Old home collective

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Gothichome
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Old home collective

Post by Gothichome »

Folks, for the past few years I have been mulling over the thought of an old home informal collective for the mutual benefit of all members. My thoughts would be to Organize fellow century home owners in the area to acquire resources we would commonly all need. An example, at some point most of those in the collective will need scaffolding. If one large set of scaffolds could be shared amongst us all, it would cut the cost down considerably as opposed to renting as an individual.
Has any one else had the same thought or have been involved or even heard of such a collective. Thoughts?

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Gothichome
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Re: Old home collective

Post by Gothichome »

Another thought just crossed my mind (a rare occurrence). Willa's need for trim, if the amount of trim ordered increased sizeably then the fixed costs would go down. So instead of ordering a hundred feet of trim you could order a thousand feet of trim the fixed cost of tooling would go from $5 to $.50 a foot. Knowing that the same stock trim was used for many homes, if several members of the collective could order one run for all, every one who ordered would win.

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Manalto
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Re: Old home collective

Post by Manalto »

It's a great idea, Ron. We are already avoiding "reinventing the wheel" here by consulting others and benefiting from their experience. The logistics would have to be worked out with material things, however. I'd like to see a resource directory for starters.

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Mick_VT
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Re: Old home collective

Post by Mick_VT »

I like the idea, for things like scaffolding I struggle to see how it might work over a vast geographic area, for the trim it is similar to the notion of a "group buy" that you see on many online communities.
Mick...

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Gothichome
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Re: Old home collective

Post by Gothichome »

No, no. Not for us here in the district but for the local area.

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mjt
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Re: Old home collective

Post by mjt »

It works in the car world. There are several local car clubs that organize group buys and have "tool collections" with specialized tools unique to the manufacturer or certain models.

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Re: Old home collective

Post by 1918ColonialRevival »

If there's enough interest in your local area, it could be a good idea. As mjt noted above, a lot of car clubs do this with tools.

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Willa
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Re: Old home collective

Post by Willa »

There are Tool Libraries in some cities. Here's info about the Toronto Tool Library:

http://torontotoollibrary.com/

It has several locations throughout Toronto. From my limited experience with them, it seems to work really well. You can search their inventory online, including if the tool is currently on loan. This works really well in a city - as there are enough active users and volunteers to keep it going. There is also an abundance of used tools that can be donated. A basic membership is $ 50.00 and up for a year and loans are 3-4 days. This is like the cost of renting one tool from HD for one day. They also have tools like ladders and gardening tools that most people won't need or use on a daily basis.

The logistics of administering a member's tool library here becomes daunting due to geography. How would tools or things like scaffolding be loaned - shipped out via ground transport or ??? The border is also a real hassle for anything that isn't small enough to be sent through the mail as couriers like UPS charge whopping brokerage fee.

A question that might benefit the greater good might be how to start more tool libraries in smaller communities, or community based projects. I just read about this community woodshop that is opening up in London, ON that also has retraining programs, etc.:

http://pathways.on.ca/london-community-woodshop/

Programs like this that also have workshops (ie classes) would be an excellent place to plant some seeds in the community about things like fixing v.s. replacing sash windows, DIY storm windows, heritage preservation, etc. I would also love a mentor or buddy program where a person with more skills is matched up with a newbie that can teach them about safe tool use, how to do a thing, etc.

A thing like a buyers club (Sarco putty in Canada, anyone ?) would be great, though with getting trim milled there are all the regional variations that make this great in theory but more complex in practice.

Thoughts ?

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Gothichome
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Re: Old home collective

Post by Gothichome »

Willa, my thoughts are on a.mico level. Just local old home owners, no hand tools and the such just he bigger stuff, scaffolding, cement mixers ect. Stuff that may only get used once or twice over a couple of years by each. Transport would be local, just pick it up from the fellow or gal that has finished using it.

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Corsetière
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Re: Old home collective

Post by Corsetière »

I've been thinking along this line regarding placing an order for a bulk quantity of Citristrip or even janitorial supplies. I am going through both at an astounding rate and would like to get wholesale pricing...

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