Overwhelmed in Jamaica. Help! Trying to manage this project remotely.
We are closing on a fairly large vacation villa on a two acre property in Jamaica. It has 8 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms, a huge indoor and outdoor kitchen, an open courtyard in the middle of all the bedrooms (with fountain), an atrium with a waterfall and lots more. The property its self backs up to a golf course, has a tennis court and a swimming pool. It has not been used in many years and is being sold as is with all the furnishings. I don't live in Jamaica. My hope is to use this property for two main purposes. During the summer it will be used as location for running a summer program for teens, to teach them about Jamaican Culture and Marine Biology. (It is walking distance from the beach). During the fall, winter and spring it will be rented out to church groups to use as housing during mission trips.
What I would like to find is an easy to use computer program that will allow me to recreate the house and yard. I would like to be able easily change the model to show ideas and keep track of progress with the people I will hire to work on the property, even when I am not on the Island. Or even better yet I would like to find someone that can create this model for me at a reasonable price. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Or if someone has a better idea on what to do to manage a project remotely, (with out hiring an expensive contractor) I would love to hear about it.
What I would like to find is an easy to use computer program that will allow me to recreate the house and yard. I would like to be able easily change the model to show ideas and keep track of progress with the people I will hire to work on the property, even when I am not on the Island. Or even better yet I would like to find someone that can create this model for me at a reasonable price. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Or if someone has a better idea on what to do to manage a project remotely, (with out hiring an expensive contractor) I would love to hear about it.
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I would strongly suggest that if you can't answer with years and years of experience for those questions and that you have built up many good relations with subs and suppliers in Jamaica in the process of acquiring those years and years of experience, that you are laying the foundations for a project disaster. There is no computer program that will take the place of experience nor your boots on the site.
I strongly suggest you make use of a good GC in Jamaica with excellent recommendations. The money you pay him will be well invested and more than make up for the money you will waste.......not to mention the quality of the work and the schedule.
Trust me. Having experienced the construction industry (government processes, subs and materials) in Jamaica....it is nothing like what you would consider from any experience here in the States. If you're not on site daily, managing , supervising and protecting your project........half if not the majority of your materials will be on some other job that you paid for.
There are a number of low cost, some even free, "cadd" type programs. I've used Autocadd from Release 1 through the current releases as well as Revit.....but these are some expensive programs and have some longer learning curves...... two freeware programs that I've used and was impressed with were Tiger CAD, by Peter Howard, & Draftsight, by Desault Sys. Draftsight . These are your typical drafting applications, but do have blocks and such for use in them.
Sketchup is also free and great for massing 3D models.... more cumbersome for drafting, but can be done and the learning curve is not that long.
I would say between Sketchup for modeling and importing that model into either Tiger Cad or Drafsight would more than satisfy your needs for communicating your design attentions to the crews in Jamaica. Another method is if you already digital photographs of the site conditions, you can create a word document, insert the photographs and have instructions or notes group with the respective photo......I use this religiously doing field inspections for reports or field directives.
Combining these methods you will have a better chance of conveying your ideas clearly.......good luck.