The Envelope Warranty.
When EDA Contractors delivers multiple scopes on the building enclosure, we provide a ten-year installation warranty that includes removal of overburden — the gold standard for building envelope risk management.
What is the Envelope Warranty?
The majority of construction industry insurance claims are the result of building integrity failures related to moisture and heat transfer. We wanted to find a way to reduce the risks associated with our work, and with the complex set of overlapping work scopes necessary to produce a watertight envelope. After all, delivering a watertight building is EDA’s highest priority—both to prevent claims and litigation as well as to assure the continued goodwill of our clients.
We developed a simple solution: provide an installation warranty for the entire building envelope so that the owner can look to just one party should there be any issues with the envelope’s integrity.
Meet the Envelope Warranty
The Envelope Warranty solution offers tangible advantages in terms of
overall cost, installation viability—and most importantly, it makes the
building envelope far less prone to failure during and after
construction. No other technique—not even design-build—successfully
integrates building technologists and constructors together in such a
way so that all parties to the construction project benefit.
This way of doing business creates a radically different mindset for our company, with accountability at the core of our culture. The Envelope Warranty signals our full commitment to delivering a watertight building to every client.
How Does the Envelope Warranty Work?
EDA acts as a “super-sub” and contracts directly with the owner/developer or the general contractor, and is the primary sub-contractor responsible for all secondary sub-contractors involved in delivering the building envelope.
We bring together a range of sub-consultants for a fully integrated approach to ensuring the envelope’s integrity—engaging not only installers but also industry-leading building enclosure scientists whose services include stamping of drawings. Our clients benefit not only from the QA/QC dedication of our personnel, but also from having a design team that offers ongoing input and oversight and has up-to-date knowledge of the newest materials and testing protocols.
Why Did EDA Create the Envelope Warranty?
We didn’t initially set out to the revolutionize the construction industry with our innovative building envelope warranty. After all, at our core we are sub-contractors with the goal of winning in open bidding the opportunity to install various parts of the building façade.
Yet many years ago our team observed the industry-wide pervasiveness of claims and litigation involving building envelopes—a contentious, costly, and wasteful state of affairs for all involved. EDA president and owner Ed DeAngelis decided not to accept this status quo, but to dedicate his company’s resources to finding a better way.
How Does the Envelope Warranty Benefit Me?
The Envelope Warranty is the solution for any owner, owner’s representative, general contractor, architect, or developer who is ready to rethink the exterior envelope of their buildings.
Owners find true value in substantially reducing the risks associated with a particularly vulnerable aspect of their built asset.
Owner’s representatives, whose role is to mitigate opportunistic behavior from other parties to the project and to oversee the delivery of built assets more efficiently than the owner could with their own personnel, can bring higher satisfaction to their clients through improved outcomes.
General contractors and construction managers reduce their costs and their risk of being the target of claims and litigation.
Architects can focus on the design of the exterior rather than become entangled in the science, estimating, installation, and delivery of the envelope.
Insurers will find it lowers overall project risk for all parties by addressing an area highly vulnerable to claims and litigation.
We invite you to gain a deeper understanding of how our unique installation warranty proposition can help further your QA/QC objectives. Let’s have a conversation.
Contact Cory Robbins, crobbins@edacontractor.com or 215.203.6893, to learn more.