... I think a lot of the old timers wrapped wire nuts as a result of having wrapped solder joints for so long and they just didn't trust the "new" tech.
This makes sense. In my early days with the electrician, we worked on some older homes that had soldered joints. We wrapped the conductors, and continued past the end so that we had a built-up segment of tape that we folded back over the conductor ends and then finally wrapped the whole thing. The first time I saw him pull about a yard of tape off a roll, I wondered exactly how many joints he was going to wrap with it.
As far as the home improvement shows go, I stick with "Holmes on Homes" on the DiscoveryNetwork. Mike Holmes is absolutely adamant about rejecting poor work, whether by a DIYer or a contractor. It's a rare day that he doesn't call in a licensed electrician to fix the problems and code violations that he inevitably finds. Holmes is a Canadian, out of Ontario province (though he did work once on a California disaster), and I have to say I'm insanely jealous of our neighbor to the north. No matter what aspect of the house, he seems to know at least one superb specialist who can do just about anything.
