Common House minutes: 2008-09-07

Agenda:

Finalize budget numbers for 2009 and prioritize spending for remainder of 2008

Minutes:

CH meeting 9/7/08
Present: Mac, Rachel, Becky, Mary K,

BUDGET 2009
Supplies line item to stay the same = $1000 (this buys all supplies
related to operations = toilet paper to cleaners to filters and lights)
Annual Service/repairs will stay the same = $500
Utilities. Usually folks see these all lumped together, but we are
breaking them out here so we could do the best estimate
Electric, assume 3% increase = $5526
Gas, assume 25% increase based on some recent email traffic = $4900
Water/sewer, assume 3% increase = $1313
phone, assume 3% increase = $654
Garage Electric assume 3% = $1277
Satellite, assume 3% = $942
TOTAL UTILITIES = $14612

So, the last item on the budget left to figure out is the Improvements
line item. We still have money left from this year, and we want to
request for next year. We did another brainstorm and added some rough
figures and decided what to do this year, and came up with a rough
idea for next. We still need to get a few quotes.

Improvements = $1500-$2500 depending on how quotes come back.

Here are the decisions, see below for the discussion

For the remainder of THIS year we will:
1. have the energy audit done ($400ish)
2. have blinds added to the kitchen to help with both sun glare and
heat loss. ($400)
3. buy a steam cleaner so that the carpets can be done once a work
season as part of the cleaners jobs (heavy traffic areas) to help the
carpets hopefully last until 2013 when the reserve fund will pay to
replace them. ($200-$400 depending on model)

For 2009 Improvements line item:
1. Replace carpet in Sitting room early - This is the nicest room in
the CH, and the one where the carpet seems to upset most people
2. Marmoleum over the concrete (POST MTG NOTE: there was a string of
emails upset with this idea, and some incentive to have it redone
correctly keeping the concrete. So, we will get quotes on both and
then decide)
3. Insulating blinds for Guest room, light blocking blinds for game
room
4. Depending on when we get the results from the audit, we may add
last minute items to the request.

-
Other things discussed, but not decided on:
replacing the carpet in the game room with marmoleum, wood, cork or
something else. This decision will wait until we have more community
discussion about long term plans for this room

We ranked which rooms should get the blinds in what order to help with
energy costs and increase beauty. Budget Blinds came out and measured
all the rooms and gave quotes.

room priority for blinds
1.kitchen
2guest room
3.game room
4. sitting room - for this room we talked about the blinds that go
from bottom up to preserve the beauty. But we were not sure if we
even wanted to add them. Will wait to see what the energy audit says.

Becky will order the kitchen blinds and coordinate the energy audit
Mac will look into adding marmoleum on top of concrete and getting a
quote on carpet and padding for the sitting room (approx 350sq ft)
Rachel will look at costs for hiring out floor cleaning

other brainstormed items
redoing floor in game room
ping pong table ($600 plus)
eliptical trainer 600plus
another treadmill 400 plus

I had a local locksmith come out to discuss getting programmable locks
for the CH. The vision is locks that at a certain time would
AUTOMATICALLY re - lock themselves if someone enters. This would help
keep the CH locked all night, because even if someone forgot to lock
up after themselves, the door would.

As you read, please note that this info is based only on talking with
1 person, and much more research would be needed if the community
decides to pursue this course of action.

Ted quoted 2 different types of locks. Type 1 still requires a person
to walk through and manually change the keypad over to "relock"
mode. Type 2 is programmed to switch to this mode between a certain
time range that we would set. Both locks would have keypads similar
to what we have now, and people could still enter whenever they want
if they enter the code. The doors would just relock themselves within
1 minute (maybe less).

The down side to the 2 types he quoted - both do NOT have deadbolts.
They are latch only. So, we would have doors that are locked but
easier to break into if someone really wanted. Estimate below
includes all of the doors, including the 2 double ones.

Type 1 estimate, including labor = approx $3700.00
Type 2 "" = $6500.

Before everyone starts sending me emails, we are planning to bring
this topic forward at the community level!

This is just a starting point for that conversation. A very quick net
search indicates that we could likely get some of these locks and
install ourselves, but they likely start at $200 per door. And, as we
discussed in our committee mtg, it does not necessarily mean we could
eliminate the lockup job because that job also includes checking the
windows.