HomeStars News and Updates

Welcome New HomeStars

Every month our community of companies who use our site grows. And we’re always excited to see companies getting involved and increasing their online communication with their customers.

So we’d like to take some time now to tip our hats to some of the new ‘HomeStars’ who’ve become involved this month:

• LawnSavers Plant Health Care Inc.
• Mr Rooter Caledon
• Green Tropics Lawn Sprinker Company
• Pompeya Construction
• Value Wood Floors
• Envision This Development
• Higher Grounds Granite and Marble
• FiberTec Windows
• Steffanie Garreau Interior Design
• Duraloc Interlocking
• Gem Windows
• TWG Landscaping

This is the short list. There are many other great companies out there who’ve been getting involved and getting business from HomeStars. If you’ve used any of these companies before, show them some love and write them a review.

Posted by BrianS

Business & Construction Times is Seeking Regional Correspondents

The Business and Construction Times (www.bigbpublishing.com) inform us they growing. They seeking correspondents in these areas to contribute articles as assigned by the editor. They have issues in Hamilton, Halton, Peel, Grand Valley, London and Guelph  and are accepting submissions/pictures on construction related topics.

They require a level of technical expertise, researching skills and a background in construction. You’re main responsibilities are writing project reports in your area. Send them a PDF resume, and a link to some writing samples. It’s is an unpaid position but is ideal for recent journalism grads who want some experience writing.  Send something to the editor at: editor.bct@gmail.com

Posted by BrianS

Want to kill your reputation? – Sue your customers!

Last week I posted an article about how to build your “Whuffie” - that is, your social capital among your customers and peers. It involves turning the bullhorn around and listening to your customers.

In this new paradigm, your customers now have a voice. They can talk about you, your services, and add to your reputation or bring it down. Your customers can now voice their criticisms and praise online, not just with HomeStars, but also on plenty of other sites on the net, such as Red Flag Deals, Smart Canucks, and other forums.

So what do you do when you get a customer criticizes you? The wrong answer is to threaten to sue them.

This morning we got word from one of our reviewers that one of our companies was threatening to sue her for a critical review. From what we can tell it seems like a valid review – a job was performed and money changed hands.

The company’s response, as has been their response in the past, is to repeatedly call the customer and threaten legal action. Does this build the company’s reputation? Would she go and tell her friends offline to use the company? I suspect not! The difference is that now the customer has social media tools, such as HomeStars, and other sites to voice her opinion. The customer could similarly post comments about the company on her personal Facebook page, or on Twitter. She could mention that the company was going to sue her.

What’s the answer? Listen, respond and engage. Make things right. Leave the customer with a good experience. Be honest and open. Explain the situation. Otherwise your actions will catch up with you.

Remember, it didn’t work in the music business, and it won’t work in home improvement.

Posted by BrianS

Super Energy Efficient Heating, Ventilation and Cooling (HVAC) Systems for the Archetype Homes at Kortright

Archetype Homes

It is estimated that homes and buildings account for 30% of all energy use in Canada. The Archetype Homes built up at the Kortright Centre are made not for other builders to copy, but rather to learn about which are the best and most efficient practices and equipment for decreasing our homes’ carbon footprint in Ontario. In the two model homes, several different heating and cooling techniques have been used including  current “best practices”  and those considered to be the wave of the future.

House A represents current best practices for reducing energy consumption. Specifically:

• Heating and Hot water system: A single-panel thermal plate domestic hot water heater is used in conjunction with a 98% AFUE efficient wall-mounted condensing boiler. This system provides heat for the radiant flooring for the basement floors, and hot water for domestic use.
  

  Condensing boiler in House A

• Drain Water Heat Recovery coils are wrapped around the cold water pipes leading to the hot water tank to capture waste heat from showers and the dishwasher. This heat preheats water going into the hot water tank, so less energy is needed to raise the temperature of the cold water.

  

  Drain Water Heat Recovery Coils

• An air source heat pump absorbs heat from the outside air, passes through a compressor and is then used to heat the home. In the summer the system is reversed.  This system is usually backed up with an oil or gas system.
• A heat recovery ventilator (HRV) brings fresh air in from the outside and exhausts stale air from the inside while transferring the heat from the stale air to the fresh air.
• A high-efficiency hydronic air handler with an electrically commutated motor blower saves electricity by reducing the frequency of furnace “cycling” (turning off and on).
• A sealed wood stove is used to warm the main living area without needing to turn up the furnace.
• A programmable thermometer is installed to adjust for night time and away time during the day.
• The house is positioned so that the windows can take advantage of the sun’s light and heat in the winter (passive solar heating) and landscaped to provide heat relief in the summer via a pergola.

House B represents future developments in energy efficiency including the use of renewable energy. While the structural design and positioning of the home are the same as House A, further advances in heating and cooling have been added to study and see which are cost-effective as well as efficient. Specifically:

• House B is heated with in-floor radiant heating throughout the entire house.
• Uses a micro-cogeneration unit that produces electricity from its own waste heat.
• Has a horizontal, closed loop ground source heat pump (geo-thermal system), combined with a one-panel solar evacuated tube hot water system which produces hot water, room heating and cooling.
• 3 kilowatt wind turbine system.
  

  3KW Wind Turbine

• A floor-by-floor zoned cooling air handler capable of maintaining different temperatures in different areas of the house
• A thermal storage sealed masonry fireplace
  

  House B's micro cogeneration heat and hot water system

• An enthalpy recovery ventilator which not only recovers heat, but also exchanges humidity
• Home automation temperature and lighting control
• Automated blinds to control heating and cooling via the windows.

Related posts:

http://blog.homestars.com/archives/2009/05/27/archetype-homes-at-kortright-centre-three-types-of-eco-friendly-insulation/

http://blog.homestars.com/archives/2009/05/19/the-archetype-homes-water-efficiency-and-xerascaping/

http://blog.homestars.com/archives/2009/05/05/archetype-homes-construction-waste-and-innovative-building-techniques/

http://blog.homestars.com/archives/2009/04/28/the-archetype-homes-at-the-kortright-conservation-centre-green-homes-and-models-of-leed-efficiency/

Posted by CathyR

Consumer Council report offers insight and suggestions for contractors and homeowners

The Consumers Council of Canada, an independent group which researches consumer issues, released a report this week on the Home Improvement industry called Renovation RipOffs, Problems and Solutions. The report examined issues to do with consumer complaints regarding renovations and the home improvement business.

The report was far reaching and well researched with extensive reading and researching done, as well as a cross Canada omnibus survey of over 1500 homeowners.

There were some very interesting conclusions which came out of the survey as noted by the Canadian Press article. Some of the key points which were raised were that wealthier and more educated homeowners and consumers were more likely to complain about a renovation gone wrong. And overall things fared well for contractors in industry with 55% of consumers reporting that everything went perfectly during a renovation. With over 28,000 points of reference at HomeStars, we’d probably suggest that number is higher. Our review data isn’t exactly scientific, but we find over 85% of reviews posted on the site are greater than a 5 rating, most of those being a 10, where nothing, or little went wrong.

The suggestions for homeowners before they hire a renovator in the report are excellent including:

• Get at least three quotes
• Make sure the quotes are for the same requirements
• Check references
• Educate themselves on the renovation, or hire a renovation adviser
• Understand the triple constraints of time, budgets and quality.
• Understand that it’s going to be difficult.

The report missed a couple things we’d also suggest which are to check licenses of your contractor with your local authorities, and, most importantly, to a full online research of the company you are going to hire, not only on HomeStars, but also with sites like Red Flag Deals, where an active discussion takes place on home improvement, as well as just doing a Google search on the companies you are going to hire. Don’t miss out on the power the internet offers to acquire information.

The report also suggests that the market for home improvement services is “undisciplined” and “unruly”. I’d suggest it’s a market with a low barrier to entry and a lot of small business operators who are trying to grow and manage their own businesses. In the past, there was a lack of information about these companies, and many could ‘fly-by-night’ and get away with poor work, this has changed. But with sites like HomeStars, and others, this is changing. A quick search for the company on google will turn up history of work performed. This is a resource consumers can and should use.

Posted by BrianS

“Whuffie” for Contractors – Marketing Home Improvement using Social Capital

Last week I was on vacation in South Carolina and spent the first couple days reading a great book by Tara Hunt called The Whuffie Factor. You’re probably asking: what’s whuffie? It’s actually a term I don’t really like, but it’s used to describe “social capital”. Specifically, it’s the influence you have, as a person or a company, on the people around you to either help you or buy your products or services. It essentially comes down to trust. People want to buy from, work with and help out those who they like and they have relationships with. Makes sense, huh?

In the online world marketing has changed the playing field for advertising. Sites like HomeStars allow users to go and review their home improvement specialists and contractors. Yes, your customers can talk back! We don’t really provide an advertising medium here at HomeStars (although it’s the product we sell), but instead a platform for contractors to communicate with their clientelle. They can portray their company with pictures, lots of text, but the real content that users of the site want to read are the reviews.

Lets look at some of Tara Hunt’s tenents for building this ’social capital’ and apply them to the businesses on our site: home improvement specialists and contractors. These our our clients, and our community, as well as the homeowners that read and write their reviews. These are the people that really create the content on our site which is valuable to them.

The first rule of ‘Whuffie’ is to turn the bullhorn around and start listening. For contractors this means really listening to their clients. Many of them do this every day as they have personal relationships with many of their clients anyway. Most home improvement companies listen just because of the nature of their business – they are small companies that deal directly with the clients. But when they don’t, it can end up hurting them. Bad reviews, bad ratings and bad reputation can hurt a company immensly. On the other hand, good feedback makes a company better. Derek Morland from Mr Rooter GTA explains here.

Another rule is to listen and integrate feedback. People who take the time to review you, whether bad or good, want to know you’re listening. The HomeStars site will sent out an email to the reviewer letting  them know that the company has responded to a review on the site. One excellent example is Carson Dunlop, a home inspection and eco-inspection company. If you look through their listing and reviews, they take the time thank their customers for taking the time to write a review. Another great example is Direct Energy who, despite some rough reviews, is taking the time to answer each one, take the feedback and solve the issues raised. Direct Energy is a much bigger company, so fixing customers service issues can be a challenge, but  taking the time to thank those who reviewed you is important – not enough companies on our site take the time.

Be Notable. Contractors should go above and beyond and create the experience that customers want to write about. One of the most memorable examples comes from Mr Rooter in March of this year where their service tech saved a cat from between floorboards. Another example is Flavio of CanadaWide Plumbing, who always seems to go above and beyond for his customers, inspiring them to write reviews.

Importantly, you should be real and be yourself. It really helps. Brent Jefferies, of Classic Home Inspections, told me at one of our recent meetup events, that he is incredibly busy because of the site. He often refers jobs to his competitors (something that builds local Whuffie with his peers – again suggested!) but clients want him and him only. By the time they’ve read almost 90 reviews of Brent’s inspections, they know him pretty well before he even arrives at their house! Talk about building trust!

There are many more lessons to learn from the book, especially about social media – elaborating on some of the points that Mark Evans made  a few weeks ago. I highly suggest you pick yourself up a copy. (write 3 reviews and tell a few friends and we’ll give you $15 gift card to Chapters/Indigo too!, which almost covers the price of the book)

We try and embrace these ideas at HomeStars and even set up our own page where companies and users can write reviews about us. It helps keep us honest, open and builds trust among our homeowner users and our listed companies. We have a forum, a facebook page, a twitter account, and even just email to get in touch with us. As we continue to say: give us feedback! It helps us grow.

Posted by BrianS

Eco-Friendly Countertops Available Near You.

If you’re searching for a new countertop and are leaning towards something that’s a little kinder on the earth than laminate or stone, there are now plenty of options available that have many “green” elements to them.  

Stainless steel counter tops consist of, on average,75% recycled steel and can contain up to 100% recycled content. They emit no VOCs, are non-porous and antibacterial. However, they do show fingerprints and scratch easily.

Stainless steel countertops are available in Toronto at: Perfect Stainless, Serious Stainless and other retail stores. 

Alkemi Textured and Classic Finish

Alkemi Countertops: Alkemi countertops are made from 35% “fine flake aluminum milling scrap” a post-industrial waste products. It is available in 12 colours and three different surface treatments (Textured, Classic and Honed).

Available in Toronto through Green Design Studio.

Recycled glass: There are plenty of recycled glass countertops on the market these days. Each of them has their own unique charm.

Icestone

IceStone: is an American product, made in Brooklyn consisting of 100% glass which is otherwise bound for landfill, mixed with concrete to create a surface that is twice as durable as marble.  Like a stone product, it does need to be sealed on a regular basis. It is available in a variety of colours.

Bio Glass in Oriental Jade

Bio Glass: is 100% recycled and recyclable glass. It is available in six natural colours and can be used for backsplashes or countertops.

Paperstone is a material made from either 100% post-consumer cardboard or 100% post-consumer office paper mixed with a non-oetroleum based resin. It can be used for as kitchen and bathroom countertops and comes in a variety of colours.

IceStone, Bio Glass and Paperstone are available through The Surface Group Inc., Uniform Custom Countertops Inc., The Zero Point, Green Design Studio, and other retailers.

To see reviews of countertop retailers, go to HomeStars’ Countertop retailers category.

Posted by CathyR

HomeStars Helps Promote Restores to help Habitat for Humanity

Recently HomeStars partnered with Habitat for Humanity’s Toronto chapter. If you don’t know who this organization is, you should. They build housing for low income families, recruiting volunteers to assist. They recently finished a project called WomenBuild where a crew of all women builders worked to build a number of new homes.

One of the other projects they run is the Habitat University Class. In exchange for volunteering at one of their sites they will give you a one day course which includes

- A high level overview of how to build a house
- Tool identification and use
- Familiarization with lumber, drywall and other basic building materials
- Safe tool operation
- Plenty of hands on experience using the various tools and equipment

Additionally they offer further advanced courses with more detailed specifics. That’s just great knowledge for any homeowner, let alone a Habitat for Humanity Volunteer!

So we thought it was a great fit for HomeStars.

Habitat Toronto is funded in large part by 3 Habitat for Humanity Restores: one in Etobicoke, one in the east end, and one in what I call reno-town on Caledonia Road. If you’re looking for unique used home renovation supplies they are really worth looking into. I’ve found some great doors and windows there, including beautiful antiques and they even have entire kitchen cabinet sets. The inventory is always changing, so stop by often and take a peek at what they have.

If you’re doing your own renovation and you have things that are ‘gently used’, rather than use one of our many disposal services you can take them to the Restore for a full tax receipt on their value.

We’ve enhanced their listings on the site to make them more visible, and encourage everyone who has been there to write a review on the service you received while you were there!

We’re excited to be working with them. Keep an eye out for more collaborations with the organization, both in Toronto as well as their other chapters. We’ve got plans and ideas we’re working on and will let you know as they develop.

Posted by BrianS

Thinking of Adding Space to Your House? Hire an Architect

There are some common misperceptions about architects, perhaps the most typical being that architects are only hired for designing a house from the ground up. Even then, you might be tempted to shy away from using an architect thinking that they’re all of the Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe ilk (either that or you’re thinking, “Who are these people?”). 

Architects, despite their whimsical nature, are very practical and skilled professionals. If you want to make your home bigger by building an addition, adding another floor or expanding the attic, an architect can turn your dream into reality, all the while taking into account the current building’s structure, designing the addition to scale and blending it with the original building.  Steven Lindy of Lindy Consulting Limited says that “all major remodeling projects can benefit from the design help of an architect because with thoughtful evaluation and design, architects can meet and often surpass your expectations.”

But architects won’t just design “another pretty addition,’” there’s substance there too. Lindy says, “it’s the architect’s job to design the project to satisfy building codes and meet specific structural demands. And strking that balance between aesthetic beauty and structural safety is no easy task.” Another advantage to using an architect is his ability to “troubleshoot” when problems arise during construction. An architect can work with the contractor to rework any structural versus design issues that might arise.

Flexibility in service: Architects can be hired for as little or as much of the project as you need. They can draw up a set of detailed plans from which a contractor can provide a quote and leave it at that, or they can be hired to follow the project right through to completion to make sure plans are being followed accurately.

Architects can deliver “green design”: Many architects are becoming “LEED” Accedited Professionals (LEED stands for “Leadership in Environment and Energy Design”). This means that their knowledge of green design methods, energy efficiency and more “eco-friendly” materials can deliver you a home that costs less to run, more energy efficient, with better indoor air quality.

Check our Architects category for reviews on architects near you.

Posted by CathyR

Facebook? Twitter? YouTube? MySpace? You’ve heard about them – Are they important for marketing your business?

We just hosted an event Thursday June 11, with a presentation by Mark Evans on social media. Mark is an experienced consultant in his field.

Here’s a brief summary of his talk.

What is social media? It is a form of marketing where you have a 2 way conversation with your customers online, such as sharing content, posting events, and building a like minded community. There are hundreds of free sites to available to use, and the challenge is finding which to use. The good news is that there only a handful of good ones: youtube, linkedin, flickr, facebook, my space, twitter, word press, blogger,

delicious and digg are way up there in capabilities and widespread adoption.  

Benefits of social media are high according to an e-marketer study – but the main benefit for businesses is the ability to engage with your existing customers in a meaningful, and relevant way. Top tools Mark discussed are;

1. Blogs: Are still the strongest and most effective way to communicate to your customers on a daily basis and share your knowledge. The dowsside is that they do take time and commitment to maintain. You should be posting a good quality article at least once a week, and if you can’t write, you should find someone that does in your company. There are lots of good / free blogging platforms available, and the most common are wordpress.com and blogger.com 

2. Twitter: is a micro blog, where you can add posts or tweets that are up to 140 characters. So in basically about 10 words, you can share ideas, new products, events, sales daily. Dell has 80 twitter accounts and is using twitter daily to keep sales and offers top of mind. There are 30 million people using twitter right now and it’s easy to use. You can also monitor conversations in your industry by using a search tool about specific keywords. It’s a great way to provide additional customer service, answering questions and staying engaged in conversations specific to your business.

3. Facebook: The fastest growing demographic registering on facebook is 35 – 49 years old. There are 250 million people on facebook and it’s another way to engage in people (especially locally) that are interested in renovations on their home. They also have a ‘company’ page you can create – versus a personal profile page. See Starbuck’s page, or HomeStars for examples. On a company page you can provide news, new product announcements, add photos, video and allow people to become ‘fans’. Now they have facebook connect which will allow people to sign up to your own newsletter using their facebook password. So first step, sign up and get a company facebook page, and next step look at whether facebook connect can be used for people registering to your site.

Case Study: Argentinian wine called Fuzion, sells for $7.49 at the LCBO and has now sold more than >100k cases here already. They did no advertising or sampling but built online buzz and awareness on social media sites. Fuzion drove their message of a great tasting, great value wine through their fans on facebook and twitter.

Harnessing word of mouth recommendations is the most powerful tool you can have to get people talking about your product and service. More than 60% of people are influenced in their decisions by other people’s opinions. So sites that allow your customer to write about your company are your best way of staying top of mind and relevant to your audience.

Mark Evan’s last message – There’s no downside to trying some of these social media tools. There’s no cost to you. The downside of NOT doing it could be greater – as your competitors get on board.

Mark Evans can be reached at
ME Consulting, Digital marketing, Communications and Social media
markevans.ca
email: mark@markevans.ca
phone: 416-669-7028
twitter: @markevans

Posted by NancyP