Home Improvement

Types and Importance

Improvements have always been made in order to create more interior space, or more usable exterior space in the form of porches or decks. Sometimes, homes have been built with the expectation that they would soon be expanded or improved. This is especially the case with owner-built dwellings, which were a large part of the early postwar building boom. Owner building and improvement still play an important role in smaller urban centers and especially, in the form of colonias, close to the Mexican border.

Depending on the size and position of the dwelling on the lot, single-story additions are usually made at the rear of the dwelling, while an extra story may be added by raising the roof. In older homes, especially in snowbelt states where bulky coal or oil-burning furnaces have been replaced, owners have finished basements to create extra space. Other improvements have enhanced comfort (such as upgraded heating systems or, from the 1950s, retrofitted air-conditioning), increased household efficiency (such as redesigned kitchens), or sometimes were made to make an aesthetic statement that might also enhance the household's prestige. For much of the 20th century, such statements involved the use of more modern materials, such as aluminum or vinyl siding.

With the growing fashion for historic styles and in some cities for gentrification since the 1970s, improvement has entailed the use, or reuse, of traditional materials in older styles, such as polychromatic brickwork and wooden scrolling. In the 1970s, and then in the 2000s, rising fuel prices and growing awareness of the effects of carbon emissions increased interest in retrofits to reduce heat loss (e.g., insulation), to increase mechanical efficiency (e.g., geothermal heat pumps), and most recently to generate electricity from solar energy.

Although home improvement does not attract as much attention from researchers or policymakers as new construction, it is just as important. The prevalence of DIY, and the fact that a significant proportion of commercial activity is not reported, has always made it difficult to estimate the importance of improvement activity. On average, it probably accounts for about 2% of all consumer spending and half of all residential investment.

...