Request for information
A request for information is a formal written question from a contractor to the design team seeking clarification of something the contract documents do not resolve.
Also written as RFI, RFIs.
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Reviewed by Eric Collin · President and Founder of Firmo Construction, 20+ years in preconstruction and bid evaluation
During bidding, RFIs are how a bidder resolves an ambiguity before pricing it, and the answers are normally issued to all bidders as an addendum so that everyone prices the same interpretation. That distribution is the point: an answer given privately to one bidder produces a field bidding different scopes.
During construction they document a question and its answer, creating a record of who decided what and when. That record matters when a clarification turns out to change scope, because the RFI is often the first evidence that a change order is coming.
RFI volume during bidding is a useful signal about the documents themselves. A package generating many questions about scope boundaries is a package where scope gaps are likely, and the questions asked are a fairly reliable map of where to look.
The deadline matters as much as the question. Most invitations set a cut-off after which no further questions are answered, so an ambiguity discovered late is one a bidder must price on an assumption — and that assumption may differ from the one its competitors made.
- Addendum
An addendum is a formal change to the bid documents issued by the design team during the bidding period.
- Scope gap
A scope gap is work required by the project that no bidder included in its price, because every bidder assumed someone else was carrying it.
- Submittal
A submittal is documentation a contractor provides for review before fabrication or installation — product data, samples, or shop drawings — showing that what will be supplied meets the specification.
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