Add HOURS to Your Day and Subtract STRESS

By Eric Lecky

It can be hard enough to achieve the work-life balance you crave when you’re managing a community. Things get even more challenging when you’re conducting a community-wide pipe replacement project.

For those who don’t know, every community reaches a point where one of its many piping systems can no longer be repaired by maintenance staff or a service plumber. Whether due to age or defect, the entire piping system begins to fail and must be replaced to protect the value of the property and the safety of its residents.

If you decide to use your plumbing service provider for a repipe, bear in mind that it’s a construction project. In addition to your plumber, you’ll have to hire and oversee other contractors, communicate with residents, keep things on a strict schedule, navigate complex building codes, and so much more. It’s a recipe for long days, weekend work, and unhealthy stress.

Or you could choose the much easier way—using a specialty repipe contractor. A repipe contractor gives you a single source for end-to-end services that minimize your involvement (and stress levels) throughout the project.

Here are some ways a repipe contractor helps you strike a harmonious balance between your major pipe replacement project and your life outside work.

DELEGATING PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS

On a repipe project, constant project management—including a comprehensive resident-centric communications program—is one of the main tasks that tips the scales more toward work than life. A top-notch specialty repipe contractor will have you covered by providing a dedicated onsite project manager for resolving project and resident issues on the spot, communicating with you daily, and conducting regular job status meetings.

For resident outreach, your project manager will work with you to tailor a set of templated communications for your community, and they’ll tell you when to distribute the communications through normal community channels like a newsletter, email, and bulletin boards. The project manager will also conduct and record town halls with question-and-answer sessions to help ensure that residents receive timely information.

Then, your project manager will post notices on each resident’s front door so that they know exactly what’s happening in their units and when. For example, the project manager may post:

• A pre-construction walk notice—often used in high-rise communities—stating a time when the contractor will walk through the unit to discuss work areas with the resident.

• A color-coded floor plan showing precisely where residents can live and store their items.

• A “work in progress” checklist that the repipe team updates at the end of each day to indicate what work was completed.

Of course, some repipe contractors may also offer a custom resident web portal or mobile app for larger projects so that project contacts, schedules, and notices are easy for residents to access from anywhere.

Finally, when the unit work is done, the repipe contractor walks the unit with the resident to ensure they’re satisfied.

CUTTING DOWN YOUR TO-DO LIST

A significant advantage of a specialty repipe contractor is clear: The more work you give to someone else, the less you’ll have to do yourself.

A repipe contractor employs an in-house team of drywallers, painters, tile-setters, carpenters, and other tradespeople beyond plumbers needed for a repipe project. That means you don’t have to solicit bids and coordinate multiple schedules and players.

FINISHING FASTER

The sooner you finish a major undertaking like a repipe, the sooner your work and life can return to normal. Specialty repipe contractors understand how to structure a project schedule to expedite progress. They’re also dedicated to working on your repipe project and nothing else. Compare this with using your regular service providers, who may not be expert at sequencing work across multiple crews and will likely remain on call for other jobs.

SAVING MONEY

You might think you’ll have more negotiating power by opting to use your service providers for a repipe project, but any savings gained usually disappear due to project delays, unanticipated costs, and—lately—supply chain issues that drive up the price and delivery time for construction materials. Specialists work with their suppliers to factor all scenarios into their timelines and budgets.

AVOIDING UNPLEASANT SURPRISES

The last thing you want to face at the end of a repipe project is a failed inspection that extends the project by weeks or months. Repipe contractors live and breathe local building codes. What’s more, they’re bonded and insured to cover the full project scope and cost, for added peace of mind.

FIND YOUR BALANCE WITH A SPECIALIST

You have enough on your plate each day to challenge your work-life balance. Don’t let a community repipe tip things over the edge. Get the stability you deserve by choosing a specialty repipe contractor to keep satisfaction high and stress levels low every step of the way.

Eric Lecky is Executive Vice President and Chief Growth Officer at SageWater, North America’s leading pipe replacement contractor. SageWater is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, with offices nationwide. Over the past 30 years, they have replaced more than 35 million feet of pipe in over 100,000 occupied residential units. Learn more at sagewater.com.