Last summer I agreed to help one of my best friends set up a manufactured home on a foundation in Smithfield. I even went with them to look at the house they had chosen. They had put a deposit (Canadian money exchange rate, etc.) on the house they had been shown, believing they were going to save money before a price increase.

I looked at the electrical entrance (I am an electrician by trade). I also asked questions about television receptacles, telephone jacks and outside lighting receptacles and fixtures. The house that we looked at was all plumbed. I even went into the crawl space and checked the size of carrying beams and floor joists and lights for the basement. Also used the bathroom, which was working.

They were shown a floor plan of where the phone jacks and TV receptacles were going to be. They implied that all of these things would be connected when the house arrived. But they didn’t say who was going to connect them and who was to do the work, and who pays.

When the house arrived, the buyer had to share the cost of setting the cost of the house on the foundation with a crane – a few thousand dollars.

The fixture only had pipes down through the floor. More than 80 percent of the plumbing had to be done by the homebuyer. The TV and phone jacks were only a box in the wall with a cover on the box with a short piece of pull wire in the boxes. The electrical entrance box was installed on a piece of plywood and supported by two wooden supports in the space where just one floor joist had to be installed.

When the box was lowered to complete the wiring, there simply were excess wires. (The homeowners knew that they had to pay for the meter box and mast outside.) I spent five hours to rewire the entrance box to make it a quality piece of work.

I believe there are a lot of people being taken advantage of when they purchase manufactured homes. My friends now have a nice home, but they paid more for it than they planned.

Also, I believe people should be aware that when they purchase a house from a foreign country, they are going to be getting items that are going to have to be serviced with foreign parts. If there should be the need in the future, for legal counsel, remember you’re dealing with lawyers from a foreign country.

People should be aware of who pays for what and who pays to have it installed.

I believe a local contractor can build a house for you more economical and with the same or better quality.

Richard Eaton lives in Fairfield.