Category: Uncategorized

One of our crew leaders was up on a ladder at a window casing during an estimate. From the driveway, the trim looked fine. Clean paint, sharp lines, nothing to worry about. He pressed a screwdriver into the bottom corner of the casing. It sank in like the board was...

By Marc Mercier, owner of Rhino Shield of Michigan, Brighton, MI. Family owned, 25+ years in home improvement. A crew arrives to estimate a house with a painted block foundation. It rained the night before. The lower course is dark, and the paint near the base is blistering. The homeowner...

By Marc Mercier, owner of Rhino Shield of Michigan, Brighton, MI. Family owned, 25+ years in home improvement. Midsummer. Our crew pulls up for an estimate and I notice a neat row of fan shaped marks along the base of a wall. They are all the same distance apart. Each...

By Marc Mercier, owner of Rhino Shield of Michigan, Brighton, MI. Family owned, 25+ years in home improvement. It is late winter, and I am standing at the corner of a house, looking up at the eave. Brown streaks run down the siding from the soffit. The gutter is bent...

By Marc Mercier, owner of Rhino Shield of Michigan, Brighton, MI. Family owned, 25+ years in home improvement. I am standing under a second floor window on a stucco house, looking at a brown streak that runs down from the lower corner. The homeowner tells me it started as a...

By Marc Mercier, owner of Rhino Shield of Michigan, Brighton, MI. Family owned, 25+ years in home improvement. It is early spring, and I am standing at the base of a brick wall with one of our crew leads. The flower bed is dusted with small orange and red flakes....

By Marc Mercier, owner of Rhino Shield of Michigan, Brighton, MI. Family owned, 25+ years in home improvement. It is early spring. I am standing at the foot of a brick chimney, running a dry hand across a white powder that comes off like flour. The homeowner asks, "Is my...

By Marc Mercier, owner of Rhino Shield of Michigan, Brighton, MI. Family owned, 25+ years in home improvement. I am standing at the north corner of a house on an inspection. The south and west walls look fine. The north wall has a green film across the bottom third and...

By Marc Mercier, owner of Rhino Shield of Michigan. Family owned, 25+ years in home improvement. A homeowner meets us at the front door. "I clean the north wall every spring," she says. "By fall it is green again." I walk the house with her. At the corner there is...

By Marc Mercier, owner of Rhino Shield of Michigan. Family owned, 25+ years in home improvement. This is general information, not legal advice. A homeowner pulls a folder out of a bag and sets it on the kitchen table. Inside is a contract, a one page warranty and a stack...

A crew leader holds a paint chip card against the south wall of a house. Then he holds it against the shaded strip under the deck stairs. The two do not match. The wall has been telling the homeowner for two summers what the sun is doing to this color....

It is spring, and the painted brick on a colonial is lifting in a patch about two feet above the ground. More paint is letting go along the chimney. One of our crew members brushes the back of a loose flake and finds white powder on the brick side. I...

Late spring. Flakes of paint are scattered on the ground under a south wall, like confetti after a party. One of our crew leaders picks up a single chip and holds it to the light. Three different colors are stacked in it, and the oldest layer is curled at the...

By Marc Mercier, owner of Rhino Shield of Michigan. Family owned, 25+ years in home improvement. The call usually starts the same way. "It is only a year old, and the south wall is lifting in sheets." I tell the caller what I tell everyone: do not repaint yet. Take...

Picture a south facing wall on a hot July afternoon. One of our crew leaders runs a thumb across the siding and the bubbles feel warm and hollow, like thin shells. Then he walks to the corner of the same house, near a downspout. The bubbles there feel cool and...

By Marc Mercier, owner of Rhino Shield of Michigan. Family owned, 25+ years in home improvement. It is a sunny afternoon, and the south wall of a vinyl sided house looks washed out. The north wall looks fine. The homeowner is sure the whole house is bad. Our crew shows...

Every spring I get the same phone call. A homeowner walks the north side of the house, picks at one curl of paint with a thumbnail, and a whole strip comes away in one piece. Last year's paint job is already letting go. When paint peels after one Michigan winter,...

By Marc Mercier, owner of Rhino Shield of Michigan. Family owned, 25+ years in home improvement. A homeowner meets us at the front of a mid-century house. She runs her hand along the wall to show us the problem and comes away with a pale smear on her palm. A...