This Mental Exercise Can Protect You From Home Improvement Disaster
When you buy a home, chances are you’ll discover at least a few confusing decisions made by the previous occupant of your home. When these decisions affect critical infrastructure—what appear to be temporary repairs, or projects that seem like temporary fixes that eventually become permanent—the urge to just rip them out and do it right is often overwhelming. “What were they thinking?” you might wonder while swinging a sledgehammer .
And then there’s a disaster. You remove an oddly placed flower pot in the backyard that’s ruining the layout, only to find that it’s draining water from your foundation —and now you have a flood. You find a basement window covered in ugly, thick plastic, which you rip out and replace with a nicer mesh—and after a few months, a small jungle grows in that well. Assuming that the previous owners were stupid or lazy is an easy way to create a lot more problems for your home. The best way to protect against this is second-order thinking, or what is called the “Chesterton fence.”
What is Chesterton’s Fence?
First-order thinking is a simple thing: you conceptualize an action and its immediate consequences. Consider this strange flowerpot: First thought: I will remove this flowerpot and my yard will be better. Second-order thinking is more abstract and considers what the consequences of that action—sometimes called “consequences of consequences” —will result in . The second-order thought asks: What else will happen if I remove the planter? Will water drainage change? Will something be revealed that needs to be hidden? Will I be able to disturb the ancient grave and unleash evil forces on my home?
The concept of Chesterton’s Fence embodies this concept in a mental exercise. This concept comes from G. K. Chesterton’s book of essays, The Thing: Why I Am a Catholic , published in 1929. In it, he describes a man on a road through a gate that seems to serve no purpose. One type of “reformer,” he claims, assumes that if he doesn’t see a goal, then there is no goal, and removes the gates. A “smarter” person won’t do anything until they understand why it was put there in the first place .
Understand why something was done before you take action.
The idea of understanding why something was done before removing or undoing it is key if you want to avoid a home renovation disaster. Homeowners often make quick DIY repairs that become permanent because they work despite being made from the wrong material or using the wrong methods. And that original homeowner may be the only person who remembers why something happened.
Consider a dripping valve in an unheated garage. You buy a house and discover that a small amount of water is constantly dripping from a loose valve in the garage. It’s easy to fix and makes you feel very capable and comfortable. And then, a few weeks later, the pipe freezes and bursts because the previous homeowner learned to let it drip constantly. If you take the time to stipulate that the leak may not have been due to negligence or ignorance, and ask yourself why it was left uncovered, it may help you at least figure out the reason – and perhaps save you a lot of problems and money.
The next time you notice some strange decision made by the previous owner in your home, don’t immediately dress up and start tearing out the offending piece. Stop and think secondarily, asking yourself why the decision was made in the first place. Only when you understand this can you confidently begin to implement your own plans. This will save you a lot of time and hassle over the years.