You walk into a big box home improvement store and you see kiosks for:

• A replacement window contractor

• An insulation contractor

• A roofing contractor

• A siding contractor

• An HVAC contractor

• A plumbing contractor

• A painting contractor

Yes? Each one a specialist! Really! Each one is trained to optimize the system they specialize in.

Ideally, if your house had sensors connected to these systems, you could simply call the specialized contractor associated with that system whenever there was a problem. That would be as easy as your mechanic diagnosing car problems through the OBD port.

Reality is much different, even with a car. You need a great mechanic, first of all, and they are BOOKED SOLID. The OBD port is only showing the errors. The mechanic needs profound knowledge of the interconnected car systems to decide the order of diagnostics, then solve the actual problems.

There isn’t a mechanic for your house. There probably aren’t sensors. There definitely isn’t an OBD port. Nobody has designed how the systems all operate together, or verified that they perform as designed. You probably didn’t test drive your house. You bought it and now you are uncomfortable. None of those specialists has the same profound knowledge your mechanic has about the interconnected systems in your house. In fact, many comfort problems happen in-between the trades. A place not clearly under the specialty of one or another adjacent trades.

Can you just hire a GENERAL Contractor?

Sure. But I bet chances are pretty good that a GENERAL Contractor was involved in building your house in the first place and in at least some of the major projects since.

And yet here we are. And by the way, you still aren't comfortable. In my experience, homeowners today need to be involved in their project. Health reasons, financial oversight (for a large percentage of homeowners, the home represents the biggest chunk of their net worth), scarceness of contractors, and a whole lot of other reasons, the modern homeowner has needed to take ownership of the project itself.

You are more educated than ever. You have researched many internet resources and social media has done a great job raising awareness, but there is a lack of expertise there. Every town Facebook page is full of homeowners begging for guidance from other residents in their town. Why NOT ask around? At this point ANY answers are probably of equal value. But the house you live in affects you more than who picks up your trash each week or who is the cheapest seal coater of driveways. Town Facebook pages are just a virtual kiosk for specialty contractors. Asking for a referral for your comfort is a very personal question but could work as long as you know who you are asking and they understand the complexity of buildings.

You need a coach.

Someone to listen to what your goals are, what your constraints are, and who isn't trying to sell you a particular solution. Someone who has expertise across the building enclosure and HVAC systems (the two main systems responsible for your comfort) as well as an understanding of what the best time for you to replace them is.

Buildings have lots of unknowns. We've talked about the lack of expertise already, but knowing what ought to be fixed first is a different level. Sequencing multiple construction projects takes skill, as does knowing how to pause at a point where the rest of the project can continue on down the line. Most homeowners don't have all the money available to them to do everything necessary to achieve comfort all at once, or are making quick and easy choices that push comfort further away that it was.

Case in point, a client bought a house and immediately laid down a new floor. It was beautiful and he was very proud of his work and the outcome. That was late summer early fall. By winter he discovered that his crawlspace was uninsulated and he couldn't walk across that new floor without wearing socks and boots and even that was painful.

When he investigated what his options were, he figured out the crawlspace under his floor had less than a foot of ground clearance. No way to access it from underneath the house. It would have been possible to get at it from the top, or at the very least, add some ridgid insulation to the subfloor, but that was BEFORE the actual floor went down. Now, no amount of heating can make up for that cold floor. It sucks the heat right out of his body. So, until he is ready to rip out his floor, his options are heated slippers and covering that new floor with rugs.

Let's get to know each other.

Before you start your next project, please call me. I can coach you thorough it.