home improvement

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While "home improvement" often refers to building projects that alter the structure of an existing home, it can also include improvements to lawns, gardens, and outdoor structures, such as gazebos and garages. It also encompasses maintenance, repair, and general servicing tasks. Home improvement projects generally have one or more of the following goals:{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

• Upgrading heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems (HVAC).
• Upgrading rooms with luxuries, such as adding gourmet features to a kitchen or a hot tub spa to a bathroom.
• Increasing the capacity of plumbing and electrical systems.
• Waterproofing basements.
• Soundproofing rooms, especially bedrooms and baths.

Maintenance projects can include:

• Roof tear-off and replacement.
• Replacement or new construction windows.
• Concrete and masonry repairs to the foundation and chimney.
• Repainting rooms, walls or fences
• Repairing plumbing and electrical systems
• Wallpapering
• Furniture polishing
• Plumbing, home interior and exterior works
• Shower maintenance

Additional living space may be added by:

• Turning marginal areas into livable spaces such as turning basements into recrooms, home theaters, or home offices – or attics into spare bedrooms.
• Extending one's house with rooms added to the side of one's home or, sometimes, extra levels to the original roof. Such a new unit of construction is called an "add-on".{{cite web|title=Add-on|url=https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/add-on|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170221105404/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/add-on|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 21, 2017|website=English Oxford Living Dictionary (US)|publisher=Oxford University Press|access-date=20 February 2017}}

Homeowners may reduce utility costs with:

• Energy-efficient thermal insulation, replacement windows, and lighting.
• Renewable energy with biomass pellet stoves, wood-burning stoves, solar panels, wind turbines, programmable thermostats,[http://www.oldhouseweb.com/green-guide/use-a-programmable-thermostat-common-sense-to-reduce-energy-bills.shtml Use a Programmable Thermostat, Common Sense, to Reduce Energy Bills] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090719094643/http://www.oldhouseweb.com/green-guide/use-a-programmable-thermostat-common-sense-to-reduce-energy-bills.shtml |date=July 19, 2009 }}, Brett Freeman, oldhouseweb.com and geothermal exchange heat pumps (see autonomous building).

The need to be safer or for better privacy or emergency management can be fulfilled with diversified measures which can be improved, maintained or added. Secret compartments and passages can also be conceived for privacy and security.

• Interventions for fire protection and avoidance. Possible examples are fire sprinkler systems for automatic fire suppression, smoke detectors for fire detection, fire alarm systems, or passive fire protection (including some wildfire management strategies).
• Technical solutions to increase protection from natural disasters, or geotechnical and structural safety (e.g. hurricane or seismic retrofit).
• Interventions and additions to increase home safety from other hazards, like falls, electric injuries, gas leaks or home exposure to environmental health concerns.
• Physical security measures:
• Access control systems and physical barriers, which can include fences, physical door and window security measures (e.g. grilles, laminated glass, window shutters), locks;
• Security lighting, security alarms and video surveillance.
• Safes and vaults.
• Spaces for emergency evacuation, like emergency exits and rarer escape tunnels.
• Spaces which provide protection in the event of different emergencies: areas of refuge, storm cellars (as protection from tornadoes and other kinds of severe weather), panic rooms, bunkers and bomb shelters (including fallout shelters), etc.
• Home renovations or additions used to increase privacy can be as simple as curtains or much more advanced, such as some structural surveillance counter-measures. They may overlap with physical security measures.
• Public utility outage preparedness, like backup generators for providing power during power outages .

File:010 Screws and bolts in OBI home improvement store in Poland.jpg home improvement store in Poland]]

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Home or residential renovation is an almost $300 billion industry in the United States,{{Cite web |url=http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/jchs.harvard.edu/files/r07-1.pdf |title=Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2007 |access-date=April 10, 2014 |archive-date=August 7, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140807204656/http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/jchs.harvard.edu/files/r07-1.pdf |url-status=live }} and a $48 billion industry in Canada.{{cite web|url=http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/|title=Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation - Société canadienne d'hypothèques et de logement|access-date=October 23, 2007|archive-date=October 23, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023072751/http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/|url-status=live}}{{full citation needed|date=June 2012}} The average cost per project is $3,000 in the United States and $11,000–15,000 in Canada.

Professional home improvement is ancient and goes back to the beginning of recorded civilization. One example is Sergius Orata, who in the 1st century B.C. is said by the writer Vitruvius (in his famous book De architectura) to have invented the hypocaust. The hypocaust is an underfloor heating system that was used throughout the Roman Empire in villas of the wealthy. He is said to have become wealthy himself by buying villas at a low price, adding spas and his newly invented hypocaust, and reselling them at higher prices.{{cite web|url=https://homeownersgta.online/home-renovation-guides/5-low-cost-advices-for-home-improvement-that-boost-the-sale-of-your-home|title=Canada Homeowners Community - Example of Low-Cost Advices used by Canadian Homeowners (Community) for Home Improvement that boost the sale of your Home|date=January 12, 2020 |publisher=Canada Homeowners Community}}

Perhaps the most important or visible professionals in the renovation industry are renovation contractors or skilled trades. These are the builders that have specialized credentials, licensing and experience to perform renovation services in specific municipalities.

While there is a fairly large "grey market" of unlicensed companies, there are those that have membership in a reputable association and/or are accredited by a professional organization. Homeowners are recommended to perform checks such as verifying license and insurance and checking business references prior to hiring a contractor to work on their house.

Because interior renovation will touch the change of the internal structure of the house, ceiling construction, circuit configuration and partition walls, etc., such work related to the structure of the house, of course, also includes renovation of wallpaper posting, furniture settings, lighting, etc.

Aggregators are companies that bundle home improvement service offers and act as intermediary agency between service providers and customers.

Home improvement was popularized on television in 1979 with the premiere of This Old House starring Bob Vila on PBS. American cable channel HGTV features many do-it-yourself shows, as does sister channel DIY Network.{{Cite news|last1=Cerone|first1=Daniel|title=Tim Allen's Power Tools : Television: The comic who had Disney and cable executives abuzz parlayed his luck to develop 'Home Improvement|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-09-17-ca-2925-story.html|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=17 September 1991|access-date=16 June 2015|archive-date=June 22, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150622023606/http://articles.latimes.com/1991-09-17/entertainment/ca-2925_1_tim-allen|url-status=live}}

Danny Lipford hosts and produces the nationally syndicated Today's Homeowner with Danny Lipford. Tom Kraeutler and Leslie Segrete co-host the nationally syndicated The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show.

Movies that poked fun at the difficulties involved include: Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy; George Washington Slept Here (1942), featuring Jack Benny and Ann Sheridan; and The Money Pit (1986), with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long. The sitcom Home Improvement used the home improvement theme for comedic purposes.

{{Portal|Housing}}

• Home repair
• Housekeeping
• Maintenance, repair and operations

{{Reflist}}

• Richard Harris, Building a Market: The Rise of the Home Improvement Industry, 1914-1960. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.
• {{cite book|author=Michael W. Litchfield|editor=Chip Harley|title=Renovation|date=2012|publisher=Taunton Press, Incorporated|location=Newtown, Conn.|isbn=978-1600854927|edition=4th, Completely revised and updated.}}

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Category:Building