What Your Glazing Bid Missed

Using AI to review written scope obligations

You have the glass quote. The framing quote is in. You have worked through the installation hours, and the bid is almost ready.

Then you find the laboratory mockup requirement.

Nobody carried it. The supplier quote excludes it. Now you need fabrication, freight, erection, and dismantling covered before the number goes out.

That is the kind of miss this article is about. You can have a solid takeoff and still leave money out of the bid because one paragraph never made it onto your scope sheet.

I want AI to help find those paragraphs. Give me the clause, tell me where it came from, and show me what I need to check. I can work with that.

Give It a Job You Can Check

For this review, the model reads the written requirements. I keep measurements and pricing in the estimating process where I can verify them.

If the spec says “provide three test locations,” I want all three recorded. That is a written count. If the number has to come from an elevation, it needs a takeoff.

Copy the counts, durations, units, and conditions the documents actually state. Leave the rest open.

An anchor-adjustment clause gives me something to price or clarify. It does not tell me what the adjustment will cost.

Where I Would Look:

Mockups

First, find out what kind of mockup they want. Visual? Performance? Both? Then check the stated size, location, tests, approval sequence, and who handles fabrication, freight, erection, and removal.

If my scope includes building the mockup, I still need to know who pays the lab. Those are separate costs. If the documents do not assign the fees, that goes on the clarification list.

Field and Laboratory Testing

“Water testing included” is not enough for me. Which test? How many locations? What pressure? Who provides access, and who pays when it has to be tested again? Record the standard and edition, along with the stated criteria and responsibilities.

ASTM E1105 addresses field water-penetration testing using uniform or cyclic static air-pressure differences.[1] AAMA 501.2 is a quality-assurance and diagnostic field water check for installed systems.[2] AAMA 501.1 addresses water penetration using dynamic pressure.[3]

Those procedures are different. I need the actual requirement in front of me before I ask someone to quote it.

Warranties

Check the duration, when the warranty starts, what it covers, and who issues it. Then put that next to the supplier’s written offer.

A fifteen-year finish warranty may already be available from the proposed supplier. Or it may not. I would confirm that before carrying a premium or assuming the quote covers it.

Engineering and Submittals

Look for signed and sealed calculations, required registration, delegated design, shop drawings, samples, and approval prerequisites.

A seal on calculations and a seal on shop drawings are different deliverables. Check both. Keep the stated sample and submission counts too. Your drafting and engineering quotes need to cover what the project asks for.

Inspections and Sealant Testing

Identify inspection requirements, documentation, and cost responsibility. Keep independent inspections separate from manufacturer testing and installer quality-control procedures.

For example, Dow provides adhesion and compatibility testing as part of its structural-glazing support, and its warranty process can depend on project-specific testing and quality controls.[4] Check the requirements of the sealant supplier selected for your project.

Adjacent Work

Follow references to concrete, steel supports, perimeter fire barriers, waterproofing, and electrical connections. Also review relevant general requirements and addenda.

Being in Division 07 does not automatically put it outside my scope. Being mentioned in Division 08 does not automatically put it in. I want the responsibility language checked against the rest of the package.

Get the Files in Order

Before uploading anything, make a file list. Include revisions and dates. Open a few pages and check whether the text is readable, especially the tables and clause numbers. A bad scan can turn a useful review into a list of guesses.

If a glazing section refers to a testing section you have not supplied, add that section or record the gap. Review manageable groups of sections, then reconcile the findings across them. Smaller batches still need a coverage record so a section does not disappear between reviews.

Research on long-context language models found that the location of relevant information affected retrieval performance in the models and tasks studied.[5] That supports testing your workflow for omissions. It does not establish a ranking of current models on construction specifications.

I would test the tool on a package I have already reviewed. Did it find the clauses I know are there? Did it quote them correctly? Did it assign a cost to the wrong party? That tells me more than how good the table looks.

Spec Review Prompt

Here is the prompt I would start with. It gives the model a defined job and asks for enough information to check its work.

If the result says “not found,” I want to know what was searched. Division 08 by itself cannot clear a requirement sitting in Division 01.

A Review Example

The following clauses are fictional and used only to demonstrate the review process.

08 44 13, 1.5.A: Submit structural calculations signed and sealed by a professional engineer licensed in Texas.

08 44 13, 1.6.A: Provide a laboratory mockup for dynamic water testing under AAMA 501.1. The glazing subcontractor shall pay for fabrication, delivery, erection, and dismantling. Testing shall be performed by an independent agency.

08 44 13, 1.7.A: Provide a manufacturer’s PVDF finish warranty for fifteen years from Substantial Completion.

05 12 00, 3.4.A: Install curtain wall support steel within 1/8 inch of theoretical grid lines. Adjustment of curtain wall anchors for variances exceeding this tolerance shall be the glazing subcontractor’s responsibility.

Here is how I would organize those clauses for review:

That last row is worth stopping on. Before adding custom clips or a field allowance, check how much adjustment the proposed anchors already provide. Then resolve what happens beyond that range. Any design change still needs the appropriate engineering review.

Verify the Review

Check every quoted clause against the original document. Read the surrounding paragraphs for exceptions, dependencies, and references. Confirm the page and clause identifiers, then record your disposition: included, quoted by supplier, clarification required, or addressed in the bid scope.

Checking every row only verifies what the model gave you. It says nothing about the clause it left out. Go back through the file list, follow the open references, and run your usual scope checklist separately.

Keep a record of the files reviewed and the items that remain open. When an addendum arrives, review its changes and affected references before relying on the earlier list.

What I want at the end is a list I can use: source checked, supplier contacted, cost carried, or question still open. That is useful bid preparation. A table nobody verified is unfinished work.

Next, we’ll take the mockup requirement and follow it through the supplier quotes. That is where you find out which pieces are covered and which ones land back on you.

This article is part of a series on machine learning for glass and glazing professionals.

Sources

[1] ASTM International. ASTM E1105-15(2023): Field determination of water penetration.

[2] Fenestration and Glazing Industry Alliance. AAMA 501.2-25: Quality assurance and diagnostic water leakage field check.

[3] Fenestration and Glazing Industry Alliance. AAMA 501: Methods of test for exterior walls. Publisher listing includes AAMA 501.1-17, the dynamic-pressure water-penetration method. Verify the edition specified for the project.

[4] Dow. Technical and construction support services.

[5] Liu, N. F., Lin, K., Hewitt, J., Paranjape, A., Bevilacqua, M., Petroni, F., & Liang, P. Lost in the Middle: How Language Models Use Long Contexts. 2023 preprint; published in Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 12, 157–173 (2024).