Cohousing-L Mailing List: Painting

[Saoirse (ccharis]

At Harmony Village (semi-arid climate), we have been through all kinds of
permutations on the painting thing. We did some painting with volunteer
labor, paid comm'ty members, invited members to paint their own, and at
different times we hired 3 different private contractors. And we're only
talking about window trim!! Over the past 7 years, we have learned:

* Aluminum clad would be less maintenance and less expense long term than
wood (for us and our climate)
* Volunteer painting was the most problematic of all our strategies
* Contractors were erratic, expensive, poor quality control, unreliable,
warranty of work was worthless
* Members painting their own was okay, but quality control was still an
issue in some cases
* Some windows require more frequent painting than any reserve study will
indicate. We have some windows that need painting every other year. Some
windows don¹t need painting more than every 4 or 5 years.

Our most satisfactory strategy:
We hired a young woman who is related to a member and thus visits often. She
is quick, clean, and her work is high quality. The current plan is to paint
about 25% of the windows EVERY year. This allows us to get the ones that
need it, as often as they need it. We¹ve increased our long term reserves
budget to cover the expense. We also use the best quality primer and high
quality paint, applied in two coats.

-- 
Saoirse
Harmony Village Cohousing
Golden, Colorado
http://www.harmonyvillage.org