ArcaMax

I saved a single mom $15,000 a few days ago. She and I were both overjoyed, as you might imagine. I can’t begin to describe how fulfilling it is to see the bright-eyed look on a customer’s face when I share good news like this.

This young woman purchased a house north of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Her grandparents had built it. It’s a stunning vintage house built in the early 1960s complete with large open spaces, trapezoid windows, and a rich, warm wood interior.

Two of the large trapezoid windows in her daughter’s bedroom have an operating awning window beneath them. The issue is the hand-crank hardware on one was missing, and the other one has a partially stripped gear. There were decades-old notes with yellowed adhesive tape saying, “Do NOT Open Windows.” The young mom wanted the windows to open so the cool, fresh night air would keep the bedroom comfortable for her young daughter.

Before talking with me, this young mom reached out to a window contractor to remedy the issue. The contractor came highly recommended from a friend in the small town. I’m not sure if the contractor sent out a wet-behind-the-ears salesman or if he was dishonest. Instead of sharing that the existing windows could be fixed, he proposed removing the high-quality windows only to replace them with stark vinyl windows that would not match the existing windows.

Fortunately, this single mom had me stop by to consult with her about the windows, new mini-split AC units, her unsafe deck railing, and a litany of other honey-do-list items. She was about to sign a contract for the windows. What an expensive mistake that would have been.

This single mom happens to be a friend of another single woman who lives on the East Coast. She’s a primary schoolteacher who plans to retire to a 100-acre parcel of ground in central Kentucky. This woman hired me two years ago to help guide her through the process of designing and building her dream retirement home.

Last spring this woman paid me to fly to the rolling farmland to help select the best place for the home, calculate the cost of the 1/3-mile gravel driveway, and do the calculations to ensure she’ll have plenty of water volume and pressure.

I do short video or phone consultations like this each week, but all too often they’re conversations where I’m trying to extricate a homeowner from a bad situation. In each case, had the homeowner talked to me before signing the contract, he or she would have saved thousands of dollars. Here are a few examples.

An older woman who lives in the Midwest wrote to me just days ago: “My basement ceiling under my front steps is leaking when it rains. I've already had the whole front siding and door frame replaced and sealed, and I was promised that was the problem. I spent $4,700 and I still have water coming in.”

She sent me a picture of the front of her home. It’s a very common design with an unprotected front door. There’s no porch roof to protect the door from a moderate wind-driven rain.

I would have asked her quite a few questions on the phone. Her answers would have allowed me to correctly diagnose the issue. I would have loved to know how long she had noticed the leak. I’d like to know the compass direction the front of the house faces. There are no fewer than five other key questions I’d ask.

As crazy as this sounds, I responded to her email letting her know that it would require a short 15-minute call to drill down to a solution. I even shared that the call would be no charge if she felt my advice wasn’t helpful. She rejected the idea of doing a call even though she thought when emailing me that I could help.

Days before, a gentleman from the great state of Texas wrote to me: “I have a remodel project. Building a pier and beam floor. My thoughts are this: Install 3/4-inch tongue-and-groove plywood on pressure treated 2x6 floor joists. Next put down either 3/4-inch plywood, then flooring. Where should I put a moisture or vapor barrier (if any) during this process?”

Can you imagine what the cost will be to install new flooring and even new plywood subflooring if he doesn’t do this job right? Not knowing the size of the project, I can assure you it would be no less than $5,000, maybe even $10,000.

Once again, I shared with him that I had a list of questions to ask in order to give him the best advice so his flooring doesn’t rot out from water vapor in the crawlspace. He never responded to my reply — choosing, I assume, to get free advice from someone who might not have 50-plus years of experience that I have under my belt on top of the three weeks of food I carry with me at all times.

My advice to you is to always talk with someone who doesn’t have a dog in the fight before you make a big investment in materials and/or labor. I’ve been told by many that I’m the only home improvement columnist and website owner that’s just a phone call away. I want to help save you $15,000 or more, so don’t hesitate to invest a tiny sum of money to get expert advice.

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©2026 Tim Carter. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.