait. The AI assistant can draft the change order and the schedule shift from the answer; a person approves or rejects both before anything reaches the client. The job management features show how that record holds together on one job.
Chase with a list, not a tone
Chasing RFIs feels confrontational, so it gets put off. A list removes the tone. Send one with every owner-architect-contractor meeting agenda, or weekly if there is no meeting:
- Open RFIs — sorted by days open, oldest first
- Needed-by date — with the activity it blocks
- Ball in court — by name, not by firm
- Overdue — any RFI past its needed-by date, flagged
- Answered since last week — with impact marked
Nobody is being accused. The list makes the clock visible to the people holding it. Follow it with a phone call two working days before any needed-by date. Most late RFIs are not refused — they are forgotten in an inbox with forty other emails.
Who keeps the log
On a builder running 5 to 40 jobs, the RFI log is usually kept by whoever has time last thing at night — often the owner, or a PM carrying six jobs. The knowledge is there. What fails is the upkeep: the date sent goes unrecorded, the ball-in-court column is a week stale and the daily log says “waiting on architect” with no RFI number. A construction RFI process is only as good as its least-maintained column.
That upkeep is work a back-office team can carry. BuilderSolve’s operations and admin team writes, sends, logs and chases RFIs alongside contracts and lookaheads, priced against the role it replaces. What it does not do: answer design questions, decide what a field condition means or tell a superintendent how to build. The architect still answers the RFI. The builder still owns the field. The team keeps the clock.
What to do this week
- Pull every open RFI across every job into one list.
- For each, fill in the date sent, the needed-by date, the activity it blocks and a name in the ball-in-court column. Where the send date is unknown, use the earliest email that proves it.
- Check the daily logs against each open RFI. If something stopped and the log does not say so, add a note dated today stating what is known and when it was learned — do not backdate it.
- Go through RFIs answered in the last 60 days. Any answer that added work without a signed change order gets priced and sent this week.
- Put the RFI list on the next meeting agenda and keep it there until the job closes.
Common questions
what is the RFI process in construction
The RFI process is how a builder asks the design team to resolve a conflict, gap or unclear detail in the drawings and gets a written answer to build from. It runs on three facts: when the question was sent, when a buildable answer came back and what work stopped in between. The log, the form and the follow-up all exist to record those three.
how long should an RFI take to answer
As long as the contract allows, and no longer than the schedule can absorb. Many contracts set a response period for the design team — check yours and count from the date sent. If the contract is silent, agree a response time at preconstruction. Either way, put a needed-by date on each RFI tied to the activity it blocks, so the wait has a visible consequence.
is an RFI the same as a change order
No. An RFI asks a question; a change order changes the contract price, time or scope and needs the owner’s signature. An RFI answer that adds work — a bigger header, extra blocking, a moved opening — should trigger a change order the same day, referencing the RFI number, before the crew builds anything.
what should an RFI log include
At minimum: a sequential number, the question, the drawing or spec reference, a proposed answer, a needed-by date, the name of whoever holds it now, the date sent, the date answered and the impact — none, cost, time or both. Point each impact to the daily log entry that recorded what stopped, written on the day it happened.
can you claim delay time for a late RFI answer
Only if the records show the late answer actually stopped work. That means a needed-by date set from the schedule, a dated send record and daily log entries naming the RFI, the crew and the task that waited. Without the daily log, the RFI proves a question was slow to answer — not that the job lost time because of it.