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Construction Manual

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Introduction

The Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) has developed this Construction Manual to provide guidance and assistance to Department personnel in the practice and procedure for all construction related to highways as authorized by the State Legislature. This Construction Manual documents Department policies and prescribes procedures for new highway construction and highway improvements. This Manual is directed primarily to Department construction personnel and consultant inspectors retained under agreement by the Department. The Construction Manual consists of the following parts:

Part A - Construction Section Organization: Provides an overview of the Construction section and the responsibilities and duties of each of the various positions.

Part B - Department & Agency Organization and Coordination: Provides an overview of the Department and the responsibilities of some of the divisions that make up the Department.

Part C - Contract Administration: Describes the different parts of the Contract and provides information on the responsibilities of the inspector regarding contract administration.

Part D - Office/Field Practices and Procedures: Describes general record-keeping and inspection procedures to be used throughout construction projects and provides the inspectors with a manual for reference.

Part E - Standard Construction Procedures and Equipment: Describes, in conjunction with the Standard Specifications, the different aspects of construction, and gives explanations of the contractor’s work, inspection procedures, and general hints about conducting successful field operations. Provides the most common types of construction activities and the various types of equipment used to build the projects, providing both general features of operation and information specific to inspection and equipment to perform the work.

Part F - eConstruction: Describes the various eConstruction programs that are utilized by the Construction. This section also provides how-to information on utilizing the various business processes contained within the eConstruction programs

Part G - Standard Forms: Provides examples of many of the forms inspectors will encounter during a construction project.

Part H - Glossary & Acronyms: Provides definitions and explanations of most of the construction terms and acronyms that appear in the Manual or are used in the field.

Part I - Appendices: Contains English/metric conversion charts, the most commonly used mathematical formula used in field inspection work, and other useful references such as information regarding the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), inspector’s forms, reference letter, etc.

Navigation

In 2025, the navigation "skin" of the Construction Manual was changed from the previous Wiki standard of MonoBook, to the new Wiki standard Vector 2022. While the skin upgrade did not result in any direct content changes, it did cause some slight changes in navigation of the manual.

Now, to access the different Manual Parts, you can use open the main menu by clicking the button on the upper left corner as shown below. This menu may also be docked at the left sidebar by selecting the link outlined in orange.

Navigation of the Table of Contents has also changed. It is now natively docked at the left sidebar.

Users are also able to make changes to the font size and background color by selecting the glasses icon in the upper right corner.

Version

This Manual is intended to be used with the 2025 Standard Specifications and its 2026 update. Therefore, numerous references to the Specifications have been included in the Manual. The references link to the appropriate sections within the sentence or are noted at the end of the sentence or paragraph to which they refer. These links refer to the Standard Specification Wiki, which is the most up to date version of the Specifications. Individual projects may not be on the most recent version of the Specifications, so individuals are recommended to refer to the appropriate .pdf version of the Specifications, available at https://engineeringsupport.deldot.gov/index.php/Standard_Specifications, to ensure compliance. Using this Construction Manual and these references, inspectors will be able to better understand the requirements of the Contract and what they must do to ensure those requirements are met.

Changes

The DelDOT Construction Manual electronic first draft was officially released on April 28, 2017. Subsequently, several minor updates were made.
In January 2026, the Second Electronic Edition was released.
Because the Manual is not a Contract Document, and due to its design as a wiki-style webpage, future updates will occur on a regular basis, eliminating the need for large updates.
If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to provide comments to Construction Manual Administrator at DOT.ConstructionManual@delaware.gov.

A current area of focus in the manual is updating the following Sections:

• Part E - Standard Construction Procedures and Equipment
• Part G - Standard Forms

The Chief of Construction and Construction Resource Engineer will review all major comments with the relevant parties and any necessary updates will be incorporated into the Manual.

Change Log

This table lists all the changes made to the draft version of the manual in the current year. These updates were previously published depending upon their importance. Beginning in 2026, these updates will occur on a regular cadence. These pushes to the "production" version of the manual will not be listed. Updates which were made in prior years can be viewed on the Previous Changes page.

Date	Page	Section	Summary
1/8/2026	Part F	Section 3.02	Added Project Vendor, Contracts-Summary, and Pay Items BPs. Reorganized section to the order they will be encountered in the project, added multiple internal links, and reorganized each BP to provide location, reference BPs, uses, and instructions
1/8/2026	Part C	Section 16.07	Added Contractor Evaluations Section, with link to regulation and current scoring
1/12/2026	Parts C & D	Section C16 & D5	Updated with Property Damage/Accident Procedure, clarifying Sections per group comments.
1/14/2026	Part C	Section 4	Added Section C4.02 for public notices with links to the Policy Implements.
1/15/2026	Part F	Section F3.02	Updated some of the how-to documents for Pencil Estimates and Change Orders
1/21/2026	Part G	Section 6	Updated Inspection Framework Link
1/21/2026	Part B	Sections B1.7, 1.8, 1.10, 1.11	Added new Division of Economic Development and adjusted other Divisions to reflect responsibilities
1/21/2026	Main Page		Updated to reflect new policy of routine updates, keeping the Manual as current as reasonably possible
1/30/2026	Parts B & C	Section B2.7 & C12.11	Changed any instance of "J Account" to "Third Party Funding Account", reflecting new policy
2/3/2026	Part D	Section 4.2	Added internal links to Progress Meetings and noted the inclusion of Design. Added internal link to CAG meeting, and noted how they should be initiated.
2/3/2026	Part C	Section 10.11	Created two categories of revisions and clarified the level of impact and when a formal revision should be issued. Added internal links
2/4/2026	Part C	Section 10.12 & 10.13	Reworked section to clearly distinguish between the digital and paper as-built processes, small wording update to 10.13 to conform with 10.12 updates
2/4/2026	Previous Changes	All	Created page, moving changes outside of the current calendar year to the new page
2/4/2026	Main Page	Introduction & Change Log	Added navigation aids and moved old changes to new page
2/18/2026	Sidebar and Part F	Section 1	Added link to eConstruction Training Booking page
2/18/2026	Part G	Section 5	Updated and added documents per DelDOT Stormwater
2/26/2026	All Pages	All Sections	Added underline for Links to improve accessibility
2/27/2026	Part F	Section F3.02	Replaced image of table with wikitable to improve accessibility

Procedures for Making Changes

Please submit comments to DOT.ConstructionManual@delaware.gov. Minor comments will be addressed in the next regular update to the Manual. Major comments will be reviewed by the Chief of Construction, the Construction Resource Engineer, and the Construction Group Engineers monthly. Major changes are changes that impact the content and business delivery of DelDOT requiring coordination between sections within DelDOT and partners i.e. FHWA, DNREC, etc. Minor revisions are considered to be spelling and grammar corrections, or updates to forms and how-to documents that do not require review.