Deferred Maintainance

      Time was I witnessed something referred to as preventative maintenance. The practice of predictive repairs or foreseeing breakdown and fixing something before it broke. Its an art-form in my view because you have to predict the future and it flies in the face of "If it ain't broke don't fix it." There is a lot of deferred maintenance today in the built environment. Big time in residential homes but also in our county's infrastructure. Pot holes only get bigger, bridges only rustier, leaky roofs only get worse.      
       I once ran a small shipyard in Jamestown RI and we would find that what seemed suspicious on the surface of a hull or deck was a tiny representation of what you would uncover as you began a repair. It was ALWAYS worse than it first appeared. The retrofit business is exactly the same. Once you start digging into a problem you find there is more than first met the eye, the proverbial "Can of Worms."
      Our industry is uniquely poised to find these deferred repairs and set them right. It adds dimension to the "Whole House" perspective for Energy Audits. To grow the industry our marketing has to succeed in selling the idea that our work is essential to the future of the built environment. What we live in today is neither sustainable nor resilient and requires a reinvestment of capital and expertise by raters and builders.