Shady, Shoddy and Scam-y

Remember that much-vaunted--and very expensive--eco-friendly ice-cleaning contraption at the Vancouver Olympics that conked out almost immediately? Remember how a plain old un-glamorous, un-green machine, a.k.a. a Zamboni, had to be summoned to do the job so competition could continue?

I'm not sure who built the thing, but whoever they are, if they get tired of manufacturing shoddy ice cleaning equipment, they could always hightail it to the GTA, where shoddy green housing constuction is what you might call a real growth industry, reports the Toronto Star:

Mike Preston was everything his environmentally friendly customers wanted in a contractor.

The Oakville entrepreneur promised homeowners across Ontario he could solve their energy woes with state-of-the-art geothermal systems. They’d be cool in the summer and warm in the winter, saving money and the environment along the way. He said he was an accredited specialist who could help them get government rebates.

What happened next — the complaints of shoddy and unfinished work, the utility bills that doubled, the missing money — is part of a growing problem in the loosely regulated green building industry, a Star investigation has found.

“It shouldn’t be this hard to do something that’s so right,” says Lesya Cooper of Richmond Hill, who paid Preston more than $70,000 before he vanished — leaving a couple of holes in the wall where two gas furnaces used to be.

During the past two years, Ottawa, Ontario and the City of Toronto have handed out more than $1 billion in government rebates and interest-free loans to help homeowners and residential developers go green.

Despite the growing number of incentives — the list fills a 65-page document — the Star found there are few quality-control standards to protect consumers from incompetent “eco experts” looking to cash in on the booming industry.

Shoddy building is not unique to the green sector: Lawsuits and complaints against architects and contractors are common in the traditional home building and home renovation realms.

But with governments aggressively promoting green construction, and green building still an emerging practice, consumers who opt for more eco-friendly homes and renovations are vulnerable.

Some home and condo owners initially moved by green guilt to help save the planet now feel cheated and angry...

Green has become the modern-day version of snake oil: otherwise intelligent people willingly suspend disbelief--and fork over their hard-earned dollars--whenever a smooth-talkin' huckster rolls into town. Or as Music Man Harold Hill might have put it: "Well, you've got trouble, my friend...with a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'G' and that stands for 'Green'..."