Health & Fitness
A Home Renovation is Like a Colonoscopy? {The Importance of a Strong Finish}
Why do homeowners often find themselves "hating" their contractors at the end of a project, despite the fact that the majority of the process has gone smoothly? An experiment may explain this phenomenon.
An all-too common conversation I've encountered:
"Oh, yeah, I just finished a renovation. Ugh what a terrible process. My contractor was a total jerk. Pshah, no surprise right? I'm sure you've heard that before."
Gut check. This person remembers I'm married to a contractor, right? I politely reply, "Oh really? That's terrible. What happened?"
Their response typically resembles an exhaustive, but not unwarranted, list that resembles the punch list of any number of projects that Mike has worked on. The outlet behind the desk doesn't work, there is a squeaky floorboard, the paint is chipped on the baseboard in the bedroom, the hot water in the powder room takes forever to warm up, the master bathroom toilet makes a "funny" noise when you sit down on it...
These are all legit issues that anyone - be it a homeowner, contractor, or sympathetic hair dresser - would agree are a nuisance. An annoyance. They should be fixed.
But let's be honest, these things do not a "jerk contractor" make. And yet time after time, respectable members of our field leave homeowners bothered, annoyed and with a wonky toilet. Why? Why not just buckle down, grit your teeth, and fix these little things, right?
The truth is, there actually is an answer to this seemingly rhetorical question. Small fixes like these common punch list issues are often costly and time-consuming for the contractor to remedy. Their subcontractors and team think they're finished, they've moved on to the next project. Chipped paint and leaky faucets are no longer their priority. This still doesn't seem like a good excuse to me. It should be the general contractor's priority. Doesn't he or she know that the very future of their company may rest on the fate of a wobbly toilet?
It may take several acquaintances singing the praises of a local contractor to get you to remember that company's name, but it will likely only take one really ticked off neighbor mentioning a laundry list of unfinished items for you to remember that "jerk contractor's" name. Truth.
I recently read a very interesting New York Times op-ed entitled, "How Colonoscopies are Like Home Renovations." While I'll spare you the details of the headlining analogy (you can read about it here, instead) I will share with you the author's findings about another interesting experiment on pain that he feels corresponds with the home renovation process:
In the early ’90s, the psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues did a series of experiments that revealed how people remembered the pain of a situation. In one experiment, participants held a hand in an ice-water bath (of 14 degrees Celsius) for 60 seconds — a pretty painful experience. To be precise: an 8.3 on a 10-point pain scale. In a second experiment they held their hand in the same ice-water bath for 60 seconds and then for another 30 seconds, during which the water was warmed just 1 degree.
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This small increase had a big effect: afterward, when people were asked which experiment they would prefer to have repeated (for money), two-thirds preferred the second — the experiment that lasted longer and, therefore, had more overall pain.
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Dr. Kahneman’s conclusion was that people don’t evaluate the pain of an experience by summing up the overall total. Instead, they remember the pain at the very end — and whether it got better or worse.
How does this relate to remodeling? The opinion piece's auther, Ezekiel J. Emanuel, hypothesizes the following: "As Dr. Kahneman’s experiments show, the pain at the end — whether it is getting better or worse — plays a disproportionately large role in determining how we remember an experience. So the fact that [the contractor's] game of glitch, procrastination and evasion comes at the end of the remodeling job means that we all end up hating our contractor, even if most of the job has gone smoothly."
Oh, Mr. Emanuel. You've hit the nail on the head! (Sorry, I never let a pun escape.) While there are certainly an undeniable number of remodeling horror stories which are not to be discounted, there seem to be more that begin, "Once upon a time, the entire process was going great until the end..."
While it would be easy for me to say that you should just adjust your expectations to account for these end-of-job issues, or to give you my "contractor's wife word" that this won't happen with any job associated with our name, I think it is more worthwhile for me to remind you of one of the basic tenets of a well-run remodeling project: Communication is key. If there are issues that bother you, communicate them to your contractor. Remind him or her that they may seem small, but they affect how you are enjoying your new investment. Communicate before, during, and after an issue occurs.
And if they don't listen? Explain Dr. Kahneman's experiment to them. And if they still don't get it? Perhaps this calls for a full-participation demonstration of how annoying your slow-to-heat-up hot water is by way of the "hand in the ice bath" experiment? I think all parties will feel better after that. And if still nothing comes of it, at least he'll understand why you're giving him the "cold shoulder."
PS- Read more about the homeowner's Emotional Rollercoaster, including the "end of project blues" here.
PPS- Did anyone else notice how off-topic the commenters on the original NY Times' article got? Seriously... it's like they didn't even get it.
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Ellie Mroz is the C.A.O. and Design Specialist for Michael Robert Construction, a Westfield-based Design/Build General Contractor. http://www.MichaelRobertConstruction.com
She can be reached at Ellie@MichaelRobertConstruction.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Michael Robert Construction, its affiliates, or its employees.
