MakeHartford is only been possible through the support of its member community, and one way this is evident is in the equipment we field. Most of the equipment in the shop is leased from or donated by MakeHartford members and maintained to manufacturer’s standards by volunteers. This allows us to provide more and higher quality equipment, and allows members of the community to share equipment that might otherwise lie fallow in a basement or garage.

We have put together the following guidelines for leasing equipment to MakeHartford.

Lease Details

In exchange for access to the equipment, MakeHartford takes on the responsibility to:

• Maintain said equipment in good working order, per manufacturer recommendations.
• Assume liability for the operation of said equipment. This includes both protecting the owner from being sued if someone injures themselves with the equipment and also means that we will replace the equipment if it gets destroyed.
• Stock said equipment with the consumables required for proper operation during the time it as at MakeHartford.
• Train MakeHartford members on how to use the equipment properly.
• Prevent untrained MakeHartford members from using the equipment.

In return, the lessor of the equipment agrees to:

• Provide equipment in a ready-to-use state.
• Provide manuals (or links to manuals and/or maintenance procedures) for the equipment.
• Agree to allow properly trained MakeHartford members use of the equipment.
• Remove said equipment upon request, given 30 days notice by MakeHartford.
• Give 30 days notice for voluntary removal of said equipment from the space.

To encourage the leasing of equipment to MakeHartford, the lessor does have the option to periodically take leased equipment home for personal use for up to 48 hours.  By providing this option, MakeHartford gains access to equipment that it needs and you are still able to use it for those periodic projects.

Before temporarily removing any equipment from MakeHartford, please notify the staff or management of MakeHartford as early as possible, to let them know that you are removing and returning the item.  The staff member or manager will update our inventory to indicate that the tool has been temporarily removed.  Please put a sign or note in the space the equipment is normally stored, advising of when the equipment will be returned.

Please Note:  Temporary removal of leased equipment shall be for no more than 48 hours and on an infrequent basis of approximately every few months.  More frequent removal of the equipment may be grounds for termination of the lease agreement by MakeHartford.

Financial Agreement

In return for access to manufacturing equipment, MakeHartford will discount membership (and not pay outright, or discount space rental) according to the tenets of standard lease deals. These deals emphasize the following points:

• The leasing entity pays for the depreciation of the equipment over the term of the lease.
• Lease payments are distributed evenly over the term of the lease.

These concepts are put into practice by way of the following assumptions, which have been made to simplify the assessment process:

• Assume a 2 year lease term. Note that you do not have to be a member for two years, or lease the equipment to us for two years, this is just our decided metric. All leases are month-to-month, with 30 days notice.
• Assume that the equipment will depreciate half of its “New” value over the course of those two years.
• Divide the resulting depreciation by 24 months.
• Discount membership fees by that amount, up to the total membership cost per month.

By way of example, imagine you are leasing a table saw to MakeHartford. It’s a used piece of equipment, but you’ve made sure it’s in good working order. It had a new value of $1,250. You would calculate your monthly discount via the following steps.

1. Determine the value of the equipment if it was new. It’s given that the value is $1,250.
2. Divide the new value of the equipment in half to determine its depreciation after 2 years. For the table saw, that would be $625.
3. Divide the depreciation value by 24 months. This turns out to be $26.
4. Thus, for as long as you are a member and have leased the table saw to us, you receive a $26 discount on your membership (up to a maximum of a fully discounted membership) each month.

If you would like to lease more than one piece of equipment, please draft a list of leased pieces for us, using this spreadsheet as an example: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tVbhDjXaxWvo9q3NhSBHF6US2og_jKY_YbCHjREvx7A/edit#gid=0