ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Home improvement shows making my blood boil!

I caught one episode of "Bob Vila's Home Again" where Bob insisted on moving an old shed, and tacking it on to the house he was fixing up. The laugh was that Reily could barely conceal his disgust at this nonsense. A couple of his negative remarks actually made it into the show.

Reily? Wasn't he the handyman who single-handedly [sic!] wrecked Fawlty Towers?

Yep, old Reilly doesn't have much of a personality, that's for sure. I've always thought that he couldn't stand Bob, but to be honest, Bob gets under my skin too.

I've only ever seen one instance where something from one of these shows made me throw my drink at the television:

Can't remember the name of the program, but they were turning a garage into a "livable space". The roof of the garage was supported by A-frame trusses and the people redesigning it wanted to leave the ceiling open. Somewhere during the show, some designer or similar idiot decided they'd have a lot more of an "appealing" space if they cut out all those ugly horizontal beams. Presto-chango, in the next scene you see where they'd gone through and chopped off the bottom of every single truss. If that garage didn't collapse under it's own weight god help it if they ever get any significant snow.

I can't watch those shows anymore, they're bad for my blood pressure.

-John

I don't know what's worse now, the electrical work or the de-structuring.

Ian A.

I saw a show several years ago where they were installing a ceiling fan.

The showed how to remove the receptacle, fish the wire (magically) up the wall, thru the top plates,into the attic and terminate it in a fan box.

After the commercial a SWITCHBOX had mysteriously appeared on the wall.


You KNOW that all those "Flip This House" clowns don't get permits and the have the stupidity to go on record, being responsible for the crap they pull. Any one of those buyers could sue the CRAP out of them.


Remember "Monster House"? They were the WORST.

They make the owners sign a release saying they are not responsible for fixing anything they screw up. I have heard horror stories about what happens off camera. If you didn't see it happen on film they probably didn't do it and when the cameras stop rolling they go. The homeowner is stuck spending lots of money to make these cosmetic changes something safe and reliable.
It always amazes me what people will do to be on TV.

“Chico’s putting in pot lights”

I always get a chuckle when I here that line from that HGTV design show hosted by Candice something or other.
Chico the “electrician” is always working diligently with his gold capped tooth, tattoos, four-foot long chunky gold chain and other assorted bling as he fishes the SPT2 cord through a void long side the bookcase to install a 120v sconce on the face of the trim.

“We’ll be back right after this message from our sponsor, Home Depot.”

I know that I saw on one of the news channels a few years ago that Bob Villa was being sued by the new owner (a famous entertainer whose name I can't recall right now) because of problems in one of the houses he built new for the series and subsequently sold off (Malibu Beach house season 3)

It was the project home that year and one of the features of this project was smart wiring, you could dial in and turn the lights on / off among other things. Allegedly after the sale the system failed in the on mode and the only way to turn the lights off was to unscrew the bulbs.

The lawsuit was against Mr. Villa, his production company, the installing electrician and the manufacturer of the system.

Apparently the only fix was to rip it all out and put in conventional wiring.

There has been no further information on this that I could find before posting so I am going to guess it has been settled out of court.

The best, ther very best one I ever saw went like this. A host (female) and a gentleman with an electricians toolbelt demonstrating the hanging of an exterior carriage stye wall mount light fixture. After mounting a metal pancake box into the opening he carved into the siding, (no connector on box, just the ko, and 12-2 size cable) he attached the hanger bar. Then he starts explaining that the existing wires are too long, so he cuts em to about 1" or so long and strips the ends. Next he stated that we don't need that bare one and he folded it up and pushed it back as far under the hanger bar as it would go. Then he finished installing the fixture, and made a big show of caulking around it to prevent if from leaking water into the inside of it which might be dangerous. This was on HGTV channel by the way.