Most diligent work in an existing home involves more time in preparation, than in execution. Painting? Certainly. Lead abatement is more than 90% prep. The ratio is rarely less than half. The work of plumbers? Access and tear-out involve knowledge, experience and a lot of knuckle busting. Electricians? Again access and tear-out dwarf the pulling of new wires. When adding insulation, prep including usually some major work by electricians, is far more than half of the job. Goons with nothing but BPI certification start out as liars as brains and executors of the prep, upon which new insulation may be dumped. Such weatherization is criminal, and persists only because powerful forces permit it, as clean-shirt, green collar work for auditors, staffers and work accomplices, who move public-benefit authorized money. I uncover crimes in 100% of my rare opportunities to observe.
Two of my current, rare work opportunities, where fearful home owners are hoarding their cash, are thwarted by prep not afforded. I won't place insulation without the prep. In one, there is a dangerous structural condition, where a stupid contractor tore out one wall supporting the attic floor. This was blessed by permits and recent, complicit, paid inspection. I am well capable of resetting the attic floor, where the floor insulation needed would then be well under 10% of the work. I would undo further crime by the stupid contractor, where R50 batts were so randomly tossed, as to have value less than R10, and ended up in a dumpster against my wishes. These are signatures of a house flipper, and lax regulation. In the other thwarted job, there is extremely crude knob and tube wiring, where bid electrician cost is more than three times what I require for other diligence, and superior, decked insulation on a carefully sealed attic floor. The home owner thinks the wiring a bad business decision. He is the usual owner of rental property.
A recent binge of re-expressing my complaints is in promise to the renter with the bad wiring. The home owner agreed that I could use his situation as example for the reform of work and regulation in protection of renters whose utility bills and daily danger can be escaped only, by perhaps finding a better deal somewhere else. Perhaps? Not likely. The solution is simply in finding the up-front financing that social interest has demanded, as in Oregon State Rep. Jules Bailey's HB2626 of 2009, and presented for the nation in Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley's S1574 of 2010.
The social interest in up-front financing is thwarted everywhere in the USA. In Oregon it is ruined by entanglement with the Home Performance scammers and labor interests. Up-front administration fees of nearly $1000 per project are justified only in grandiose and wasteful packages that leave out my prized would-be customer, who has given up on societal interest, and just stays cold in winter. Here is an anonymous form of her aborted contract, not affordable. She followed my advice to replace her least-favorite window, rather than let in blower-door fanatics pushed by Oregon's Energy Trust. Sharing of my advice to her, with Energy Trust, was a last straw, upon which I was disbarred as an Energy Trust Trade Ally. I am advised that I am required to praise Energy Trust's policies, that are part of the thwarting of Jules Bailey's intentions. Criticism is prohibited.
Will some powerful person in the USA please stand up for my renter-to-be-served, and for the nice lady in her cold house? Let's employ some electricians in the up-front financing. And, none of the BPI frauds.
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