Delay costs
Delay costs are the money side of delay - the site overheads, supervision, plant and preliminaries you keep paying while the job runs longer - claimed separately from the extension of time that covers the time side.
An EOT without delay costs protects you from LDs but leaves you funding the longer program. Many contracts confine delay costs to narrow causes (often only the builder's own acts), cap them at a daily rate, or require them to be claimed inside the same short notice windows as the EOT itself.
Why it matters to subbies
Claim time AND money, in that order, inside the windows. The daily rate for delay costs in the schedule is a tender-time decision - price it like it will be used.
Keep reading
General information for Australian subcontractors, not legal advice - contract drafting and state legislation vary and change; your document and your state's Act govern. Written by Mat Kennedy at The Construction Contracts Co.