By Trish Holder
Courtesy of Greenspiration Home
Are you a blissfully ignorant homeowner? Do you eat, drink, shower, sleep, wash dishes, etc. in your home, never giving any thought to how any of its systems work, until one day…. they don’t?
That’s a bad day, isn’t it? It’s a bad day because you know that looming in your not-so-distant future is a conversation with a contractor who will diagnose a problem and quote a price; and you will not have the first idea whether he is correct or if he can even be trusted. If you’ve owned a home for more than a few years, you know what I’m talking about.
The President of a local homeowners association (HOA) confided to me recently, “In our experience, the level of disrespect we get [from contractors] is astonishing. Folks cut corners when they think you are not looking, quote crazy prices for small requests, and fail at follow through.”
That same HOA President also said to me, “Many contractors count on lack of knowledge by the buyer to manipulate the situation.”
Sounds about right.
There’s Nothing Green About Being Dumb; Even Though We’ve All Been There
Recently, a dear friend of mine, who is also a contractor (yes, there are good ones out there) was doing some touch-up sealing and painting on our rental house. Now, mind you, this home had been freshly painted just a few years ago – shortly before we rented it. It looked great. The painting contractor, recommended by a friend who is also a real estate agent, was polite, professional, fast and (yes) cheap.
I thought they did a good job until a few weeks ago when my contractor friend showed me how they had not primed any of the hard-to-reach places on the exterior of the home; they also had not properly caulked the nail holes or seams in the siding. So, less than three years after I had this entire home painted, I got to pay to have it painted all over again – or risk moisture damage to the siding.
Was I blissfully ignorant? Yes I was. But in fairness to me, what homeowner thinks she has to catch a visualof a painter priming the hard-to-reach areas of a home just to confirm it wasn’t skipped!
Today’s lesson? Yes, you have to get a visual of your painter actually priming all of the hard-to-reach places of your home. Sounds ridiculous, but that’s reality.
Today’s other lesson? Ignorance ain’t so blissful. And if you make a lifelong practice of it where your home is concerned, I hope your socking away a lot of extra cash. You’re gonna need it.
Finally, what’s green about this blog aimed at eradicating homeowner ignorance?
- Wasting money isn’t green! It ultimately leads to excessive use, waste, and disposal of other resources.
- Ignorance allows bad contractors to get away with it. This means our houses aren’t as sustainable or healthy as they should be. (Can you say MOLD?)
- Third, ignorance makes it hard for good contractors to make a living doing a good job. And we need good contractors. All six of them.
My advice? Don’t talk to a contractor until you’ve done a little research on the problem yourself. Pretend for a half hour that you’re the one that has to fix the dishwasher or leaky shower. Get out the manual, Google some words on the Internet, or write me — anything to get you on the right track toward asking the pertinent questions. At the very least you’ll make an impression that you are a homeowner to be reckoned with.
Trish Holder is a LuxEcoLiving Advocate and contributor. She is the publisher of Greenspiration Home.
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Nancy Chuda is a seasoned broadcast journalist, television writer/producer, talk show host and author. Her career spans over three decades having appeared on both national and cable television.
In 1971 she authored one of America’s first low-calorie cookbooks, How To Gorge George Without Fattening Fanny, published by Hawthorn Books. Appearing as a regular guest on Dinah’s Place, Dinah Shore’s ABC daytime talk show. And later on The Johnny Carson Show, The Today Show with Barbara Walters, Merv Griffin, Phil Donahue, and David Frost. In 1972, Nancy and ABC’s Good Morning America co-produced Michael Krause produced a cable program, The Low- Calorie Gallery, based on her best selling cook book. In 1975, hired by Warner-Amex as part of a creative team, she was responsible for hosting and producing content for Columbus Then and Now, a program, the invention of QUBE, an interactive television system which played a pivotal role in the history of American cable television. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUBE
In 1978 she developed a series for ABC’s Good Morning America based on an article which appeared in Mother Earth News magazine. The Integral Urban House, a case study project and model for a sound urban habitat sponsored by the Farallones Institute in Berkley California was the first example of green architecture ever to be televised.
In 1979, Nancy co-produced and hosted Sunnyside a Los Angeles based public affairs program viewed on the CBS affiliate station KNXT, From 1980-1984, she appeared on KABC’s Eyewitness News as entertainment reporter and film critic.
Her environmental advocacy began when her daughter was diagnosed with cancer. In 1990 she co-produced an Emmy nominated ABC Variety Special, An Evening With Friends For The Environment to benefit Mothers and Others for a Livable Planet one of the first national children’s environmental health advocacy groups in which she served as a volunteer.
Currently, she is the co-founder and President Emeritus of Healthy Child Healthy World, a non-profit organization established to honor the Chuda’s only child, Colette, who died in 1991 at the age of 5 from Wilm’s tumor a nonhereditary childhood cancer. She is also the co-founder of The Colette Chuda Environmental Fund, a donor-advised fund which supports major epidemiological research on children’s health.
Nancy has won numerous awards for her advocacy. In 1996, the California League of Conservation Voters Environmental Leadership Award, The Healthy Schools Heroes Award, presented to both her and her husband James Chuda by California Governor Gray Davis for their legislative efforts in securing The Healthy Schools Act which was signed into law in September, 2000. In 2003, Parent’s Magazine published an article Mom’s On A Mission and awarded Nancy for her environmental leadership for children’s environmental health.
She serves as an associate of the Director’s Council of Public Representatives of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and was appointed by President Clinton’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Donna Shalala, to serve as a member of the National Advisory Council for the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) a position she held for four years.
In 2010, along with her husband James she founded LuxEcoLiving.
