ABOUT ME

Paul Cummins

ASHI and InterNACHI Member

VA License: 3380000604

NVAR and IAQPro Affiliate

 

Paul Cummins, owner, is a retired science teacher and has over 30 years of home remodeling experience.   Having solved many peculiar home repair problems personally, he knows what to look for and can readily explain solutions. 

 

 

If I Had a Hammer: A Lifetime of Creative Solutions:

 

My first word was “ball’.  My second must have been “hammer” because I have this picture of me on top of a low, flat-roofed structure covered with snow.  I’m wearing my army helmet over the hood of my winter coat and pounding nails.  It must have been dusk because a flash was used…my first home inspection?  I was four and a half. 

 

That next summer I built my first structure.  It was less habitable than those hot-box torture devices used in the Pacific theater.  It was made of only scraps, nothing more than 18 inches long, with an old wool army blanket for a door… this is August in Chicago.  Nails were poking through everywhere, but I could crawl into it…just barely.

 

At 16 I did my first major plumbing project.  Somehow a local plumber trusted me with buckets of elbows and junctions, and his huge pipe threader, for plumbing steel pipe.  We needed a new water heater.  By some miracle I got it down our basement stairs by myself.  The result was quite impressive a’ la Rube Goldberg, because I had to switch the hot and cold, which meant the pipes had to cross and go down to the water heater over a very short distance.  No leaks!

 

Other projects led to experience in masonry, framing, tiling, metal work, electrical wiring, roofing (including building roof trusses) and fish ponds.  I’ve also taught hundreds of students how to use hammers, saws, drills and screw guns in a woodshop class at summer camp.

 

Building things is basically creative problem-solving.  You always have a plan yet things never work out according to it.  Unique situations occur that require a prepared mind and thoughtful appraisal of the facts whether you really want to confront them or not.  But if you do, the results are solutions that literally work: the dollhouse you spent 300 hours on finally lights up. Plus, it's just a lot of fun pounding in nails!

 

What I can do for you:  use my training, fascination with buildings, problem solving expertise and eye for detail to help you feel comfortable in your new house.