Summary of Pavement Warranty Activities in WRC Area (western US) - July 2002

(A) Contractor, DOT, Private Unk - Unknown

South Dakota Notes:

SD¹ - Under design-build concept $34 million CRC pavement
SD² - Redesign terminal and joints during construction
SD³ - Or Less Anticipated
SD⁴ - $4,000,000 for Entire Project
SD⁵ - Joint Materials

Alaska Notes:

No use of warranties to date, the idea is being considered.

Arizona Notes:

AZ has no past, current, or planned warranty projects.
Say "O" or "Zero" on your survey question.
(Exception being a research study of Chips Sealing)

Hawaii Notes:

A committee is putting together a pilot warranty specifications, as of August 2002 many of the questions remain TBD

Idaho Notes:

A specification was developed in 2001 but a management change in the candidate District dropped the priority.

Utah Notes:

Howard Anderson, UDOT (801) 965-4303

Washington Notes:

WA-1 To date Washington State has not completed a warranty project yet. It is a Design/Build Urban Interchange project scheduled for completion later this year. It contains a warranty on asphalt and concrete.

WA-2 The WSDOT contact is Jeff Carpenter, Alternate Project Delivery, (360)705-7804. FHWA WA Div Contact is Cathy Nicholas, (360) 753-9412.

Colorado Notes:

An extensive evaluation has been completed for 6 early projects using comparative non-warranty projects. Differences in costs, and life are negligible. The success of pavement warranties is damped by the prior implementation of QC/QA HMA specifications and the resulting higher level of contractor knowledge.

Colorado has an extensive candidate project selection guide and confers with the paving industry as part of the section process.

CDOT has developed separate short term (3-5 years) materials and workmanship warranties and long term (10+ years) performance warranties for both PCCP and HMA pavements.

Contact Jay Goldbaum at 303-757-9449.

California Notes: Report Available for PM treatment evaluation.

1. As of Nov. 2001 Caltrans let warranty contracts on six preventive maintenance projects. All of the warranty projects begun in 2001 are complete. There will be eight more let in 2002 and 2003 (total of sixteen more). The objective is to construct 30 warranty preventive maintenance projects and analyze their performance and related factors (e.g. traffic, climate, materials, etc.). Note all of these jobs are preventive maintenance and all of the warranties are one-year. There have been no warranties for PCC and no (recent) warranties for HMA.

   Re. bid cost difference: The cost of letting PM contracts with warranties is highly variable. See Table 2 on p. 6 of the attached paper. Note Caltrans has experienced a 19% savings to 32% cost increase.

   Re. Initial as-built performance difference: This is the principle factor driving the warranty initiative. As the attached paper explains on pages 3-4, the warranties are intended to protect Caltrans from short-term failures by placing added responsibilities on the contractor. The strategy appears to have worked. Contractors are highly motivated to avoid failures. Minor repairs have been necessary on approx. half of the projects thus far, and the contractors have responded well when called out. The projects have been relatively free of disputes. Note the warranty selection guidelines in the attached paper (top of p. 5).

2. For the immediate future, i.e. the next three years, the total of PM projects with warranties will increase to 30. There is no legislative mandate to do so; the initiative is driven entirely within the Caltrans HQ Office of Highway Maintenance.
3. Although 3- and 5-year warranties have been discussed for capital projects, there are no implementation plans. All PM warranties are 1-year. There are no discussions or plans to go longer term for PM.
4. 10-15 year warranties are still over the horizon and have not been discussed.
5. The amount of performance bonds is typically 100% of the payable amount of any contract. Thus obtaining bonds has not been a problem. There have been fewer bidders on warranty contracts, but it has not been due to bonding. More likely there are fewer bidders as contractors take a wait-and-see attitude to allow the agency to work out the bugs. Winning bidders have not all been large corporations.
6. Performance criteria are rutting, raveling, potholing, delamination, bleeding and some levels of cracking (see Figure 1 on page 2 and the last paragraph on p. 4).
7. & 8. In accordance with the contract, performance criteria will be measured at the end of the 1-year warranty period by the R.E. and contractor. Typically, the projects are scrutinized on a weekly basis by Caltrans project personnel and maintenance supervisors.
9. These provisions are an add-on to the standard specifications for preventive maintenance treatments (e.g. chip seals, microsurfacing, thin overlays)
10. a. Point of Contact: Shakir Shatnawi (916-227-5706), Caltrans METS (MS#5), 5900 Folsom Boulevard, Sacramento, CA 95819-4612
    c. The primary advantage is to remove the burden from the state to correct short term deficiencies in preventive maintenance treatments.