Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: managing your major projects

[R Philip Dowds (rphilipdowds]

My memory is that Shadowlake Village has a tradition of doing its own major 
construction, like using volunteer labor to build a large, in-ground swimming 
pool.  I think this worked out for you because you had one or more resident 
members with professional experience in the construction industry — and it 
sounds like these members are no longer available?

At Cornerstone Cohousing, we’ve been able to do “smaller" projects (e.g., 
install a community LAN) with our own hands-on volunteer labor, but for 
“larger" projects — like structural repairs, re-roofing, boiler replacement, 
etc — we usually rely on hired contractors and subcontractors.  Here’s what I 
see as the two top considerations for self-management of construction work:

(1) Do you want to do competitive bidding?  Yes, you can pick a contractor 
(e.g., a roofing company) by interviewing several, and selecting the one who 
seems to offer the best combination of quality, price, and schedule.  In 
simplest terms, you may pick the one you “like” most.  But if you want to do a 
meaningful price competition, you need a detailed job description (“drawings 
and specs”) that applies to the price offers of all the candidates.  If you 
don’t have someone in-house who can develop this description (and, can run a 
bid process that’s attractive to busy contractors), you may want to hire a 
professional architect, engineer or other consultant who knows how to produce 
“bid documents”.

(2) Do you understand the construction contracting business?  More 
specifically, do you understand what contractors expect and need from their 
customers; how contractors make and/or lose money; and how well-written 
construction agreements (the “contract documents”) protect everyone from 
bickering and disappointment?  If so, you can probably manage your own projects 
… even if you’re not a certified expert in the latest asphalt emulsion 
technology, or the fine print of shingle warranties.  Good self-administration 
of a construction project starts and ends with good written agreements.  
Architects, engineers and professional construction managers know a lot about 
how to prepare and administer such agreements.  These agreements appeal to the 
good guy contractors, and scare off the cheap deal bozos.  Some civilians (the 
average cohousing resident) can and do learn a lot about contracts and contract 
administration.

There are lots of good contractors out there — ones that want to make customers 
happy and sustain reputation by doing good work of which everyone can be proud. 
 But these good contractors are rarely the least-cost alternative.  As 
mentioned above, you want a job that *balances* the legitimate quality, price 
and schedule interests of all parties.

Thanks, RPD

> On Aug 1, 2024, at 6:52 PM, Muriel Kranowski <murielk [at] vt.edu> wrote:
> 
> This came up during our current discussions about our updating our Capital
> Reserves plan, namely, how will we manage big items that are coming up in
> the next few years? The biggest one will be re-doing all of our asphalt
> roadways and pedways, and then the CH will be ready for major re-roofing.
> We don't know if we'll have in-house (ie, volunteer) project management
> expertise available to us as we did for some large-scale projects in the
> past.
> 
> How do other cohousing communities handle the management side of your
> capital maintenance projects?
>    Muriel at Shadowlake Village
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