Your House, The System

Have you ever wondered why your throat hurts in the winter, why the floors crack, why  the light switches seems to be out to get you with those little shocks every now and then?  How about that annoying water infiltration problem that never seems to go away even with the thousands you have spent following the advice given by that foundation expert?  What about that roof that never seems to last the twenty-five years promised by the roofer who is ever since long gone.  Don’t you get that feeling that everyone is coming by, giving you advice, but nothing seems to be working as it should?

Your home is a system of smaller components that all work together and you need to consider how everything is interacting with one another when tackling any issue that may arise either when purchasing a home, owning and hopefully enjoying that home, and then one day selling it to the next owner.

I regularly get called in to look into problems once thousands have been spent only to realize a two year old, ten thousand dollar roof, requires replacement once again because nobody realized that the energy savings guru had the owner blow tons of cellulose insulation into the attic, claiming thousands of savings, covered all the soffits, and stopped all air circulation in an attic that already had insufficient ventilation. This type of situation causes air to stay trapped in the attic thus prematurely wearing out asphalt shingles, possibly causing mould to appear in the attic as well as indoor air quality issues, to name a few.

When carrying out work in your home, make sure that the person carrying out the work has understood the root cause of the problem and has proposed a solution that will work best for your budget as well as the payback for the work done if there are financial repercussions to the decision.

See you next month when I’ll be back with another article!

GM