Saving clients from their (cheapskate) selves

Last September I took a trip to Ann Arbor, Michigan. I’d heard good things about this small midwestern city, but I wasn’t prepared for the spectacular brickwork there. It’s some of the nicest I’ve seen. In fact, Ann Arbor is rich with great masonry buildings, big and small. Masonry is part of the charm of the place and this got me thinking.

The world has changed a lot since the beautiful, old buildings of Ann Arbor went up. There are many more cheap and dirty building materials to tempt clients these days, and too many people are giving in to this temptation. Like all cheap-and-dirty propositions, the promise involves the same lie: getting something for nothing.

The something-for-nothing lie behind cheap building materials is the kind of thing your clients need you to save them from. Once the building is up, it’s too late to learn from mistakes. The crappy crack-prone siding is on, the bathroom’s got an exhaust fan that sounds like a lawnmower low on crankcase oil, and the window caulking is as durable as Cheez Whiz. History has just inherited another second-rate building.

Great buildings, neighbourhoods, communities and regions are never built with quick-and-dirty materials. Even the “starter” bungalow my grandfather bought in 1950 had brick on all four walls, real hardwood flooring everywhere, and an enameled cast iron kitchen sink that still looked great 45 years later when Grandpa died in 1995.

“But my clients won’t pay for the good stuff,” you say? Maybe, but perhaps you’ve bought into a lie yourself. Have you ever really tried to sell your clients on quality? Have you tried to save them from their own cheapskate inclinations by explaining the lie behind it all? Masonry offers just one area in which building quality can be enhanced in a way that clients understand. A reminder about the benefits of masonry is what you’ll find in this month’s print edition of Canadian Contractor (see DIGITAL EDITION at the bottom of this website and go to page 51).

As you read our article about masonry, keep this this mind. A hundred and fifty years ago, the people of Ann Arbor, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Victoria, Quebec City and every other old, great Canadian city were much poorer than we are today. Tradesmen back then had tools we would laugh at now. Building products were harder to come by. Life had far fewer luxuries. Yet despite all the reasons to cut corners, all those now-gone contractors of yesteryear often enjoyed the luxury of working with better materials than we do today. With the exception of energy efficiency (which we are clearly better at), why do so many old buildings look, feel and age better than run-of-the-mill buildings today? Aren’t we supposed to be better off than our grandparents? Maybe our world needs to understand that just because something can be built more cheaply doesn’t mean that it should be built that way. And could it be that the best person to start preaching that message, starting today, is you?