Before It Gets Expensive

There is a morning in August when something isn't right.

You get up before anybody else. The house is quiet and it isn't especially hot, and still something about it is off.

The bathroom mirror is already fogged and you haven't run any water. The towel you hung up last night is damp — not wet exactly, just unwilling to let go of yesterday. You open the hall closet for a clean shirt and the air that comes out has a smell to it. Not a bad smell. Not mildew. Just tired. Shut up, like the inside of a suitcase.

Nobody would call that house dirty. It was cleaned Saturday. Nobody would call it hot, either. The thermostat is fine and the air is moving.

What that house is, is wet. It has been wet for a while, and it has begun to mention it in the small ways available to it.

That's the whole subject of this book. Not emergencies — those announce themselves, and nobody needs a book to notice a ceiling coming down. The other business. The quiet signals a house sends for two or three years before it produces anything as obvious as a stain, by which time the repair has become a real one.

The mark that stopped being information

Here is the part that costs people money, and it isn't laziness.

Everybody has walked past the same stained fascia board for four years. It stopped being information the second month. After that it was just part of the house, the way the crack in the driveway is part of the driveway and the dip in the back corner of the yard is just where the yard dips.

You know the ones in your own place. Go stand in your hallway and think about it for a second.

The corner of the ceiling that darkens a little after a hard rain from one particular direction, and dries back out, and nobody has ever looked at what's above it.

The closet on the outside wall that has smelled a certain way since you moved in.

The window sill where the paint has gone soft, where water stood every winter that anybody can remember.

The low place in the yard that holds water for two days, that everybody in the family walks around without thinking about it.

The board on the porch that has a little give in it now, that didn't used to.

None of those are emergencies. Every one of them is a sentence, and the house has been saying it for years.

The arithmetic

What late costs.

There is a version of every one of those problems that is small, and a version that is not, and the only difference between them is how long it took somebody to look.

The early version

A soft spot on one board. A gutter that spills at one corner. A grade that runs the wrong way for six feet. One afternoon, a length of lumber, a wheelbarrow of dirt, and a Saturday that also had a ballgame on in the background. Or one phone call, on a Monday, to somebody who does this every week and is in and out in an hour.

The late version

The same water, four years further along. Now it isn't one board, it's the framing behind it. It isn't a corner of the yard, it's the sill plate. It isn't a phone call, it's an emergency, on a weekend, at whatever the emergency rate happens to be, and the man who comes out has to open up a wall before he can tell you anything.

Emergencies are the most expensive way to buy anything.

That isn't a scare tactic, and this book will not put a dollar figure on it, because the figure depends on your house, your climate, your ground, and how long the water has been at it. What can be said plainly is that the bill arrives as a running total rather than a single line item — wood replaced early, paint that fails early, a wall nobody could see so nobody noticed, weekends spent on cleanup a different arrangement would not have required.

The person who calls the right person on the right day, early, spends far less over a lifetime than the person who tries everything himself and calls only when it has become an emergency.

Attention is the cheapest thing you own. This book is about how to spend it.

The mechanism

Louisiana is the stress test.

A reasonable question: why would a homeowner in Ohio, or Arizona, or Oregon want a book written out of Louisiana?

Because Louisiana runs a house through the accelerated version of the same test yours is taking slowly.

Down here, heat and moisture are not conditions you live in. They are active ingredients in nearly every problem a house has. A wet ninety-five-degree afternoon, four months of it a year, plus rain that arrives all at once, plus ground that does not drain, plus a storm season with a name on it — that combination finds a house's weak spots in about eighteen months. What takes fifteen years to surface in a dry climate surfaces here in two, and it surfaces in the same order, in the same places, for the same reasons.

What changes by region

Freeze and thaw. Ice dams. Snow load. Wildfire. Drought. Expansive clay. Hard water. The pests native to your county. The storms that come, or don't.

What does not change anywhere

Water takes the easiest path available, every single time, and it never gets tired and never picks a different one out of boredom. Wood that stays wet fails. Air that can't move carries its moisture into whatever is nearest and coldest. A room at the end of a hall with the door closed behaves the same way in Baton Rouge and Bismarck. A person who cannot get to a thing will not maintain it. And a mark that gets walked past stops being information in about six weeks, in every house in America.

Those are the habits this book teaches. The threats change by region. The noticing travels.

Why this book was written

Most of what's in these pages is not specialized knowledge. It is ordinary knowledge — the kind that used to get handed across a fence line or over a kitchen table, from somebody who had already made the mistake to somebody who hadn't made it yet.

It got scarce. Not because anybody stopped needing it, but because fewer people now live next door to somebody who has owned a house for forty years and is willing to walk over and look at your gutter with you.

This book is that conversation, written down. Where a homeowner should handle a thing himself, it says so and tells him how. Where he should stop, back off, and call somebody who does it for a living, it says that too, plainly, and does not pretend otherwise to make the book feel more useful.

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Six parts

What's inside.

Here is what each part is for, and a few of the things you'll find in it.

Part I — Living With Louisiana Weather

Heat and moisture, and why they explain half of what goes wrong in a house anywhere.

Why the thermostat says seventy-three while the den sits at eighty-one, and both readings are true. The four things comfort actually depends on, only one of which is air temperature.Chapter One · p. 15

What the house is telling you at nine o'clock at night, warm long after the sun let go of it. Evening tells you more about a house than noon does.Chapter One · p. 15

The hygrometer on the dresser that settles arguments. Why a single humidity reading is close to meaningless, what to look at instead, and how many days it takes to learn something real.Chapter Two · p. 25

Where a house sweats. The places moisture collects first, all of them places nobody looks: the caulk line at the tub, the grout in the shower corner, the window sill that ran with condensation last winter, the back corner of a closet on an exterior wall.Chapter Two · p. 25

When opening the windows makes the house worse.Chapter Two · p. 25

Part II — Water Has a Mind of Its Own

If you read only one part of this book, read this one.

The five minutes after the rain stops. A few hundred gallons standing at the corner of your foundation, deciding what to do next, and the answer depending entirely on the shape of the ground and whether anybody has ever looked at it.Chapter Seven · p. 74

Walking your own yard during the rain instead of after it. The single most useful thing in the book, and it costs nothing but a jacket.Chapter Seven · p. 74

Roofs, gutters, downspouts, and grade, in the order water meets them — where each one hands off to the next, and what a failure at each stage looks like from the ground before it looks like anything indoors.Chapters Eight and Nine · p. 84

Part III — The Things That Move In

Pests handled as a question of doors, food, and moisture rather than warfare.

Walking the outside of your house the way something small and hungry would look at it. The gap at the corner of the garage, the door that doesn't quite meet the frame, the line where the siding stops.Chapter Twelve · p. 121

The two-inch gap beside the refrigerator, and why the thing you saw for half a second at eleven at night is a question about water and food rather than about spray.Chapter Thirteen · p. 130

A narrow ridge of packed dirt the width of a pencil, running up the exposed edge of the slab toward the siding. What it is, and what to do the same week you find it.Chapter Fourteen · p. 139

The scratching behind the pantry wall at ten o'clock, and how to tell what you are listening to before anybody opens anything up.Chapter Seventeen · p. 168

Part IV — Porch, Yard, Garden, and the Ground Around the House

The outside of the place, where a great deal of trouble either starts or gets stopped before it reaches the house.

Standing in your own yard at two in the afternoon to find out where the sun actually lands, which is the decision every plant on the property depends on.Chapter Eighteen · p. 178

The vine that earns its keep. A muscadine that was a stick in a pot eleven years ago, that nobody waters and nobody sprays, cut back hard one afternoon a winter, feeding a household for three weeks every August. Where it goes, why shade ruins it, and why a plant in the wrong spot is a plant you feed rather than a plant that feeds you.Chapter Nineteen · p. 188

Why the calendar on the seed packet is written for somebody else, and why the fall window is the better of the two almost everywhere it exists.Chapter Twenty-Two · p. 218

The running total of a yard working against the house — wet wood, early paint failure, clutter against siding, and the quietest cost of all, which is a yard nobody uses.Chapter Twenty-Four · p. 239

Part V — Storms, Power, and the Gulf Way of Preparing

Before, during, and after. Written where it matters most, useful anywhere the lights go out.

Which rooms fail first when the power is off, and why they are the exact same rooms from Chapter One.Chapter Twenty-Six · p. 258

Whether to open the house or keep it closed, which changes through the day and is a judgment rather than a rule.Chapter Twenty-Six · p. 261

The plain hard business of a refrigerator and a freezer full of food after three days without power.Chapter Twenty-Seven · p. 269

Heat as a health question rather than a comfort question, and the point at which a household stops treating it as an inconvenience.Chapter Twenty-Six · p. 261

Part VI — Keeping the House

The ordinary year, and the last skill in the book.

Why the maintenance list started in January is in a drawer by March, and why that is a design failure rather than a discipline failure. A generic calendar does not know that your gutters fill twice a year because of the pines, or that your one problem room faces west.Chapter Thirty-Three · p. 329

What replaces the list — small attention attached to things you are already doing.Chapter Thirty-Three · p. 330

The kitchen and the pantry, which run on the same two things as a roofline: access and attention.Chapters Thirty-Four and Thirty-Five · p. 339

Tools are not skill. Why owning a chainsaw does not make somebody a tree man, and why the tool is the only part of that a homeowner can buy.Chapter Thirty-Seven · p. 373

Knowing when to stop, which is the last skill in the book and possibly the most valuable one.Chapter Thirty-Seven · p. 378

That is a fraction of it. The book runs 387 pages.

The complete contents — all thirty-eight chapters

Part I — Living With Louisiana Weather

One. The Heat That Settles Inp. 15
Two. The House That Holds Waterp. 25
Three. The Rooms That Tell on Themselvesp. 36
Four. Air Has to Go Somewherep. 46
Five. The Attic Is Another Climatep. 55
Six. What the Season Leaves Behindp. 64

Part II — Water Has a Mind of Its Own

Seven. Rain Finds the Low Spotp. 74
Eight. The Roof Does Not Leak in the Middlep. 84
Nine. Gutters Are a Water Systemp. 94
Ten. The Quiet Leaksp. 103
Eleven. The Ground Beneath the Housep. 112

Part III — The Things That Move In

Twelve. An Invitation With a Doorp. 121
Thirteen. Roaches Like What You Likep. 130
Fourteen. The Ones That Eat Wood Quietlyp. 139
Fifteen. The Evening Shiftp. 149
Sixteen. Wasps, Yellow Jackets, and What Belongs Outsidep. 158
Seventeen. Something in the Wallp. 168

Part IV — Porch, Yard, Garden, and the Ground Around the House

Eighteen. The Yard That Works for Youp. 178
Nineteen. The Vine That Earns Its Keepp. 188
Twenty. Rows That Have a Reasonp. 198
Twenty-One. Figs, Satsumas, and Fruit That Knows Where It Isp. 208
Twenty-Two. The Garden That Knows the Seasonp. 218
Twenty-Three. The Trees That Earn Their Shadep. 229
Twenty-Four. What the Yard Gives Backp. 239

Part V — Storms, Power, and the Gulf Way of Preparing

Twenty-Five. The Storm Before the Stormp. 248
Twenty-Six. The House Goes Quietp. 258
Twenty-Seven. The Refrigerator Questionp. 269
Twenty-Eight. The Generator Is Not a Shortcutp. 279
Twenty-Nine. The Morning Afterp. 289
Thirty. What Comes Back Firstp. 300
Thirty-One. The Things You Notice Laterp. 310
Thirty-Two. When the Season Is Quiet Againp. 320

Part VI — Keeping the House

Thirty-Three. The Calendar Nobody Keepsp. 329
Thirty-Four. The Kitchen That Gets Usedp. 339
Thirty-Five. What the Pantry Knowsp. 349
Thirty-Six. What Comes Through the Doorp. 359
Thirty-Seven. What Belongs to Youp. 369
Thirty-Eight. A House That Gives Something Backp. 379

Page numbers are the printed pages of the first edition.

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The boundaries

What this book will not tell you to do.

Now the boundaries, because they matter, and it is better to be plain about them than to sprinkle warnings through the pages like salt.

This book will not walk you through electrical work. Not panels, not wiring, not a receptacle that runs warm or a breaker that keeps tripping. Knowing what those signs mean is useful and the book tells you. Opening things up is not. The same goes for gas: any smell of gas, any suspicion of it, and the response is to leave and call from somewhere else, not to investigate.

It will not help you improvise with structural damage. A soft floor, a bowing wall, a sagging ceiling, anything that has shifted after a storm or a long wet spell — that is a situation for somebody who can put eyes on it in person and take responsibility for what they find. Serious flooding is the same. Water that has come up into a house is a health and safety problem rather than a cleaning problem. So is serious mold: not the spot of mildew on the bathroom caulk, which is ordinary, but the real thing, spreading behind a wall.

It will not tell you how to mix pesticides beyond what is printed on the label, or how to deal with a snake you can't identify, a wasp nest larger than your hand, or anything with teeth that has gotten into a crawlspace or an attic.

None of that is hedging. It is the actual craft. The skill of maintaining a place is not doing everything. It is knowing which things you do, which things you watch, and which things you hand off immediately without arguing with yourself about it.

If you are looking for a book that tells you that you can handle all of it yourself, this is the wrong one.

The founding reader edition

What you receive today.

Before It Gets Expensive: Louisiana Lessons for Any American Home. The complete 387-page first edition, six parts, delivered within moments of purchase. Readable on a phone, tablet, or computer, and printable if you would rather carry pages outside than a screen.

The launch bonus

The Gulf Coast Companion
Louisiana Garden, Yard, Humidity, and Storm-Season Know-How

A separate regional companion, included free during the founding-reader launch.

The main book was written to travel. The Companion is the part that doesn't. It is built specifically for hot-humid lower-South conditions — Louisiana, the Gulf Coast, east Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, the Florida Panhandle, and anywhere the summers behave the same way: the growing windows with a wall of heat in the middle of them, the humidity that never lets a thing dry, the yards that hold water, the storm season that arrives on schedule.

It is not a universal gardening guide, and it is not sold that way. If you live in the lower South, it is the more useful of the two books for about five months of the year. If you don't, take it as regional reading and use the main book.

Digital first edition · 387 pages · Six parts

Thirty-eight chapters on heat, water, pests, the yard, storms, and the ordinary year — written to be opened on the day something changes, and clear about what to hand to somebody else.

$37~~$47~~ Founding reader price Ends Sunday at 11:59 PM Eastern

What you get for $37

Before It Gets Expensive — the complete 387-page first edition, six parts, thirty-eight chapters$37
The Gulf Coast Companion — Louisiana garden, yard, humidity, and storm-season know-howFree during the launch
Instant delivery — read on any device, or print the pages you want to carry outsideIncluded
Seven-day refund — read it in your own house firstIncluded
No subscription — one payment, yours to keepIncluded

You pay today$37

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After Sunday the book is $47 and the Companion is no longer included.

Questions people ask.

I don't live in Louisiana. Does any of this apply to my house?

That is what Part I and Part II are for. The specific threats change by region — you may have freeze and ice where we have humidity and storm season. The behavior doesn't. Water takes the easiest path in every state. Wood that stays wet fails everywhere. The habits of noticing are the same habits, and Louisiana simply teaches them faster.

Is this a printed book or a digital file?

A digital first edition, delivered as a download. Nothing ships and nothing arrives in the mail.

Can I read it on my phone? Can I print it?

Yes to both. It opens on a phone, a tablet, or a computer, and it prints on ordinary paper if you would rather have a few pages in your hand while you're out at the gutter.

I'm not particularly handy. Is this over my head?

No. There is no jargon, no diagrams to decode, and nothing that assumes tools you don't own. Most of what the book asks of a person is to look at something and know what they are looking at. A good deal of the rest is knowing who to call and when.

I rent. Is there anything here for me?

A fair amount. Recognizing a moisture problem, a drainage problem, or a pest problem early — and describing it accurately to whoever is responsible for fixing it — is most of what a renter can do, and this book is largely about that skill.

How is this different from what's free online?

Free advice is written for an average house that does not exist anywhere, and it arrives one isolated answer at a time, usually after you already know you have a problem. This is one continuous argument, in order, about seeing things early — and it is as clear about what to hand off as it is about what to handle.

What happens after Sunday?

The price goes to $47 and the Gulf Coast Companion is no longer included with the book.

How do I get it?

Checkout takes a moment and the download arrives immediately afterward, along with a receipt you can reply to if anything goes wrong.

The founding-reader price is $37 until Sunday at 11:59 PM Eastern.
See what's inside

A house tells you before it bills you.

There is a morning in August when something isn't right.

The mark that stopped being information

What late costs.

The early version

The late version

Louisiana is the stress test.

What changes by region

What does not change anywhere

Why this book was written