We spent our Sunday over at the rehab, going through each room and making up a list for the scope of work. Being a math major married to an engineer, I realize that we are really anal folks. I think our contractors secretly laugh at the detail. We are probably the butt of the jokes at the “water cooler”. But, it does save our butt now and again when the job isn’t quite up to par and we have an agreed upon scope to fall back on. Truthfully, most of our good guys actually love and appreciate the scope because it does define the job for them too.
From past experience, we have learned that you can never be too thorough when starting a rehab project. Dave’s inspection sheet for the scope of work is multiple pages long and includes everything down to the switch plate covers (he is a thorough guy!). He then puts it into an Excel spreadsheet and determines the best way to break it up for the contractors that will be working for us. The inspection sheet improves and changes each time we do another project. I know that when all is is said and done, no matter how much we prepare, there will always be something we forgot. I would like to think we are getting to the point where we are forgetting fewer and fewer items. We’ll see!
We started off using Jerry Fink’s spreadsheet (which is incredibaly good by the way). Jerry is a recovering accountant so you can imagine how detailed it is. It is a great place to start if you’re new, a great place to start if you’re not. We have tweaked it to fit our needs and desires and I would like to say that we now have a pretty good darned system.
Jerry is doing a half day class with Vena Jones-Cox in mid-July (here’s the link: ). I am sure you can talk to him if you’re interested in getting his spreadsheet for your own use. He is an active rehabber here in the Cincinnati and Northern Ky. arena and teaches a very nice rehabbing class a few times a year.
Coming next: our scope of work….
