Home Quality and Perfection

DEAR TIM: My husband is driving me nuts. He is currently building a barn and has taken the horizontal wood siding down several times because it is not perfectly straight and level. Believe it or not, he is going to do lots of work on our new home. I am afraid the house will never get finished as he tries to make everything perfect. I know building materials are not always perfect and humans can make mistakes. What is an acceptable level of quality or perfection? Kimberly A., Westerville, OH

DEAR KIMBERLY: Your question reminds me of those floating passes I used to ball hawk, intercept and run back for touchdowns when I played football. Given the space, I can have a field day with your question. Quality issues have been a pet peeve of mine for many years. The trouble with quality is that in my opinion it is purely subjective. Countless attempts have been made to quantify, measure, standardize and describe levels of quality, but it is indeed a very hard thing to measure. In fact, even the tools to measure quality can be flawed.

Is house siding wood perfect?

For just a moment let's talk about the wood siding issue. The wood he is using may not be perfect to begin with. It can come from the mill warped, bowed and crowned. The siding may actually differ in size from piece to piece. The vertical spacing between pieces, in certain instances, may have to be different so the siding looks good to the eye when complete. In other words, the perfection your husband desires may only be achieved by being slightly imperfect as he builds.

I have worked for my fair share of obsessive-compulsive customers. Being on the receiving end of quality demands can be extremely stressful. To make matters worse, a builder or remodeler can rarely know how demanding a customer might be. There are some behavioral clues and body language that telegraph obsessive-compulsive tendencies, but few builders are savvy enough to notice them.

The bottom line is that each person has their own level of quality. To make matters worse, quality is a learned trait and people can be influenced by what they see. In my opinion, quality standards in the overall residential construction industry are in a period of decline. There are real craftsman out there who do superb work, but their numbers are dwindling. If there are fewer and fewer quality jobs to view, people start to think that lower quality is acceptable. This is a very dangerous and slippery slope.

Are photos in home building magazines misleading?

Add to this the home building/decorating magazine syndrome. People see gorgeous photos of kitchens, bathrooms, family rooms, etc. in books and magazines. The scale of the photographs does not allow you to see the room as if you were there. But in your mind the workmanship and materials in this gorgeous room in the photo are perfect. In reality, if you and I could visit the site where the photo was taken I would be willing to bet tomorrow's lunch money I could point out a minimum of five moderate to glaring imperfections in materials or workmanship.

What is a glaring defect?

So how good is good enough? It depends upon the material. Let's talk about foundations. I realize that the plan may say your foundation will be 46 feet 6 inches long. If it is short or long by one quarter inch, that is acceptable in my book. But if a piece of woodwork trim or a mitered wood joint is off by the same amount, I would call that a glaring defect. You may see bricks in a wall that seem uneven when the sun glances across them at a low or nearly parallel angle. But look at the same wall an hour later and the bricks appear perfect. Are the bricks installed right or wrong? In my opinion, the workmanship is very likely acceptable. Keep in mind that bricks are not a perfectly flat material.

Your husband might feel the urge to place a level or straightedge on a traditional wood joist floor that is covered with oak flooring, tile, sheet vinyl, etc. Upon close inspection he might discover all sorts of minor humps and dips. Did the carpenters and floor installers do bad work? Maybe not. The floor joists may not have been perfect to start with. But, if the rough carpenter put in a badly crowned joist next to one that is straight, that is a workmanship error. If you want perfectly flat floors, be sure you specify a joist material that produces this level of quality. It does indeed exist.

How much perfection is too much?

I suggest you talk with your husband and discuss what is fueling his desire for perfection. As much as I hate to say it, he may need some professional counseling. I have always strived for a very high level of quality in all of the jobs I have done. But there is an old saying in construction: You have to know when to do what. You can rest assured that siding installed by me at eye level and three feet up or down from eye level will be as close to perfect as possible. But the pieces of siding 25 feet in the air will not meet this standard. Why? Because few people are willing to pay for this level of quality and not one in 100,000 people can see the difference from 25 feet on the ground with their heads tilted at a 45 degree angle.

Years ago many of the craftsmen who built homes also helped to build their churches. The level of workmanship in older church buildings was perhaps the best quality work ever done. The next time you are in an old church look at how all of the surfaces interact and meet one another. Odds are it will take you quite a long time to discover a flaw.

These craftsmen felt that God would accept no less. If a craftsman did not do his absolute finest work, he very likely would feel guilty knowing that God knew he could do better. Unfortunately not all people are as exacting as God, and builders discovered very quickly that the quality standard could be lowered for houses that humans occupied. It didn't take long for a phrase to be coined that would be heard every now and then on a jobsite when a good intentioned worker was taking too much time on a task. Sooner or later his boss might say, "Hey, move on -that's good enough. This isn't a church job you know."

Contractors and suppliers also should take a tip from the retail industry. You can go to any store and buy different levels of quality for the same item. It is possible to buy a pair of slip-on loafer shoes for $39.00. But you can also buy a nearly identical pair for $89.00. Your expectations for the more expensive pair with respect to detail, craftsmanship, longevity, etc. will be higher than those for the $39.00 pair.

So why not do the same for countertops? If a person wants an absolutely perfect granite countertop then perhaps they should expect to pay more than the person who can live with a chip here or there. I think it is a novel concept that just might catch on one day!