S omeone still makes house calls these days. They are a “doctor for your home”, but don’t think the diagnostics, evaluations, and treatments are any less state-of-the-art than Mayo Clinic. “Wellhome” is a “general practitioner” for your home, a “mobile trauma center” capable of preventative- to emergency care for your home.
Wellhome is certainly the “consultant for the rest of us”, but make no mistake about it. Their $99 home diagnostic is also a sophisticated and quantitative assessment for the experts.
It’s a glimpse into what ails your home alongside an impartial expert to explain the situation in a consumer friendly way.
Wellhome’s “prescription” for safety, cost-savings, energy
In a world of door hangers and doorbells, we are all victims of our own lack of time and understanding.
efficiency, and comfort is based on a step-by-step assessment that results in a bite-sized, modular game plan to fix your house. Recommended changes will range from the 100% FREE things you can do to save cash to those that are a bit more substantive. But under the Wellhome program, you’ll gain the option of making incremental improvements that all work together. Wellhome is a plan to avoid costly redundancies, and to safeguard your homeowner’s rights to make changes as you can afford them.
In a world of door hangers and doorbells, we are all victims of our own lack of time and understanding. We’re often convinced to throw money at system problems without a more thorough knowledge that all the systems in our home (heating, air conditioning, water heater, insulation, etc.) work together and that an assessment of one of these ought to be under a complete understanding of how that system is affecting the others.
“Fixing” one system without considering
“Fixing” one system without considering the others could be costly.
the others could be costly. For example, heat disparities in a home may very well be due to an under-efficient air conditioning system. But before you run out to replace the unit, consider that the system
might work just fine if your insulation and air leakage were addressed. Oftentimes, heating and air conditioning efficiencies are improved when they don’t have to accommodate an under-insulated garage ceiling, crawlspace, or attic. A “well home” addresses factors that can save you more energy, unnecessary expenses, and a lot of headaches later.
Other cases-in-point
Squinting into the sun. Yes, I’m personally looking at solar as an option for my own home, but the options can be blinding. Offsetting my electrical bills by 61% is exciting and it’s what I’d be looking at for my 2500sq.ft. home, were Ito place panels on my roof this afternoon.
A 12-to-13 year payback isn’t too bad, either, for today’s ultra sexy technology that’s seen so many efficiency improvements in the last ten years. But the whole concept seems a bit in reverse if I’m also facing a much larger problem of air flow and insulation in my home. In a crude sort of way, it’s like investing in a more plentiful supply of gasoline when you have a hole in your gas tank. Wellhome helps by first “fixing the hole” in your home’s energy siphon to boost its level of energy efficiency. By first scheduling a $99
Wellhome diagnostic, I found some methods of boosting solar efficiencies and cost-savings even higher. Now I can again look upward at solar energy but with a more accurate picture of what might be an adequate (and possibly less expensive) system for offsetting between 60-100% of electrical usage on my home!
Taking a bath. I looked at the tub that cost me about $10,000 back in 2003. Like most new home owners, I faced life’s most difficult questions – choosing options the consequences of which could cost me well into my 30-year mortgage future. So I did what most (ok, “some”) people do – close my eyes and point my finger at the “must haves” (like tall kitchen cabinets, wooden floors, and a bathroom jetted tub) over the “not-so-
important” (like nickel door handles, notso-flimsy showers, and solid wooden doors). I seldom take a bath these days in the jetted tub – at least not the way I did fmancially with the cost of builder-installed luxuries. And the main reason is that the tub gets cold in the winter. I have to keep adding more hot water and my lack of coordination with toes at the other end of the tub brings an uneven flow of burning pain.
Fortunately, a new jetted tub isn’t what the doctor ordered. In fact, Wellhome’s diagnostic showed me not only why my tub perpetually loses heat but also a nearly painless way of fixing the problem. It turns out that my tub sits on the ceiling of my poorly insulated garage, the cold from which dramatically affects the ability of my tub to stay hot. A new tub (and another $10,000) wouldn’t have fixed the problem. But through Wellhome, a perfectly installed bed of new insulation will. The ceiling insulation will lower our energy bill by at least 23%, keep the bathroom floors warmer, and decrease the noise of garage activities to a dull whisper (one property of cellulose insulation is a dramatic drop in noise).
Clear choice. Wellhome is truly the contractor “for the rest of us” and apparently so. The 2010 storm (I’m referring to the influx of contractors, not the hail) produced a rash of residents wishing they hadn’t answered their doorbell and quite a bit of contracting requiring a rework. Wellhome is a bit of a “Holmes on Homes” for those familiar with the A&E series that features a Lone Ranger to the rescue of homeowners whose job just didn’t get done right the first time. But Well-home is also a blend of Marcus Welby coupled with sophisticated home technology and an impartial diagnostician in your corner.
Ok – how it works.
The Sit-down. Wellhome would like to make it very clear to you that they are your advocate. Their primary goal is to provide you an assessment – an actual “patient file” of your home and a game plan that you can use to improve safety, energy efficiency, cost-savings, and quality of life. It’s something that you can use to hire contractors with or employ Wellhome and their network of synchronized service providers. While the choice is yours, do remember 2010 and how you dreamed of having a trusted expert to coordinate your care. The Wellhome assessment is visual, quantitative, and results in a literal blueprint that any contractor can use as a basis for your home repair on system-
by-system basis, from furnace to water heater, to insulation, roofmg, and drywall.
Wellhome would like to make it very clear to you that they are your advocate. Their primary goal is to provide you an assessment – an actual “patient file” of your home…
The diagnostic also breaks down the changes you can make to your home ranging from the truly FREE to those that can take advantage of Well-home’s “6-months same-as-cash” financing program (yes, they can also help you afford this!). You’ll find out
The Prognosis Meeting You might be tempted to ask them to fax or email you the result. But don’t. First of all, it’s an entire quantitative analysis – a packet at least as thick as your patient history. But second, you will value every minute of your discussion with Wellhome’s trained technician so take it for what it’s worth. It’s one of the very few times you can talk to an unbiased expert who will hand you a diagnostic worth at least several thousands of dollars of contractor time but covered under your original $99. Your assessment will impress you and as mentioned, you are free to provide it to any contractor with the assurance of avoiding surprises and unnecessary expenses. Your diagnostic will also help you avoid redundant repairs and provide you a “logical order” to consider. As mentioned, you’d be better to first achieve a level of improved weatherization and efficiency prior to investing in capital improvements that target the same goal. The reason is simply that the cost, size, and standards for the new hardware which you purchase is based on your current energy usage. So increase your efficiencies first, then expect to lower the cost of the major new technology purchases. In many cases, you don’t need a larger, more expensive water heater, HVAC system, or as many solar panels. The reward of a Wellhome diagnostic is in recognizing huge savings and efficiencies that might better utilize smaller systems – and fewer dollars out of your pocket.
Wellhome is a division of a much larger conglomerate, called, Masco, which represents a wide variation of home improvement companies (such as Behr paints, Merilat cabinets, etc.). If you do choose Wellhome for your post-assessment improvements, the good news is that you may also benefit from quality products at potentially lower prices than if you sourced them elsewhere. Wellhome can be contacted at: (303) 287-0744 or via their website at: www.wellhome.com. We would like to thank technical expert, Deacon Taylor for his broad knowledge and thorough explanation to our staff of their diagnostic procedures.
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