# Answering Review Comments on a Resubmittal

How to turn a marked-up return into a Rev 2 that goes through: one row per comment, three honest response types, and a resubmittal that says what changed.

Rev 1 came back Revise and Resubmit with thirty comments. The team fixes what it agrees with, quietly ignores two comments it thinks are wrong, changes a part while they're in there, and sends Rev 2 with a fresh transmittal. Rev 2 comes back Revise and Resubmit: "comment 14 not addressed," "comment 22 not addressed," and a new comment asking why the relay changed. That second cycle was avoidable, and the way to avoid it is a discipline most specs actually demand and few teams follow.

## Read every comment, then count them

Comments arrive in three places: the stamp page, the margins of the returned PDF, and sometimes a separate comment sheet where the engineer compiled the owner's remarks alongside their own. Someone whose job it is pages through the whole return, every page, and writes down every comment as a numbered item. Not the ones that look important. All of them. A comment on page 47 that nobody transcribed is the comment Rev 2 bounces on.

The count is the deliverable of this step. "Thirty-one comments on Rev 1" is a fact the resubmittal will be checked against, by you before it goes out and by the engineer after.

## One row per comment

The response log is a table with one row per comment, and its columns are fixed: item number, where the comment was (page or sheet), the comment in the reviewer's words, your response, and the status. The reviewer's words go in verbatim; paraphrasing a comment is how a response ends up answering a different question than the one asked.

Number the rows in the order the comments appear in the return, and never renumber. The engineer will refer to "comment 14" in the next round, and so will you.

This log is not an internal tracking sheet. It goes in the resubmittal as its own section, usually right after the transmittal. A reviewer opening Rev 2 wants to see, before anything else, that every comment on Rev 1 was received and what was done about it. The log is that proof, and it converts the engineer's review of Rev 2 from a re-read of the whole package into a walk down thirty-one rows.

## The three response types

Every row gets one of three responses, and the word matters.

**Complied.** You did what the comment asked. Say where: "Complied. Sheet E03 revised, wire numbers added to terminal strip TB2." A bare "complied" forces the reviewer to hunt for the change, and a reviewer who cannot find it marks the comment unaddressed.

**Clarified.** The comment rests on a misreading, or the package already contained what was asked for, or the requested item is not applicable to this scope. Explain, with a reference: "Clarified. The 24 VDC supply is rated 10 A; see datasheet page 2, highlighted. No change." Clarified is legitimate and common. It is also the response most often abused as a polite way of not complying, so back every one with a reference the reviewer can check in ten seconds.

**Disputed.** You are not going to do it, and you are saying so. Either the comment contradicts the contract documents, or it asks for something the contract does not include. State which, cite the paragraph, and say what you propose. A disputed comment left silent is not a dispute; it is an unaddressed comment and the package bounces. Two of the Division 01 sections I work under put the burden directly on the contractor: if the contractor considers any correction to constitute a change to the contract documents, the contractor shall give written notice. The response log is where that notice starts, and the follow-through is its own topic, [when a review comment is a change order](/learn/when-a-review-comment-is-a-change-order).

What a stamp obligates you to do in the first place, before any of this, is in [what Approved as Noted actually requires](/learn/approved-as-noted).

## What changes between revisions

A resubmittal changes only what the comments require, plus anything you must change for reasons you state. That second category is the one that generates the "why did the relay change" comment.

The rule appears in spec after spec in nearly the same words: on resubmittals, direct specific attention, in writing or on the resubmitted drawings, to revisions other than the corrections requested by the engineer on previous submissions. The engineer reviewed Rev 1 in full and intends to review Rev 2 only against the comments. Any change you make outside the comments is a change they did not ask for and will not look for. If it is found later, the approval of Rev 2 does not cover it.

So the resubmittal carries a second list after the response log: changes not driven by a comment, each with a reason. "Relay K7 changed from model A to model B: model A discontinued by manufacturer, replacement is form-fit-function equivalent, datasheet attached." Now it is on the record and reviewed.

Mark the changes on the drawings too. Revision clouds and a revision block entry per sheet are the drawing-side version of the same rule, and a reviewer comparing Rev 1 to Rev 2 sheet by sheet is doing it because you didn't cloud.

## When a comment needs an RFI first

Some comments cannot be answered by any of the three responses, because the answer depends on a decision that is not yours to make. The comment asks for a feature the spec's Part 2 forbids. The comment conflicts with the drawings. Two comments contradict each other. Resolving that by picking the reading you prefer and marking the row "complied" plants the contradiction in the approved record.

The right move is to write the RFI, and to answer the row "Pending RFI-0xx, issued on such date; will comply per response." If review timing allows, hold the resubmittal for the answer. If it doesn't, send Rev 2 with the row marked pending, so the engineer sees the question is in their court. The judgment call of when to ask is covered in [submittal versus RFI](/learn/submittal-vs-rfi).

## The resubmittal transmittal

Rev 2 goes out under its own transmittal, and three things distinguish it from the first one:

1. **It is marked as a resubmittal**, with the original number and the suffix the spec requires (Rev 1, or a letter). Most Division 01 sections require both the marking and the suffix.
2. **It names the return it answers**, by date, and states the comment count and the response summary: "answers 31 comments returned on such date; 27 complied, 3 clarified, 1 disputed, see response log."
3. **It lists what is enclosed and what is unchanged.** Some engineers want the complete package again; others want only the revised sheets. The spec's resubmittal paragraph says which. One conformed spec I hold distinguishes a full resubmittal (after Revise and Resubmit) from a partial one (after a "corrected, confirm" disposition), and charges the owner's review costs back to the contractor if a package needs more cycles than the spec allows.

The rest of the transmittal is the same as the first issue: [what a transmittal has to say](/learn/what-a-transmittal-has-to-say).

## One example

Six rows from a real-shaped log, panel package, Rev 1 returned with twelve comments:

| # | Sheet | Reviewer comment | Response | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | E02 | Provide SCCR on panel nameplate | Complied. Nameplate schedule on E06 revised to show 65 kA SCCR; calculation attached in certifications section | Closed |
| 4 | E02 | Enclosure shall be NEMA 4X stainless per 40 61 13 2.04.B | Clarified. Paragraph 2.04.B governs outdoor panels; 2.04.C allows NEMA 12 painted steel indoors, and this panel is inside the electrical building per drawing E-1. No change | Awaiting review |
| 5 | E03 | Add surge protection on analog inputs from field | Complied. SPDs added, E03 and E04 revised, BOM updated, datasheet added to product data | Closed |
| 7 | PD-9 | Provide 10-year warranty on PLC | Disputed. Section 40 61 13 1.09 requires the manufacturer's standard warranty; 10-year is not in the contract documents. Standard 1-year warranty statement attached. Will price extended warranty on request | Awaiting review |
| 9 | E05 | Coordinate with generator control per one-line | Pending RFI-014 issued on 2026-04-10; one-line and control narrative disagree on transfer signal source. Will comply per response | Pending |
| 12 | All | Add revision clouds | Complied. All revised sheets clouded, revision block updated to Rev 1 | Closed |

Row 4 and row 7 are the ones that would have bounced Rev 2 if they had simply been left silent. Written down with a citation, they are a conversation the engineer can finish with one line.

*Disclosure: I build [Submittal Kit](/), where a returned review's comments become rows in the package's [Comment Response Log](/help/comment-response-log), each answered on the submittal page and printed as its own section in the next revision. The log's discipline is what the spec demands; the software just refuses to let a row go unanswered.*

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Submittal Kit · Field Guides · Updated 2026-09-06
Canonical: https://submittalkit.com/learn/answering-review-comments