Those of you still in the market for a modular home will find this article by Al to be very descriptive of the project schedule you should expect and why a preliminary schedule is so important to your success.  I say "still in the market" because given the state of the housing market, with prices continuing to fall, the glut of homes on the market and the fact we have not reached the bottom, your choices are wide open.

MODULAR HOMES 101

 

Article Five

 

How Do I Get There From Here?

 

The time process you must endure from purchasing a modular home to living in it is a journey.  During that journey you will face many issues and make many decisions.  That is why I highly recommend that anyone contemplating this year-long experience, hire a professional consultant.  One who is knowledgeable in the modular home industry to act as your guide, teach you elements of the process and act as your advisor.   

 

I decided to title this article, “How Do I Get There From Here?”  I chose that title because most of us would be utterly lost during this journey without assistance.  You as the buyer/owner not only need direction, but you also need tools.  All of us need tools to accomplish objectives and goals.  Two tools I believe are most important for understanding, keeping track and verifying activities along the journey are the preliminary schedule and the preliminary budget. 

 

This article will present information on the preliminary project schedule.  The following article, Article Six, will present information on the preliminary project budget.

 

The Tentative Project Schedule

Before a project schedule can be created, a consultant familiar with modular homes should be able to assist you with a work breakdown.  A work breakdown is the first step in preparing a schedule.  This is a list of work activities necessary to meet the owner’s expectations and the legal requirements of the local government.  You as the owner may have wide ranging interests from aesthetics to functions, but the local government is mostly concerned about occupant’s health and life safety issues.  Once a work list is prepared an estimate of the amount of time for each work task is required. 

When the work effort described as various tasks is joined with the time period necessary to complete these tasks a schedule will have been generated.  The schedule dates must be as realistic as possible and must be acceptable to the contractors doing the work.  If those dates do not have a ‘buy-in’ by the people (contractors) doing the work, the schedule will be inaccurate and will be worthless to the contractors and you.  Therefore, the schedule must be as true to the actual time that it takes to conduct a task as possible.

As Wikepedia states, “In many industries, such as engineering and construction; the development and maintenance of the project schedule is the responsibility of a full time scheduler or team of schedulers, depending on the size of the project.  In your situation, your schedule is miniscule when compared with large projects, but just as important.  The thoughtful and careful preparation of the schedule cannot be underestimated.

Many project scheduling software products exist which can do much of the tedious work of calculating the schedule automatically and plenty of books and tutorials are dedicated to teaching people how to prepare schedules. However, before your consultant can use these tools, he or she should thoroughly understand the concepts behind scheduling.  This is the real key to planning a successful project.

As I said above, the schedule is a tool.  It must be thought of as tentative because it may be subject to immediate and frequent change.  Changes to schedules are usually caused by external factors over which you have no control.  One example that quickly comes to my mind is pouring concrete.  Here in southern California one might prepare a schedule for a construction project and show a concrete pour for February 15^th.  A few days before that date you order several ‘redi-mix’ trucks of concrete to the site.  A day or two before that pour date a storm blows from the Pacific Ocean and pours rain for several days, including the fifteenth of the month of February.  Unless you make other arrangements, the ‘redi-mix’ trucks will not deliver concrete to construction sites.  Because of the rain your schedule will need to be updated.  Note; I’m told that in Seattle, Washington trucks would be sent to the construction site regardless of the weather.  The obvious point is that there may be, “acts of nature,” that do not permit you and others to follow the schedule precisely.  That is the reason one must always consider a project schedule to be a ‘tentative’ schedule and always subject to change. 

 

A Preliminary Schedule May Take Many Forms

 

There are many types of schedules.  Word schedules, bar chart schedules, critical path schedules and on and on.  The simplest schedule I believe is a word schedule.  That is what I am presenting herein because I believe it to be rather simple and a good place for the uninformed to start. 

 

Your schedule should fit your thinking process in order for it to be a useable tool.  This is not an attempt to teach you about psychology, but only to give you a meager idea of how you might think about time and space. 

 

Thanks to Wikepedia we find that research by Child Development Theorist, Linda Kreger Silverman who suggests that less than 30% of the population strongly uses visual/spatial thinking, another 45% uses both visual/spatial thinking and thinking in the form of words, and 25% thinks exclusively in words. According to Kreger Silverman, of the 30% of the general population who use visual/spatial thinking, only a small percentage would use this style over and above all other forms of thinking, and can be said to be 'true' "picture thinkers."

 

People think quite differently?  In my not so humble opinion the vast majority of us are some combination of all three of the above categories.  The prospective modular owner should give some thought as to how he/she thinks because this may determine which type of schedule goes best with his/her thought process and is most meaningful. 

 

 

Preparing a Preliminary Schedule

 

Dates show the estimated beginning date and the estimated ending date of each significant piece of work.  If an activity takes only one day, such as submitting a site plan to the building department or paying a fee, then there will only be one date, the date that activity is supposed to take place.  You will have to determine your own beginning and ending dates for your best guess of activities for your project.  For example, (see # 3 below) imagine that it takes the Septic Contractor three work days to dig a tank hole and trenches for pipes and leach field, place the tank, connect all pipes, install the leach field and backfill everything.  Then you will have a start date, such as 8/10/YR and a completion date, such as 8/13/YR.   

 

As an example, one line of your schedule may look like this:

 

8/12/YR-8/15/YR       Septic Contractor Installs Tank and Leach Field

 

For the purpose of this exercise I will not include completion dates, so as to simplify the presentation of the schedule and because the time allotted for an activity may change significantly from project to project.  The preliminary schedule below will give you a general idea of the progression of activities by only showing start dates and then activities.

 

 

Example of a Preliminary Schedule

 

1. 5/1--Owner signs an agreement with a knowledgeable consultant for services to be               

                        performed throughout this process

 

2. 5/3--Owner deposits money with title company for purchase of modular home

 

3. 5/6--Purchase order submitted to modular manufacturer

 

4. 6/1--Data gathering regarding legal ownership, legal lot, easements, etc. for site

 

5. 6/15-Licensed land surveyor surveys site and prepares legal site plan and plot plan

 

6. 7/1--Manufacturer starts construction of modular home at factory

 

7. 7/29-Soils engineer visits site and prepares soils test (independent agreement with

                        owner and soils engineer)

 

8. 8/8--Site plan, foundation plan, and floor plan for modular home submitted to local government building department and various fees paid (other fees will follow as required such as building permit fee and school fees)

 

9. 8/10-Septic contractor obtains permit and installs tank and leach field (independent agreement with owner and septic contractor)

 

10. 8/16-Consultant prepares bid documents for general (site) contractor, owner approves documents

 

11. 9/1--Consultant provides bid documents to general contractors

 

12. 10/1-Consultant meets with owner to review bids, select general contractor, and contract signed by all parties

 

13. 10/15-A good faith deposit is provided to general contractor to reserve a start date

 

14. 10/25-General contractor moves onto site, grades pad, digs footing trenches and installs rebar, etc. etc.

 

15. 10/30-Local government inspector inspects footings and placing of rebar

 

16. 10/31-General contractor pours concrete footings

 

17. 11/4--General contractor begins work for franchise and non-franchise utilities to

                        the site and upon the site property

 

18. 11/29-Factory completes modular home

 

19. 12/2--Factory representative, consultant and owner conduct a ‘walk through’ of 

                        modular at the factory and prepare a punch list   

 

20. 12/5--Factory makes corrections per punch list

 

21.  12/6--Modular house is moved to site

 

22. 12/7-Modular house arrives at site and     is moved into place over footings

 

23. 12/7-Modular house is allowed to settle for 5 to 7 days

 

24. 12/12-General contractor closes house and connects utilities

 

25. 12/13-Local government inspector inspects all Activities to date

 

26. 12/14-Roof setup, block and level house

 

27. 12/15-Concrete contractor installs steps and stem wall (independent agreement with owner and concrete contractor)

 

28. 12/16-Drywall close-up, repair, tape and texture inside, paint,

                        carpet installation, adjust doors and install fixtures and equipment

 

29. 12/27-Connect and check fire sprinkler system (note: in San Diego County every new home must have a complete and functioning inside fire sprinkler system before an occupancy permit is issued.)

 

30. 1/15-Local Government inspection of a completed and working fire sprinkler System (note: an inspection may also be required at the factory before

                        the modular is moved into your local jurisdiction.)

 

31. 1/20-General contractor to provide all special or extra work as contractually

                        required by owner      

 

32. 1/30-Heating, ventilation, air conditioning installation by HVAC Contractor

 

33. 2/20-Final Inspection by Local Government Inspector

 

34. 3/1—Occupancy Permit Issued by Local Government, Owner Moves into Modular

 

End of Schedule

 

NOTE: THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE SCHEDULE! 

 

Do not believe that this schedule is a complete schedule.  It is not!  I’ve left out

specific items that might be required due to specific problems or requirements of local

government codes and ordinances, modifications requested by the owner by the general

contractor’s contract.  This might be the addition of a retaining wall or some such thing.

Your schedule might include 100 items or more.  But I have purposefully limited this

schedule for the readers’ ease of understanding.  Schedules can be very, very

simple or very, very complex.

 

Please remember that a schedule is tentative and only a tool.  The purpose of this document is to educate you about knowing when certain activities take place.  Due to things beyond your control those activities may not occur according to your schedule, so your schedule must be flexible.  It must be easy to change and it must not cause you to believe it rules all activities, because it does not.  So, why have one?  It is an invaluable tool to help you keep track of things since it is virtually impossible to keep all these things in your head.

 

Once the project manager develops an understanding of the usual timeline for most housing types, it would seem the schedule could be easily put together and provided to the owner.  Scheduling information becomes more accurate and valuable with use.  Since you, as owner, may not have done scheduling before, you must rely on your consultant to assist you

 

One might ask, “Is the site contractor on schedule?”  This is a difficult question to answer.  If “acts of nature” enter the picture, such as storms, rainfall, snowfall and other such uncontrollable things someone must determine how much and to what extent the schedule has changed.  This too may not be an easy issue to resolve between the consultant/owner and the contractor.  A contract with a general contractor should have, among many other things, a start date and a completion date.  Any delay during the construction will cause the completion date to change.  This new date is usually negotiated with the general contractor. 

 

 

Whether a schedule is written words or in some form of graphic chart it should show major and some minor work tasks and all should be related to some realistic time line.  It is inevitable that the schedule will change during the course of the project. 

 

It is a serious mistake to launch into a project without a preliminary schedule.

 

Al Mercer

September 2008

 

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