From the Editor 7708

Back in the 90s, my husband and I built our first house. Oh, the lessons we learned! Every step of the way, it seemed wed take a tumble, regain our ground and begin again unsteadily. Subcontractors missed items on bids and reported for the job on dates long past original agreements, upsetting the process like one domino knocking down the next. Nine months after groundbreaking, we had a house, but our sanity was subject to evaluation.

In hindsight, of course, many things would have been done differently. Had we known exactly how to present plans to our neighborhood architecture association to sway approval from the start, perhaps those power-hungry committee members wouldnt have made us jump through so many little hoops. Our bidding process would have been stricter, wed have scrutinized every number and compared apples to apples, and contractual dates with workers would have been signed in blood.

OK, maybe not blood. But the sweat and tears that went into this project easily could have been saved if wed entered this process prepared. Get the drift?

Whether youre looking at building your first facility or the third phase of your ninth site, you need to have all your ducks in a row or any one of them could sink the entire paddling, putting your project in jeopardy.

Begin your planning process with this issue of Inside Self-Storage, our annual construction edition. Weve polled some of the most experienced builders and contractors in the industry to bring together a lively compendium of articles to steady your footing, get your ducks aligned, and all the dominoes glued down for the smoothest of builds. Cover to cover, youll find ample advice to save you from trouble and insanity, by those whove gone forth before you.

Happy reading, and god-speed to all your self-storage ventures,

Drew G. Whitney
Editor
[email protected]