diff --git a/lib/capistrano/tasks/faster_assets.rake b/lib/capistrano/tasks/faster_assets.rake
index 69f74a1..ec4cf1d 100644
--- a/lib/capistrano/tasks/faster_assets.rake
+++ b/lib/capistrano/tasks/faster_assets.rake
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 
 # set the locations that we will look for changed assets to determine whether to precompile
 set :assets_dependencies, %w(app/assets lib/assets vendor/assets Gemfile.lock config/routes.rb)
+set :force_precompile, false
 
 # clear the previous precompile task
 Rake::Task["deploy:assets:precompile"].clear_actions
@@ -17,16 +18,18 @@ namespace :deploy do
         within release_path do
           with rails_env: fetch(:rails_env) do
             begin
+              raise PrecompileRequired.new("A forced precompile was triggered") if fetch(:force_precompile)
+
               # find the most recent release
               latest_release = capture(:ls, '-xr', releases_path).split[1]
 
               # precompile if this is the first deploy
-              raise PrecompileRequired unless latest_release
+              raise PrecompileRequired.new('Fresh deployment detected (no previous releases present)') unless latest_release
 
               latest_release_path = releases_path.join(latest_release)
 
               # precompile if the previous deploy failed to finish precompiling
-              execute(:ls, latest_release_path.join('assets_manifest_backup')) rescue raise(PrecompileRequired)
+              execute(:ls, latest_release_path.join('assets_manifest_backup')) rescue raise PrecompileRequired.new('The previous deployment does not have any assets_manifest_backup this indicates precompile was not successful')
 
               fetch(:assets_dependencies).each do |dep|
                 release = release_path.join(dep)
@@ -36,11 +39,9 @@ namespace :deploy do
                 next if [release, latest].map{|d| test "[ -e #{d} ]"}.uniq == [false]
 
                 # execute raises if there is a diff
-                execute(:diff, '-Nqr', release, latest) rescue raise(PrecompileRequired)
+                execute(:diff, '-Nqr', release, latest) rescue raise PrecompileRequired.new("Found a difference between the current and the new version of: #{dep}")
               end
 
-              info("Skipping asset precompile, no asset diff found")
-
               # copy over all of the assets from the last release
               release_asset_path = release_path.join('public', fetch(:assets_prefix))
               # skip if assets directory is symlink
@@ -60,11 +61,13 @@ namespace :deploy do
                   # Support sprockets 3
                   execute(:ls, release_asset_path.join('.sprockets-manifest*'))
                 rescue
-                  raise(PrecompileRequired)
+                  raise PrecompileRequired.new("No sprockets-manifest found")
                 end
               end
 
-            rescue PrecompileRequired
+              info("Skipping asset precompile, no asset diff found")
+            rescue PrecompileRequired => e
+              warn(e.message)
               execute(:rake, "assets:precompile")
             end
           end