By Gerry Peters

Do you remember that old Fram oil filter commercial with the mechanic who iterated “Pay me now, or pay me later?” The folks at HPS Construction certainly do, and now use the wise-old adage as a message to help customers to pay a little now, before paying a lot later!

That’s exactly the biggest message and the biggest tip to take away from HPS’ licensed handyman services (LHS). You’ll want to take advantage of the company’s LHS for its competitive prices, superior quality and license protection, just to name a few. Additionally, HPS is rated with an “A+” by the Better Business Bureau as well as for its reviews on Yelp.

There’s no more need to risk getting scammed, cheated or faced with rework due to ignorance of the unlicensed entities — or liars showing you an old, wrinkled up card from a previous job at a licensed company, or claiming they are licensed, but mean a driver’s license or a tax ID.

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It’s important for buyers to beware of people claiming they “invented the hammer!”

We now turn your attention to concrete. Next in this LHS series will be an even more prevalent problem in Hawaii: Termite-damaged wood, big black carpenter bee-damaged wood, and water-damaged wood from leaks, or just from being exposed for decades to Hawaii’s rains.

For both concrete and wood problems the fix is cheap and easy — if you keep looking interiorly and exteriorly, or high, middle, low and all around for telltale signs of the early stages of damage, that is.

In other words, fix the problems when they first appear; when they are relatively minor. So for masonry, once you get any cracks in concrete or CMU (hollow or filled tile lock walls or columns) it’s 100 percent guaranteed they will get worse and worse, and thus more and more costly.

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For example, let’s say tree roots, or part of the trunk or branches are starting to knock over a wall. Lopping off a branch or root or two, then using the new generation of flexible, water, concrete sealants and waterproofing paints to seal a couple of a baby cracks for a couple hundred dollars or less will definitely save you $5,000 — versus if you wait a year or two until the wall cracks get big and the inside metal reinforcement bars start rusting and the whole thing falls over.

Likewise, if you have rain or gutter-downspout water running under a wall, you can bet big trouble is brewing. It could also be your own sprinkler system or even a broken sprinkler head.

HPS is here to help you. Listen to the weekly live, one-hour AM talk radio, drive-time Fix It Fridays Home Improvement on The Mike Buck Show (AM 690, FM 94.3, 8 to 9 a.m., Fridays).

Call 847-4400 or fill out the contact form found on the website, HPSconstructionservices.com.

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Gerry Peters is HPS Construction president and general manager.

HPS CONSTRUCTION
CONTACT 847-4400
WEB hpsconstructionservices.comhurricaneprotect.com