Scope Of Work Exterior Siding And Window Replacement: Fill & Download for Free

Well, let’s see.Framing repairs were easy. I did a bunch of those.Complete new roof. Easy. Comp and some torchdown.Siding repairs, soffits, fascia, flashing, exterior door replacement, all easy. Window replacements were easy.All the electrical work was easy. Complete rewire. My ex did it. But I taught her, and helped a little.Plumbing is unfinished, but not hard.Drywall is easy.Oil furnace repair? yep that was fine. Got info from Youtube and the parts place.Hardwood floor refinishing, no problem. Ex did that too. I just helped.Painting, definitely no problem.Removing oil tank, cleaning it, cutting it up and disposing of it? Not hard. Youtube was my friend.Still need to fix the driveway, but that’s not going to be hard. Once I finish the plumbing.About the only thing I can think of that isn’t pretty straight forward for DIY is installing a mini-split heat pump system, at least, the right way, not an off brand with pre-charged line sets. You really want to get a name brand with a warranty, and use a certified installer so that your electronics are guaranteed. The cost of the tools and equipment to flush and fill the system is higher than the cost of an installer.Ohhhh. The side sewer repair. When the guys pulled down my neighbors house and built seven townhouse units on his lot, they pulled out a maple tree whose roots were wrapped around my side sewer. They shattered the concrete elbow and adjoining pipe. It took a little over a year for it to get backed up to where I could notice it. I had a guy scope it, then had to dig it out until I found the broken part, then stand in ankle deep sewage in the dark in the middle of winter and replace the broken parts. That was not something anyone in their right mind wants to do. But, in general, I’ve done several side sewer repairs, and they are definitely doable, just can get way ugly.Anything involving extensive digging is not going to be great. But combining sewage and digging is doubly not great.So I would say, get a tech for your mini-split, and let someone else deal with the sewage.The rest is well within the range of DIY. first time success isn’t guaranteed, but likely.

I apologize in advance for the length of my answer. This is the first time I have ever written this down, and it is quite a saga.In 2014, I was working for a commercial general contractor from Southern Maine as a Project Manager. I had been with the company for 2 years when the owner let me go. Here comes the background.Anyone who works in the commercial construction industry knows that it is a very difficult, cutthroat environment. It seemed like Maine was only just starting to come of the housing market recession at that time. In April 2013, we were awarded a two building, 48 unit senior housing project for $5.1M. It was assigned to me to manage. Right out of the gate I found that it was a loser. The estimate was full of money holes, but I did my best to make it up. But, as anybody knows, it is impossible to shine a piece of shit into a diamond. The best you can do is turn it from diarrhea (which it was), into a semi-hard turd.This project was so bad financially, that I immediately took it to the company owner and explained it all to him before he signed the contract.I'm sure I'm missing something, but you'll get the gist of it. Bear in mind that the company wasn't doing very well either. Remember also, that I stated the project was for TWO buildings (this is very important).The plumbing and heating (P&H) number we carried was $650k. After reading the proposal from the subcontractor I realized that it said that the price was for ONE building. The actual low bid on the job for P&H was $780K.The buildings were wood framed buildings. 2X6 walls, wood floor trusses, and 3/4″ Advantech (structural wood sheathing) subflooring. The price for the Advantech was $22/sheet. The buildings were 8000 sf per floor with the first floor being a slab-on-grade. I only had 16,000 sf (ONE building) worth of Advantech carried in my budget. That's a loss of $12,500.Exterior of the buildings were to be clad with Hardi-Panel and Hardi-Plank siding. $68k in budget (ONE building) - actual cost was $132K.Framing contractor that we carried was a very small carpentry contractor, that had a hard time building small buildings for us in the past. So estimating carried him to build TWO buildings that were 10x larger than he had ever built before. His price was $280k. Included in his price was to frame the building shells (exterior walls, floor framing and subfloor, erect and sheath roof trusses, lay roofing; install all windows; build to common area decks; erect pergolas on first floor patios; and install all siding and exterior trim. It was a labor only price. A week after the bid, he backed out. My next price was for $255k for only the shells, and windows. We had to pay $40k for the roofing install, $15k for the decks and pergolas, and $90k for the siding install. I as the PM didn't want to use the second choice for the framing either because of a bad previous track record. Total hit: $150kAt the end of the job, we had to get the roofs redone because they were installed incorrectly (remember how I said I didn't want to use the second choice….), and then had a legal battle with the subcontractor. Cost to strip and redo both roofs - $68,000.The profit included in the job was a whopping $120k…The company owner wanted to get in with the developer doing the project, and if he had bailed on it, he would have lost a lot of credibility in the local construction market. So, I drove my heels in the ground and did my job the best I could. I'll come back to this.In September of 2013, I was given a second project to manage. A 17,000 sf classroom and lab building for a community college. Bid price $4.7M. This project was scheduled to break ground in mid September. Just in case anyone doesn't know, in Maine it snows in the winter and gets really cold. When you bid public work for winter construction, you are required to take care of any costs for winter conditions. I had $15K in my budget for it. This is only about 1/4 of what I should have had, if the winter was mild.This one had fairly decent subcontractor/supplier coverage. And I was able to do some nice things with buyout to secure some additional profit/funds. Turns out I would need it.On every building project there there are major subcontractors that you rely on - electricians, plumbers, HVAC, framing, drywall, site work, etc. Estimating, i.e. “the bane of my existence”, carried a P&H contractor for the mechanical contract for $600k that only had a crew of 3 guys including the owner of the company. Now, I love this guy. We'll call him “Joe.” He is one of the nicest people i have ever met. He is willing to go the extra mile, he owns up to his mistakes, does his warranty calls, etc. But there is absolutely, no way that he can handle this project from a mechanical standpoint. So I go to the owner of our company and tell him that if continue the project with Joe, we are going to have problems. During the buyout, I captured funds that could have allowed me to use a 50-man mechanical sub with the horsepower to keep the mechanical scope running smoothly. My boss tells me that we carried Joe for the project and it was my job to manage him. This is not good.Turns out that the Architect was a disaster. The drawings and specs were so bad that they delayed me and I got and extension of 8 weeks. This got a lot of the winter conditions paid for as well as additional profit for the company.Over the course of the project, I received an additional $400k in change orders due to architectural/engineering mistakes. Markup on change orders on state projects is 10% on subcontracted work and 20% on labor and materials provided by the general contractor. About 75% of the changes were subcontractor, so i made $50k in pure profit.Now, this community college wanted the building to be open for spring of 2015. Which meant that they needed to be staffing and furnishing in the fall of 2014. This means my subs need to be on top of it. And for the most part they were. And we continued to find design errors that continuously delayed us and should have been able to get more time and/or money for increased labor. The school held fast and said that the building needed to be opened for classes for spring of 2015.Back up a bit. We struggled through the winter, got the foundation in, put up the structural steel, trusses, exterior walls, and had it closed in by early April. We get ready to start underground utilities, and realize we have a problem with our plumber. Remember how I foresaw this 7 months earlier?Contractors are required to make submissions of products they intend to use to the Architect. These submittals come from the subs and suppliers. My P&H sub never finished his. I figured out why later.We started interior underground utilities and Joe was too busy to get to the job to do his portion, which was pretty much all of it. Now remember that I said that I really liked this guy. This is the part of the job that I hate - because I was being backed into the corner by the owner on schedule, after multiple attempts to settle this out peacefully with him, I pulled out his subcontract and began to threaten him if he didn't get to the project and get his underground done. His response - I quit.Now, contractually he can't just quit. But he knows that we aren't going to do anything, because my boss is a pussy when it comes to conflict. So, now I'm in a position where I have to find a mechanical contractor to take the reins of this thing and do it.So, I go talk to sub that I wanted to use in the first place, and start negotiating. This is all me, my boss wanted nothing to do with it (probably because he didn't want to admit to me that I was right from the beginning). I negotiated their price to $640K. Their original price was $680K. Here's the absolute best thing, my plumber quit on Wednesday, I negotiated with them on Thursday, they had a 5 man underground crew on site on Friday.One big problem, though - heat pumps. Joe never finished his submittals, because the heat pumps he carried didn't meet the job performance spec's. My new sub had to get these moving, because they had a 12 WEEK lead time (remember how I said I wanted to use them from the beginning?). Now I'm royally screwed. I need to have the building occupiable by September, it's now April and I won't have my heat pumps for three months. These things are supposed to go up above the suspended ceilings, meaning that I can't finish my spaces until we have them. Plus there is about 3 weeks worth of work to tie them into the whole mechanical system. We ended up having to do things way out of sequence to accommodate these things. Which worked out OK, but made other tasks take a bit longer. But it worked out in the end.Couple months go by, things are progressing, more fights with the Architect, more changes, schedule moving along. My boss pays me a visit and is disappointed by how the financials on the job are looking. I'm stunned because he had 300K in profit worked in, and I have made him an additional 150K from buy-outs and changes. He is concerned that my new mechanical sub is taking advantage of us because Joe quit and he was losing 40 grand in mechanical. I was at a loss for words, so I said: “If manning the job with no less than 10 guys for two months; pushing the job and doing more for us in two months than Joe had done in eight; as well as doing the project for $40K less than he bid the job for; I guess they're taking advantage.”August comes, and my boss hires a new PM and sends him to my job to “help” me. I'm not stupid, I know this guy is coming to the job to replace me. After a couple of weeks, he admits to me that he was supposed to take the job over, but had told our boss that he wouldn't do that because, in his opinion, I was doing the best job that anyone could possibly do in the situation we were in. FYI, he quit 6 months later.Beginning of September - the project is roughly 95% complete. Remaining work includes: tile in corridor, elevator inspection (only two inspectors for the entire state), finish lecture hall, and landscaping. Life Safety is complete. I have a gentleman's agreement with the school that if I get a temporary certificate of occupancy, there will be no penalties, even though penalties would never hold up in court because of all the owner and architect delays, and that I have documented everything that so well the company would be in a great position, but it's always better to work with someone rather than let groups of lawyers fight about it later. I do a walkthrough with the code enforcement officer and fire chief, and lo and behold I walk away with a temporary C of O. The school is now allowed to occupy the building with staff.After 12 months of complete hell, I finally catch a break. I'm feeling great, nothing can knock the pedestal out from under me, right? Wrong. I send an email out to all parties with the good news. I get responses from the president of the school, the school's PM, the Architect's PM and construction manager, and my boss. Everyone congratulates me and says job well done, except for one person - my boss. His email response is:“Ben - confirm that the temporary office trailer is scheduled to be picked up on Monday.”I'm floored! I have just spent 12 months of my life managing not one piece of shit project for him, but two. I just pulled off a miracle and everyone involved in the project knows it, except him. I'm so done.Two weeks go by, we're wrapping things up, and he comes up. He waits until the end of the day and comes in the classroom that I am using as an office, and says he is letting me go. I ask why, and he says that my last two projects didn't go very well financially. I said how do you figure, I made $150K more on this one! He says but he lost $68K of his own money on the housing project.I proceeded to outline the losses on the job.Losses of $130K for mechanical, $12.5K for advantech, $68K for siding, and $150K for carpentry, $68K to re-roof the buildings. Total losses (without the new roofing) $428K. Profit on the job was only $120K. Net loss $308K.I then asked him how he ONLY lost $68K. He was dumbfounded. I told him it was because I did my job, and was creative on how I bought things, and used some different subs to make up for shortfalls. I stated further that it shouldn't be me being let go, it should be the estimator who screwed the pooch.He went on that he thought i made mountains out of molehills at the school. I asked “How so?” He said that I exaggerated everything and it embarrassed him. He thought that there were certain things that I should have just done, and not charged for. Now I'm confused because one minute I'm not making enough money, and the next I'm making TOO much? The design and owner issues were so bad that it could fill a book with them. I told him that I pushed everything with the owner and architect so hard to make him a beautiful case, so that if it needed to go to a legal battle it would be a slam dunk (like tossing a basketball into a pool). I just couldn't believe that I could do so much for someone and have him just throw me under the bus like this. I haven't even told you all about the first 4 projects I did for him that were almost as bad as these. I felt as if I had experienced a lifetime of Project Mangement horrors in two years.He started to act like he would change his mind. But I grabbed the termination letter he brought with him and signed it. I got up, packed up MY laptop, and walked out the door.I then called the owners of both of those jobs and explained that I had been let go. They were stunned. They couldn't believe that he actually fired ME. Both of these owners really liked me, and I still talk to them both to this day.After this I went to work for an electrical contractor friend of mine, who had gotten himself into financial trouble. He hired me as his operations manager. I had him fixed, within 6 months, but he was in too deep and had to declare.So as I was sending out resumes to the same old commercial contractors that I always had, I had an epiphany. I decided to take my company to the next level. That was in 2015, I am broke as hell, but I have never been happier.When I was a kid, I used to play with army men in the driveway with toothpicks and popsicle sticks. These guys could build anything. At NO TIME was there ever one of them with a white hat running around screaming that they were behind schedule, or that they were losing money. I have never wanted to do anything except build, problem is, when you get to that level, it's more like being an attorney, than a builder.

A Divided Germany and BerlinAt the end of World War II, the Allied powers divided conquered Germany into four zones. As agreed at the July 1945 Potsdam Conference, each was occupied by either the United States, Great Britain, France, or the Soviet Union. The same was done in Germany's capital city, Berlin.The relationship between the Soviet Union and the other three Allied powers quickly disintegrated. As a result, the cooperative atmosphere of the occupation of Germany turned competitive and aggressive. One of the best-known incidents was the Berlin Blockade in June of 1948 during which the Soviet Union stopped all supplies from reaching West Berlin.Although an eventual reunification of Germany had been intended, the new relationship between the Allied powers turned Germany into West versus East and democracy versus Communism.In 1949, this new organization of Germany became official when the three zones occupied by the United States, Great Britain, and France combined to form West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany, or FRG). The zone occupied by the Soviet Union quickly followed by forming East Germany (the German Democratic Republic, or GDR).This same division into West and East occurred in Berlin. Since the city of Berlin had been situated entirely within the Soviet Zone of Occupation, West Berlin became an island of democracy within Communist East Germany.The Economic DifferencesWithin a short period of time after the war, living conditions in West Germany and East Germany became distinctly different.With the help and support of its occupying powers, West Germany set up a capilasist economy. The economy experienced such a rapid growth that it became known as the "economic miracle." With hard work, individuals living in West Germany were able to live well, buy gadgets and appliances, and travel as they wished.Nearly the opposite was true in East Germany. The Soviet Union had viewed their zone as a spoil of war. They pilfered factory equipment and other valuable assets from their zone and shipped them back to the Soviet Union.When East Germany became its own country in 1949, it was under the direct influence of the Soviet Union and a Communist society was established. The economy of East Germany dragged and individual freedoms were severely restricted.Mass Emigration From the EastOutside of Berlin, East Germany had been fortified in 1952. By the late 1950s, many people living in East Germany wanted out. No longer able to stand the repressive living conditions, they decided to head to West Berlin. Although some of them would be stopped on their way, hundreds of thousands made it across the border.Once across, these refugees were housed in warehouses and then flown to West Germany. Many of those who escaped were young, trained professionals. By the early 1960s, East Germany was rapidly losing both its labor force and its population.Scholars estimate that between 1949 and 1961, nearly 3 million of the GDR's 18 million populace fled East Germany.2 The government was desperate to stop this mass exodus, and the obvious leak was the easy access East Germans had to West Berlin.What to Do About West BerlinWith the support of the Soviet Union, there had been several attempts to simply take over the city of West Berlin. Although the Soviet Union even threatened the United States with the use of nuclear weapons over this issue, the United States and other Western countries were committed to defending West Berlin.Desperate to keep its citizens, East Germany knew that something needed to be done. Famously, two months before the Berlin Wall appeared, Walter Ulbricht, Head of the State Council of the GDR (1960–1973) said, "Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten." These iconic words mean, "No one intends to build a wall."After this statement, the exodus of East Germans only increased. Over those next two months of 1961, nearly 20,000 people fled to the West.The Berlin Wall Goes UpRumors had spread that something might happen to tighten the border of East and West Berlin. No one was expecting the speed—nor the absoluteness—of the Berlin Wall.Just after midnight on the night of August 12–13, 1961, trucks with soldiers and construction workers rumbled through East Berlin. While most Berliners were sleeping, these crews began tearing up streets that entered into West Berlin. They dug holes to put up concrete posts and strung barbed wire all across the border between East and West Berlin. Telephone wires between East and West Berlin were also cut and railroad lines were blocked.Berliners were shocked when they woke up that morning. What had once been a very fluid border was now rigid. No longer could East Berliners cross the border for operas, plays, soccer games, or any other activity. No longer could the approximately 50,000–70,000 commuters head to West Berlin for well-paying jobs. No longer could families, friends, and lovers cross the border to meet their loved ones.Whichever side of the border one went to sleep on during the night of August 12, they were stuck on that side for decades.The Size and Scope of the Berlin WallThe total length of the Berlin Wall was 96 miles (155 kilometers).4 It cut not only through the center of Berlin, but also wrapped around West Berlin, entirely cutting it off from the rest of East Germany.The wall itself went through four major transformations during its 28-year history. It started out as a barbed-wire fence with concrete posts. Just days later, on August 15, it was quickly replaced with a sturdier, more permanent structure. This one was made out of concrete blocks and topped with barbed wire. The first two versions of the wall were replaced by the third version in 1965, consisting of a concrete wall supported by steel girders.The fourth version of the Berlin Wall, constructed from 1975 to 1980, was the most complicated and thorough. It consisted of concrete slabs reaching nearly 12-feet high (3.6 meters) and 4-ft wide (1.2 m).5 It also had a smooth pipe running across the top to hinder people from scaling it.By the time the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, there was a 300-foot No Man's Land established on the exterior, and an additional inner wall.Soldiers patrolled with dogs and a raked ground revealed any footprints. The East Germans also installed anti-vehicle trenches, electric fences, massive light systems, 302 watchtowers, 20 bunkers, and even minefields.Over the years, propaganda from the East German government would say that the people of East Germany welcomed the Wall. In reality, the oppression they suffered and the potential consequences they faced kept many from speaking out to the contrary.The Checkpoints of the WallAlthough most of the border between East and West consisted of layers of preventative measures, there were little more than a handful of official openings along the Berlin Wall. These checkpoints were for the infrequent use of officials and others with special permission to cross the border.The most famous of these was Checkpoint Charlie, located on the border between East and West Berlin at Friedrichstrasse. Checkpoint Charlie was the main access point for Allied personnel and Westerners to cross the border. Soon after the Berlin Wall was built, Checkpoint Charlie became an icon of the Cold War, one that has frequently been featured in movies and books set during this time period.Escape Attempts and the Death LineThe Berlin Wall did prevent the majority of East Germans from emigrating to the West, but it did not deter everyone. During the history of the Berlin Wall, it is estimated that about 5,000 people made it safely across.Some early successful attempts were simple, like throwing a rope over the Berlin Wall and climbing up. Others were brash, like ramming a truck or bus into the Berlin Wall and making a run for it. Still others were suicidal as some people jumped from the upper-story windows of apartment buildings that bordered the Berlin Wall.In September 1961, the windows of these buildings were boarded up and the sewers connecting East and West were shut off. Other buildings were torn down to clear space for what would become known as the Todeslinie, the "Death Line" or "Death Strip." This open area allowed a direct line of fire so East German soldiers could carry out Shiessbefehl, a 1960 order that they were to shoot anyone trying escape. At least 12 were killed within the first year.7As the Berlin Wall became stronger and larger, escape attempts became more elaborately planned. Some people dug tunnels from the basements of buildings in East Berlin, under the Berlin Wall, and into West Berlin. Another group saved scraps of cloth and built a hot air balloon and flew over the Wall.Unfortunately, not all escape attempts were successful. Since the East German guards were allowed to shoot anyone nearing the eastern side without warning, there was always a chance of death in any and all escape plots. At least 140 people died at the Berlin Wall.The 50th Victim of the Berlin WallOne of the most infamous cases of a failed attempt occurred on August 17, 1962. In the early afternoon, two 18-year-old men ran toward the Wall with the intention of scaling it. The first of the young men to reach it was successful. The second one, Peter Fechter, was not.As he was about to scale the Wall, a border guard opened fire. Fechter continued to climb but ran out of energy just as he reached the top. He then tumbled back onto the East German side. To the shock of the world, Fechter was just left there. The East German guards did not shoot him again nor did they go to his aid.Fechter shouted in agony for nearly an hour. Once he had bled to death, East German guards carried off his body. He became a permanent symbol of the struggle for freedom.Communism Is DismantledThe fall of the Berlin Wall happened nearly as suddenly as its rise. There had been signs that the Communist bloc was weakening, but the East German Communist leaders insisted that East Germany just needed a moderate change rather than a drastic revolution. East German citizens did not agree.Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev (1985–1991) was attempting to save his country and decided to break off from many of its satellites. As Communism began to falter in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia in 1988 and 1989, new exodus points were opened to East Germans who wanted to flee to the West.In East Germany, protests against the government were countered by threats of violence from its leader, Erich Honecker (served 1971–1989). In October 1989, Honecker was forced to resign after losing support from Gorbachev. He was replaced by Egon Krenz who decided that violence was not going to solve the country's problems. Krenz also loosened travel restrictions from East Germany.The Fall of the Berlin WallSuddenly, on the evening of November 9, 1989, East German government official Günter Schabowski blundered by stating in an announcement, "Permanent relocations can be done through all border checkpoints between the GDR [East Germany] into the FRG [West Germany] or West Berlin."People were in shock. Were the borders really open? East Germans tentatively approached the border and indeed found that the border guards were letting peopleVery quickly, the Berlin Wall was inundated with people from both sides. Some began chipping at the Berlin Wall with hammers and chisels. There was an impromptu and massive celebration along the Berlin Wall, with people hugging, kissing, singing, cheering, and crying.The Berlin Wall was eventually chipped away into smaller pieces (some the size of a coin and others in big slabs). The pieces have become collectibles and are stored in both homes and museums. There is also now a Berlin Wall Memorial at the site on Bernauer Strasse.After the Berlin Wall came down, East and West Germany reunified into a single German state on October 3, 1990.