Effective Protective Coating Warranties for Steel Bridges

The service life of steel bridge coatings is occasionally shorter than the intended design life, resulting in the need for increased maintenance painting. Warranty clauses could improve the situation by incentivizing higher quality and requiring repair of defects. This article provides a summary of a previous comprehensive research project (Florida Department of Transportation Research Project BED02)1-2 focused on the value of warranty terms in painting contracts, based on survey data collected from transportation agencies. It also presents proposed conditions for nonconforming criteria, level of inspection, and warranty period.