10 Questions for . . . Jon Strimling, President of WoodPellets.com

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . ., Associate Editor Gian Trotta speaks with Jon Strimling, president of WoodPellets.com about the pellet market. Strimling also addresses some of our readers' concerns about wood pellets and their delivery.

Last year there were reports of pellet shortages. What are the prospects for pellet supplies this winter?
We're clearly in a better position now at the macro level than we were last year, when oil prices shot through the roof in May, June, and July and caused a run on pellet supplies. The industry usually has until November to provide enough fuel for a winter season, but last year many people saw prices going up and thought that they should get their pellets early.

The sudden surge in demand was challenging, and there were times last year when one coast or another would go into back order. But the country has never been short of supply; it was just a case of the product sitting in the wrong place. We were able to keep a flow, but pellets were traveling farther and cost of transport was higher.

A fair bit of additional capacity has also become available. Over past few years 20 new mills have started producing pellets in U.S. and Canada, and new capacity has been added to existing plants. This year, a major boost to raw-material supplies consists of lodgepole pines in Colorado and British Columbia. Because of beetle infestations in recent years, there is an enormous quality of dead standing timber being removed for forest-fire mitigation, and the highest-value use of that resource is pellets.

Will all those factors offset the reduction in pellet raw materials from lumber and wood-flooring production?
Certainly, housing starts are down, and that has reduced capacity of some mills that rely on that stream of dry residual wood. But most of the newer mills can employ "green chips" that enable them to continue to produce premium pellets, and in some cases even superpremium pellets. These clean, debarked chips are cut before wood is dried, for example from the lumber cut from side of logs to square them.

How vulnerable are pellet-producing plants to supply interruptions?
Fortunately, production is dispersed among several areas and companies to reduce chance of shortages. Individual pellet-supply facilities can go down, especially if they are linked to a particular lumber mill. The network of 80 to 100 plants is as a whole pretty robust, so if someone goes down, someone else will pick up that volume.

One of our readers noted that when he began using pellets five years ago, pellets were $110 a ton, now he's paying $265. What is your long-term forecast for pellet prices?
It may be that this consumer got a very unusual deal in 2005 through some sort of a clearance event, because that price is much lower than even typical wholesale pricing was in 2005. If you look at when we started this business in 2006, our retail price was right about what it is now. In 2008, pricing went up about 10 percent.

If you go back five to 10 years ago when crude was cheaper, pellets cost less. Wood and pellets are typically moved by trucks that use diesel fuel, which has gone up since then; so there's no avoiding that pellet prices will rise as oil rises, as diesel fuel is an element of pellets' cost. Normally, when the price of oil doubles, it results in an increase in transportation costs for pellets of about 25 percent.

How do sales of pellet-burning appliances affect your demand forecast?
Last year, sales of pellet-burning appliances were up 180 percent. We won't see sales like that repeat this year—probably not until the next spike in oil pricing. But every heating system sold creates an incremental increase in demand, and people who have systems are continuing to use them, even with oil at lower price levels.

What we're seeing this year is that demand for pellets is coming later. There hasn't been mad rush to go out and buy supply, so we're seeing a later buying season with strong demand. There's not a feeling of panic of everyone this year like last year with the continued growth in the industry. Folks with stoves and inserts are telling friends to go out and buy a pellet-burning stove.

What's the difference between premium and superpremium pellets?
The Pellet Fuel Institute just released a new standard for superpremium pellets and is working out the statistical data around the new methodology. Ash level is a major distinction. Premium has a maximum of 1 percent ash content while superpremium has less than one-half of one percent. That's a big deal to a stove owner because you're cleaning your stove half as often.

Other things tested by the PFI include Btu content, length and diameter of the pellets, and durability. The heating value and ash level are of primary interest to a consumer. The range of variation for the heating value can be 10 percent, but ash level can vary by a factor of three. Moisture level is inversely proportional to heating performance also.

10 Questions for . . . Jack Hidary, Chairman of SmartTransportation.org

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . . , Senior Editor Daniel DiClerico speaks with Jack Hidary, chairman of SmartTransportation.org, which brings together various organizations seeking innovative transport solutions. Here, Hidary talks about the inspiration behind last summer's Car Allowance Rebate Program (cash for clunkers), the $300 million State Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program, and why he's now focused on making American homes more energy efficient through the PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) bond program. As always, the responses below are the opinion of the interviewee.

You're an entrepreneur with a background in finance, technology, and medical research. What turned you on to energy efficiency?
I love taking an idea from the back of a napkin to a full-fledged company. In 2001, I built an energy practice that exposed me to the inefficiencies of fossil fuel. Take coal. By the time you go from the coal mine to the processing plant, over the power line and into the home, you're left with around 15 percent of the original energy. That's an enormous waste. Then there are the health and environmental issues related to carbon emissions, not to mention the economic and national-security issues related to our dependence on fossil fuels.

How did that translate into cash for clunkers?
In 2005, I spearheaded the effort to change the taxicabs in New York City to hybrid vehicles. Today, 25 percent of the city's fleet are hybrid, and the rest will so be in two to three years. The success in New York got me thinking about the roughly 250 million cars in the rest of the U.S. I realized that there needed to be an incentive to accelerate their turnover, especially since the average age of our vehicles has gone from seven years to 14 or 15 years. When I was growing up in Brooklyn, our local utility had a program that gave rebates for trading in an old air conditioner for a new unit. That to me was a great model for what we needed to do with cars. So I put together some ideas for a cash-for-clunkers program and presented it at the 2008 Clinton Global Initiative.

Do you think cash for clunkers will have a long-term impact on our culture?
There's now an entire set of programs based on clunkernomics, or the notion that efficiency makes good economics. During cash for clunkers, people walked into their dealership with a totally different mind-set. They weren't just looking at the transaction value of the sticker price but also at the cost of gas and maintenance. They understood that if a car is $500 less on the sticker but costs $2,000 more each year to operate, that's a bad deal. In technology, we call this total cost of ownership. The concept has been around for years, but it's entered the consumer lexicon, and moved well beyond cars.

The U.S. Department of Energy recently kicked in $300 million for cash for clunkers for appliances. And I just had an e-mail from a leader in computer-data centers, which suck up about 2 percent of the country's electricity. She's proposing a cash-for-clunkers program that would help swap out these massive servers for more efficient ones.

Why have you turned your attention to buildings?
We're hoping to catalyze the same paradigm shift in how people buy and maintain homes. The built environment—houses, apartments, commercial buildings, warehouses, etc.—is responsible for 40 percent of the nation's energy use. The average American household uses 50 percent more energy than the average Italian household. So there are a lot of things we can do to make buildings more efficient.

We have better windows and lighting and ways to harness solar power. These things all have great payback, but they also cost a lot to buy and install. Enter two guys from Berkeley, California, named Cisco DeVries and Dan Kamen. They came up with the model for a bond-based financing mechanism that would give people loans to pay for their energy retrofits and solar. They approached me and several other folks with the idea. We looked at it and decided to take it to scale through the formation of the PACE Now coalition. We're predicting that the program will stimulate up to $500 billion in business over the next decade.

How does a PACE bond work?
PACE stands for Property Assessed Clean Energy. It's very simple for consumers to access. They apply for a loan from their city or municipality, say $20,000 to replace the windows, lighting, and central air conditioning. The city issues a PACE bond and then lends the money, which the borrower pays back over 20 years via a surcharge on their property taxes. That's plenty of time to break even on the energy retrofit and solar installation, and consumers still qualify for federal energy tax credits, saving them even more on the project.

Roundup of the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative: What's coming next for energy efficiency at home

The fifth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative resulted in 284 "commitments to action" valued at $9.4 billion. As we reported last week from the event, energy efficiency dominated much of the discussion, and if adopted, this year's commitment-to-action initiatives could eliminate 30 million metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions a year; bring clean energy to an additional 7 million people worldwide; and engage 1.5 million new people in climate-change efforts.

"I think we can say with some certainty that this [commitment to action] model actually does work," said former President Bill Clinton during the CGI's closing ceremony. "People don't have to have the same politics, the same religion, or speak the same language to work together and to have an impact. We all have things to learn from each other. What we need is a shared mechanism to achieve common goals."

While most of the commitments were prepared in advance, some happened spontaneously, underscoring Clinton's call for collaboration. For example, CGI member Mouhsine Serrar, CEO of Prakti Design Lab, developed a commitment at the meeting to deliver efficient kitchen appliances to the people of Haiti.

Another commitment that bears closer watching came from Jack Hidary, chairman of SmartTransportation.org and the man behind the Car Allowance Rebate System, or cash for clunkers, which he unveiled at last year's CGI meeting. Hidary is now setting his sights on the country's inefficient housing stock, with a commitment to bring low-cost financing for energy-efficient retrofits. The illustration above, from the National Energy Technology Laboratory, shows energy-saving opportunities in a typical home.

The October 2009 issue of Consumer Reports details ways to make your home more efficient and cut your annual utility bill by $1,500. But upfront costs can be steep, especially if you install a pellet stove or a solar water heater.

Hidary's plan would alleviate that burden by letting you pay the costs over several years using the savings from your lower energy bills. Look for more details in our upcoming 10 Questions for . . . interview with Hidary.—Daniel DiClerico | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential information: Visit our new Energy Saving & Green Living guide for more advice on how to save money on heating and cooling your home.

10 Questions for . . . Andrea Gabor, Business Journalist

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . . , Senior Editor Daniel DiClerico speaks with Andrea Gabor, the Bloomberg Chair at Baruch College/CUNY whose most recent book is The Capitalist Philosophers: The Geniuses of Modern Business—Their Lives, Times, and Ideas. Here, Gabor shares the findings of her investigation into the appliance industry, including why she thinks U.S. manufacturers are at risk of being overtaken by foreign competition and what you should think about before buying major appliances.
 
You've spent much of your career covering the car industry. Why the interest in appliances?
It all goes back to my book The Man Who Discovered Quality (1990). It was the story of W. Edwards Deming, a statistician from Wyoming who ended up teaching the Japanese auto industry about quality management. Since then, quality has been something of an obsession with me. Two years ago I bought a $2,000 lemon of a range. I had so much trouble getting it repaired to my satisfaction—even the repair parts failed. That got me wondering about the once reliable American appliance and whether the American appliance industry was going the way of the American auto industry.

What have you learned so far in your investigation?
There are some remarkable parallels, especially when you think about what U.S. manufacturers could have learned from the auto experience of the 1980s. The Japanese started to beat the U.S. because of their commitment to quality. As with the auto industry, the main competitors to the U.S. appliance industry are largely Asian, and Korean in particular. These manufacturers have an incredibly strong quality ethic, which they learned from the Japanese. If you look at the big Korean companies like LG and Samsung, they live and breathe the Toyota quality playbook.

Is it even possible to have a domestic-versus-foreign discussion in this era of globalization?
We do live in a global world, and everyone does some amount of outsourcing. But the issue is not whether you do all your production under one roof in one country. The issue is what kind of relationship you have with your suppliers—and how much control you have over the production process. At one extreme you have the Toyota model, whereby the plant and the suppliers are usually in close proximity, like what you see in Toyota City. Both LG and Samsung have similar manufacturing centers in Korea. At the opposite end of the spectrum is a company like Apple, which has basically become a marketing and design company with virtually no in-house manufacturing. In my opinion, U.S. appliance makers need to be more like Toyota and less like Apple. Its iPods are designed to be replaced regularly; a range or refrigerator should last for years.

What do warranties tell you about this change in direction?
Warranties are in decline throughout the appliance industry. On smoothtop ranges, for example, they're down from five years to one year. The other interesting thing is that if you look at the accrual rates, which Warranty Week assembles, the average rate for U.S. home appliances is roughly 3 percent. Toyota and Honda, by comparison, have accrual rates of 1.3 percent. I realize that's comparing apples and oranges, but it begs the question of why the accrual rates would be half as much for what's essentially a much less complicated product. I would argue that it comes down to the lessons of quality that many of the major U.S. appliance manufacturers are learning the hard way.

How do values differ with American appliance manufacturers?
U.S. manufacturers don't seem to have the same quality-based philosophy. Their focus too often is on cutting costs. They want sales and they want profits and they see cost-cutting as the fastest way to get there. But what the experience of the 1980s Japanese automakers should teach them is that keeping quality up is the best way to keep costs down. I'd also argue that the U.S. manufacturers focus on slick design and features—the appliance world's equivalent of car fins—in lieu of quality.

But isn't innovation a requirement of growth? Can all of us still be cooking with grandma's old range.
You definitely need innovation. But real innovation and quality are linked. The Japanese understand this better than anyone. Their idea is that a culture of mindfulness and continuous improvement can lead to giant leaps. It wasn't that the Japanese undercut the price of the American auto or that they paid their workers less. Toyota beat the U.S. by making a better-looking, more-reliable car for a better price. They also pushed fuel efficiency and hybrid research when U.S. automakers said there wasn't a market for it. That's true innovation.

10 Questions for . . . Nadarajah Narendran, Ph.D., Lighting Researcher

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . . , Associate Editor Kimberly Janeway interviews Nadarajah Narendran, Ph.D., director of research at the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York. Narendran discusses the future of lighting and explains how LED lighting holds promise for hundreds of millions of people in developing countries worldwide.

Why is LED technology the next big thing?
They last longer, so there’s less landfill. And the light they produce is improving. It’s not great yet. We’re confident because there’s a lot more research money being put into LED technology than into compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Therefore LED technology will improve greater and faster. There’s no one perfect lightbulb in this world. It’s a matter of more pros than cons. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs are better than incandescent bulbs. But now LED lights have come in. The CFL market will be eaten up by LEDs. Not everything, but little by little.
(Our tests have shown that CFLs can lag in color rendering and run-up time.)

What else needs to be done to improve LED lighting?
For LED lights to be transforming, we need to look at the infrastructure. It’s a waste of “talent” if we put an LED light in an incandescent socket. One of the LED features is you can dim up and down and change color, from more yellow to blue. That doesn’t happen with incandescent bulbs. The existing sockets and fixtures do not have good thermal management. So now if we replace incandescents with LED lights, the LED lights may not perform optimally.

When will LED lights be more widely available and come down in price?
Over the next five years we’ll see more products in stores. Now they’re not commonly available, so it’s hard to see that LED lights are a good option.

Where will CFLs fit in as LEDs become more common?
LED lights and CFLs will coexist. With LED lights, the price is going to come down. Now they’re in the $20-to-$50 region for a consumer. Part of the reason is the products are coming from overseas.

Have CFLs been perfected?
CFLs are really good now, and the quality has improved. It did ramp up when leading manufacturers made them. It’s a better product, better lasting, with better light and less mercury, but more products are in the market and not all are performing the same.
(Look for our new ratings-based report of CFLs in the October 2009 issue of Consumer Reports, online and on newsstands in early September.)

Incandescent bulbs had a long run as the dominant lighting source. What precipitated the move toward more-efficient technologies?
The energy crisis of the 1970s and climate changes forced the need for change.
(Read our interview with Ed Hammer, inventor of the CFL.)

Other than CFLs and LED lights, are there any other lighting alternatives?
There are people trying to do other lighting. Some researchers are trying to even make incandescents more efficient.
(Learn about the White House’s plan to boost the efficiency of some fluorescent and incandescent lightbulbs.)

You’re working to improve the quality of life for South Asians through lighting. How can lighting accomplish that?
We take lighting for granted. But there are many millions of people who do not have access to it—they use kerosene and candles and can’t do activities after darkness. They rely on daylight and the day is short for them. If you can provide lighting at affordable costs, you can provide opportunities, knowledge, education, and economic growth.

How can lighting change a family’s life?
In the U.S., lighting is a smaller portion of our home energy use compared with air conditioners, washers, and TVs, and. In South Asia, the cost of running lights is a significant part of budget. So if we can help with lights that use one third or one-tenth of the energy then it will save money.

What kind of lighting do you expect will be used in developing nations?
LED lights are wonderful lights sources when you don’t have access to the power grid. These lights are the answer because power requirements are low. You’ll be buying fewer bulbs over time, so they’re more cost effective when there’s no power grid. And LEDs are much more efficient than CFLs and don’t have mercury and disposal issues.

Essential information: Our experts debunk some of the myths that surround CFLs.

Earth Day Special: 10 Questions for . . . Mark Caserta, Co-owner of 3r Living

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . . , Senior Editor Daniel DiClerico speaks with Mark Caserta, owner of 3r Living, a retailer of green home decor and furnishings and other products with locations in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and Maplewood, New Jersey (shown). Here, Caserta gives his take on the green movement, reveals which products sell even in a down economy, and talks about the impact of the recession. e-mail | Twitter

When did you open the Brooklyn shop, and what was the inspiration?
We celebrated our five-year anniversary of the original Park Slope, Brooklyn, store last week. The Maplewood, New Jersey, location opened in October 2007. My wife, Samantha Delman-Caserta, had worked in retail for many years, and I did nonprofit and government work for the environment. So our business melds those two interests, a retailer that sells green products.

How has the business evolved over the past five years?
Back in 2004, it was very hard to find products that met our 3r criteria. We had a hard time keeping the Park Slope store stocked. Over time, the market has grown. A lot of people are coming out with great stuff, to the point where we have to turn down a lot of vendors. The competition is tough, and products are now shipped to us from all over.

Don't the energy costs of shipping go against the green mission of your business?
The answer I usually give to the shipping question is that we want the market for green products to grow, and in order for it to grow there have to be buyers and sellers. It's mostly small businesses that we're supporting.

I have a preference for locally made goods. Unfortunately, manufacturing in New York has been decimated over the past 30 years. The one thing you can find locally is people who make their own jewelry. We have a lot of people making unique jewelry out of found objects, for example rings and earrings made from the inside of watches and electronics.

Green is a somewhat elastic term. How do you define it?
We have several criteria. First, we look for products that are eco-friendly in some way, whether they reduce waste in the manufacturing process, are made from recycled or reused materials, or are fair-trade products. 3r merchandise also has to be affordable, because we believe firmly that green should not be a luxury. You can't make an impact if it's only wealthy people buying your products. It must be stylish, too. You shouldn't have to sacrifice beauty in your home just because you want to be green.

Which of the three Rs—reuse, reduce, recycle—is the hardest to mesh with modern life?
When we first opened, I probably would have said reuse. Americans used to love new. But with the advent of eBay and Craigslist, you have a lot of people looking for good, used products, which benefits the environment. So these days, the hardest R is probably reduce. But the current economic climate is reintroducing the idea of waste reduction, since it can end up saving money.

What's the best example of saving by reduction?
Look at water bottles. Bottled water is one of the biggest environmental issues. Millions of these plastic containers are thrown out every day, ending up in landfills, waterways, and sewers. We've carried reusable water bottles in our Brooklyn store from the beginning, with the idea being that tap water is healthy and clean and virtually free. It's amazing how much you can do for the environment just by using a reusable container.

It sounds as if the recession is an issue. How hard have you been hit?
A lot of people think we're recession proof because we're a green business. And up until the holiday season of last year we weren't impacted. But since January 2009 we've been heavily impacted. The adage is that when people are better off it's easier for them to think about the environment. And right now, they're concerned about their jobs and their savings. But I do think the focus of the Obama administration has been good in that green and money savings and the future all go together.

10 Questions for . . . Sarah Susanka, Architect

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . ., Senior Editor Daniel DiClerico speaks with Sarah Susanka, an architect and the best-selling author of The Not So Big series of books, the first of which came out in 1998. Here Susanka shares tips from her latest book and explains why remodeling will make the nation more energy efficient.

What is the Not So Big House philosophy?
It's all based on the belief that a smaller, well-designed house doesn't have to feel smaller. This can be a real conundrum for people, but good design, because of its layout, truly does give the feeling of more space. When I moved to California from England when I was 14, I noticed with some amazement that no one ever sat in the formal living and dining rooms, and that the foyer was basically reserved for door-to-door salesmen. That began my interest in design, and I ended up bringing the sensibilities I'd developed by observing the different cultures to my practice.

Have Americans embraced your ideas?
Around the time I was writing The Not So Big House, the sociologist Dr. Paul Ray came out with his study of cultural creatives, people who care deeply about things like quality and sustainability. That was very much my audience, but at the time it was the minority. Since then and especially since 9/11, more people have reevaluated what's important in their lives. In recent months, it's off the charts. All of a sudden it's mainstream to believe that a smaller, better-designed house is most desirable. (Read more about this trend in our Buzzword on rightsizing and this interview with architect Marianne Cusato.)

So what's going to happen to all the McMansions?
The best answer I have is that, as happened with many Victorian mansions built years ago, today's McMansions will be converted into duplexes and triplexes. I just don't see people living in 6,000-square-foot houses for the long-term. But if McMansions can't be adapted for multifamily use, I'd at least like to see their materials reclaimed.

Why did you decide to write Not So Big Remodeling?
I was actually asked to do a remodeling book shortly after writing The Not So Big House. It was obvious that there were a lot of people who wanted to know whether they could apply my ideas to their existing house. The challenge was getting submissions from architects, because small-scale remodels are not necessarily their most glorious work. I wanted to show the really clever, but often subtle, tricks that make a house so much more livable.

Which remodeling solutions work best?
Most houses have ceilings at the same height. I think this is why people have a universal hatred of 8-foot ceilings. They become monotonous. So one of the things I advise a lot is lowering the ceilings in hallways to 7 feet so that when you move into the kitchen and other living areas, the ceilings pop up to 8 feet making the spaces feel taller. It's a fairly simple project that has enormous impact.

10 Question for . . . Julie Moir Messervy, Landscape Designer

In this installment of 10 Questions for..., Senior Editor Daniel DiClerico speaks with Julie Moir Messervy, landscape designer and author of Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love. Here Messervy talks about her landscaping philosophy, details how to create an energy-efficient yard, and offers tips for a few inexpensive upgrades that you can do as spring approaches.

What's so great about the great outdoors?
Going back to nature gets the blood going and gets you away from the stale air of your house, whether you're outside exploring, maintaining the yard, or just swinging in a hammock. Then there's the whole curb-appeal component of improving the exterior of your house. I've seen property values increase by as much as 20 percent.

Even in this market?
You can move shrubs around and dig beds and lay bulbs. You can even lay a brick terrace, although that requires more labor and know-how. You may not see quite the same return on the investment today, but all these activities are an opportunity to get back outside, which is my underlying desire, to get everybody back out onto the land.

What's the message of your new book?
The land around your house is just as much home as what's inside its walls. We just forget it sometimes.

There's a good deal of Eastern philosophy in the book. Where does that come from?
I lived in Japan for a year and a half in grad school and fell in love with Japanese gardens and worked closely with a garden master. All my books are deeply influenced by the design principles I learned there. For example, chapter five is all about the placement of objects in a landscape, which has to do with focal points and frames. That's not talked about in garden books, but it's so important to creating a beautiful journey throughout the property.

Sounds interesting, but what about the nitty-gritty, get-your-hands aspect of yard work?
On the one hand, there's an underlying philosophy to the book, but I stripped it down to the bare essentials so that you don't need to have studied philosophy to be able to get a lot of great tips. There are a lot of before and after shots, and I also included a lot of diagrams, plans, and case studies.

Why did you decide to include a personality test?
The personality test is meant to help readers figure out what kind of landscaping designer they are. You can be a reserved or expressive; practical or conceptual; principled or personal; orderly or relaxed. The test also asks about aesthetic preferences: formal or informal; symmetrical or asymmetrical; representational or abstract. In my role as a designer, my job is to get all that into the design I create. My goal with this book is to make the process simple enough for people to do on their own.

How much does it cost to start sprucing up a landscape?
The beauty of plants is they're very inexpensive. If people are willing to dig their own beds and plant their own trees, they can get huge impact for just a few hundred dollars. An even simpler project is to put out a bird feeder, near a bush so that the birds have cover and in front of a window that you look out of a lot. Right there you've created a vignette that's inexpensive, helpful to nature, and in constant flux. Another simple project is to add a freestanding fireplace with a couple of Adirondack chairs around it. You don't need a big expensive built-in fireplace to sing songs and roast marshmallows.

10 Questions for . . . Peter M. Christopher, Home Inspector

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . ., Associate Editor Gian Trotta speaks with Peter M. Christopher, of Fairfield, Connecticut-based Fairfield Home Inspections LLC. Here's his take on the common problems that can make foreclosures, fixer-uppers, and even apparently well-maintained homes a very bad investment and what you should look for in a home inspection.

What problems in a home should raise flags for a potential buyer?
There are two things that make me recommend against someone buying a home. Mold is one; look for stains and spots on ceilings, especially in closets, and around attic beams. Mold removal can be very costly and the chances of getting rid of all of it are slim to none. (Editor's note: See "Gauging mold's harm" for more hints on detecting mold, including mold that is not always visible.)

Hidden in-ground oil tanks are another big problem. If I find any evidence of one, I tell my client to have the homeowner show the paperwork from the removal. If a tank has leaked oil into the soil, it can cost you up to $100,000 to deal with the problem.

(Editor's note: Some states, such as New York, have programs to help remove these in-ground tanks to avoid future problems. Other companies offer "tank insurance" to homeowners who have in-ground tanks that claim to cover clean up costs should a spill occur.)

Also, if the house is in disarray, that's always a bad sign; sloppy people put a bigger strain on systems.

Are there any risks in buying a foreclosed home?
Buying foreclosed houses is always more risky. People who have lost or are losing their homes become sloppy and lose the incentive to maintain it. Plumbing is one of the biggest problems I have found in foreclosed homes. Either the pipes are damaged from not being winterized or the seals have gone bad due to lack of use. Keep in mind that a bank will not fix anything in a foreclosed home. The sale is "as is," and some banks will not allow a home inspection.

In older homes, what kind of structural problems do you often see?
In 19th-century homes, the support posts are embedded in dirt, and termites have usually gotten into them. Frayed electrical wires and ungrounded two-prong outlets are also problems in older homes.

Do some new home face problems because they were built too tightly?
The two worst things for a home are a lack of ventilation and moisture intrusion. If a home cannot breathe, it will rot out, and that's why mold is very common in newer homes. Also, homes that were built with wet, damp lumber can contribute to mold growth later.

Any special advice for heating and ventilation systems?
See whether the boiler or burner has a maintenance sticker. If it's had a lot of service calls in a short interval or if the system itself is old and greasy, that's a bad sign and you should consider a replacement. Storage-tank water heaters should be replaced eight to 12 years after installation.

What's the worst house you've ever inspected?
I can't think of just one—but some of the memories have been really bad. I've been in homes were I got bug bites all over me. I've been in basements that have been converted into illegal apartment where 10 immigrants were living like animals. I've seen electrical outlets installed inside the shower stall (shown). I've been in homes used to cook crystal meth. And I've seen main beams removed to install garage-door openers.

Have there been some nice houses to balance these horrors?
The best house I recall inspecting was one I was involved with while it was being built. The client would have me come in every two to three weeks to inspect and make suggestions on what was going on.

10 Questions for . . . Dan Holohan, Founder of HeatingHelp.com

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . ., Associate Editor Gian Trotta speaks with Dan Holohan, a former heating-industry pro whose 10-year-old HeatingHelp.com provides plumbing- and heating-related information and lively, active forums for consumers and industry members. Here's his take on how the industry is dealing with the recession; Joe the Plumber; and energy-saving technologies.

Your site is full of history of the industry as well as current plumbing and heating practices. Why the mix?
The history on the site makes people feel a part of something big and important, and it makes problems timeless. I want readers to know they're not the first to have banging pipes. I spent 19 years as a writer and sales-promotion guy in the heating-equipment business trying to get contractors to buy our products. I did a lot of research and realized there's also so much social history tied in with the mechanical engineering of heating. Much of this came out when I started writing books, such as The Lost Art of Steam Heating, in 1992, doing seminars, and publishing newsletters.

Who is your audience?
It's a combination of contractors, engineers, wholesalers, manufacturers reps, manufacturers, homeowners, industrial people—just about everyone who has a heating system or needs to work on one. The visitors are mainly from North America, but we also get people from all over the world.

During the recession, has there been a shift to more maintenance work as opposed to new construction? How has the downturn affected the green part of the business?
New construction has tanked, but people still need heat since Mother Nature makes no allowances for budgets or ignorance. Stuff breaks, so there's a part of our business that's recession-proof. I was seeing a shift toward green things, but this seems to be slacking off since the price of fuel went down. I think there's going to be a huge business in insulation.

Joe the Plumber certainly made a lot of news during the presidential election. What's your take on Joe?
The visitors to our site had a lot of fun with him. Opinions, as you might expect, split along party lines. I think Joe was making the most of his moment, and I'm glad that moment has passed.

What advances hold the most promise for cutting the cost of heating water?
Heat-recovery systems, which recover thermal energy from drainpipes, and small-pipe systems that consume smaller volumes of hot water make sense to me. But I think solar water heaters hold the most promise, and not because the technology is green but because it's simple and proven. I'm also following a new type of hybrid water heater that uses heat-pump technology to extract heat from the air to preheat the incoming water. And some new commercial water heaters are getting efficiencies that are close to 100 percent.