Does anybody out there watch Holmes on Homes on HGTV Canada. I don’t know if it available stateside.
Anyhow I watched his marathon on New Years Day. This guy does some great work with his crew for people who have been screwed over by other contractors. He is right on with state of the art material for tiles, spray foam insulation , and coating the foundation wall before backfill.
I am tired of his comments of putting down steel studs for basements though. He says they rust because the basement is a wet zone, are not cheaper, and that they emit cold, are not strong enough for hanging big mirrors, and you can’t use loomex with them.
Any body else bothered by this?
In my experience with steel studs, they are
light
strong
inexspensive
easy to erect
dead on staight
termite and mould resistant
better than wood for non load bearing applications.
Replies
Yes i get bothered by the fact that anyone can go in to an unfinished job with an unlimited budget and make like you are some sort of hero.
He doesn't believe in nails, gimme a break must be a screw manafacturer paying some bills there.
Can't comment on the steel studs issue as i have only worked with them on commercial jobs.
Personally i like the "Real Reno's" show as it more accurately relates to what we all go through on a daily basis.
I checked out the Holmes on Homes webb site and it says the homeowners pay Mike Holmes for the work. Although he likes to show off the dewalt tools just like Norm with his tools on New Yankee Workshop.
Have a good day
Cliffy
The new season of real reno's starts tonight.. i asked HGTV last month..
I don't think its hard to take the home owners side on most of those episodes of HOH..
Looking at some of the crap he pulls apart is terrible.. If the home owner doesnt have the funds to do it right, then they should be awakend by the contractor.. not "oh you only have 20K.. we can do it for that.. "
He does seem a little arrogant some times, but hey.. its tv.
Thanks for reminding me it is thursday. Since there is no hockey to watch I usually tape Holmes and Real Renos From 8-11 and watch it when I get home. I have to say that both of these shows do great stuff. Alot of what Holmes says and does is right on. Like good guys are busy and you are going to have to wait for them. My wife has been waiting years!
Have a good day.
Cliffy
Hey Cliffy, that is good to hear. That was always my beef was that he would walk into a renovation,done very badly for say $100 thousand and then seemingly spend another 100 to redo it all. I also didn't like that he does the "well we decided we would go with a tile floor and tile backsplash and warmfloor heating for the tiles and and....." it always seemed way out of the homeowners original budget.
I really like the fact of pointing out bad work and not using inspections as they should be.
I'm wondering if Dewalt would sponsor me? haha
I'm happy I got the owner of my local Homehardware to spring 75 bucks for a hockey shirt for our old balding men team!
I think Mike decides everything and the screwed over homeowner is happy to get it.
Have a good day.
Cliffy
Well, hold on a second.
When I'm in a basement, wood which goes on the concrete is pressure treated and the holding material is stainless steel. I'm not convinced mild steel studs are best placed in the enviornment, but that's building science, not TV personalities.
Now, I paint suites in a building which is steel studded without a thermal break. The lines of the studs keep on reappearing. On inside walls, not a problem, but I can see the objections.
I know his tools are donated, and he does good worck showing up crooked contractors.
PS. I like Real Renos too.
Quality repairs for your home.
Aaron the Handyman
Vancouver, Canada
Our climate here probably isn't as humid as you guys have it out there so we are not required to use pressure treated plates in the basement. When we use wood we have to put 6 mil poly down first to separate it from the concrete. I usually use Buildex Strikers and they seem to work fine with their galvanized coating. I think if a basement is too damp to use steel studs which are galvanized then there are bigger problems to deal with.
When I use steel stud on exterior walls I actually build two walls. The wood wall which holds up the roof and then a steel stud wall that the drywall gets attatched to. I leave 3 and a half inches between them and fill up the entire cavity with fibreglass. The result is a thick well insulated wall, no thermal bridging and very little noise from outside.
Have a good day
Cliffy
Edited 1/6/2005 9:44 am ET by cliffy
Real Renos is way better,just to many repeats.....
Holmes bugs me by always taking the clients side and
bitching about guys building to min. code.......
On the other hand some of the projects he picks up are pretty #####ed
regards
How about his grammar? I am not an English major but come on. eh, vapour barriering, three quarter round etc.
White Knight Syndrome here I come.
Have a good day.
Cliify
The guy on real renos comes off as such a smug Bstd that I don't think I would get past the first meeting with him; he strikes me as untrustworthy, and in every show he has a million excuses... but it's entertaining.
That's funny, Holmes strikes me as the smug bstd.....
almost worse than me,lol.....
I don't think Jim of RR has the carpenter skills/smarts ofHolmes and
has said as much......
One episode of Real renos the ripped a roof structure of a old shack,
and the plans said the new vaulted rafters were 2x6......
so they built it to the plans with no venting....
Then he got a change work order to furr down the 2x6 to have
enough room for proper R-value ......
He or one of his guys shoulda caught it before they started building
the roof.......
I would still rather watch RR than Holmes....
Jim also has all the toys,Harley,Porsche and a new home every couple
of years.
Regards
I like both ,but I wish Mike Holmes would just tell us who the jerk "contractors" are. It's not libel or slander if it's true right?
I like RR because both the contractor/carps, AND the homeowners are often bleeped. What's more real than that?!
'I've no desire to hang around with a bunch of upper-class delinquents, do twenty minutes' work and then spend the rest of the day loafing about in Paris drinking gallons of champagne and having dozens of highly experienced French peasant girls galloping up and down my - hang on...' "Black Adder" (Rowan Atkinson)
I did read an article in one of the Toronto papers that Mike Holmes and a homeowner are in trouble because they rebuilt a retaining wall (I think I saw that episode over the holidays), it was something like 3-4 ft high, right up to the sidewalk, and the city is claiming it restricts visibility coming out the driveway and therefore is a hazard; he is pointing out that they only rebuilt was was already there....typical city crap.
I notice Jim of RR has all the toys, which is fine; my theory is, if you do well, and want the toys, who cares. (I saw the show where he gave Neil, his foreman, a 2 or 3 yr lease on a beautiful machine)....it's Jim's bobbing and weaving when he's coming up with excuses, and his smile.....it sets off an alarm in my head; not the kind of guy that I would deal with.
I'm amazed that there are soo many lousy "contractors" in Toronto; then again, it's a big city with a lot of building going on. Out here (125,000 people in our city), if you're that bad, you'd only last a little while, 'cause everyone talks.
I wonder if big Mike every went in after Jim to fix it up?
Have a good day.Cliffy
Neither Holmes on Homes or Real Renos has made it to HGTV in the states yet. We do have Divine Design, which I believe is a Canadian export, so maybe they aren't far behind. They both sound better than a lot of the junk we get down here, so hopefully we'll see them eventually.
Bob
not too much here about the details
lotsa shows are rip it out and paint it purple by the homeowners
What, Nobody wants to talk about Candice Olson?
I dunno...they all seem fixated on the male hosts of those shows- no one wants to talk about Candice (quite the hottie for a new momma). Of course, we could talk about Paige Davis from Trading Spaces (smokin....), Paige Hemmis from Extreme Home Makeover, or Carol Smiley from Changing Rooms (a former topless model, BTW...).............
The thing that bugs me is the design show vs the renovation show.Although I like Divine Design, I prefer the reality of Real Renos, HOH, and This Old House to the pretty fixes on the design shows.When Mike Holmes rips down that kitchen with the illegal wiring and repairs joists that have been cut, I feel the homeowners' pain. Sometimes I am relieved that people have it worse that we do! Toronto certainly is a renovator's nightmare or dream depending on if you are a homeowner or a contractor.Although fun and perky, shows like Debbie Travis' and Trading Spaces drive me mad. They do so much superficial work. But then again, those shows are not for me. I used to watch them...but that was before we gutted half our house...
Who is Candice Olsen. My twin 8 year old girls like Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen?
Have a good day.
Cliffy
She's the host of Divine Design. Good looking, tall, blond, a little skinney for me but, you know.
I believe the show is out of Toronto. Your neck of the woods. Eh?
She really is a talented interior designer. Has the vision thing. Never talk budget which is nice. Not being unrealistic, just don't talk about it.
I like her designs, too. I especially like that she has an electrician full time on the show, and she always thinks about how best to use light.
Now this guy Holmes we've never seen here. Does he have a sub named Watson? ;-)
-- J.S.
Edited 1/7/2005 3:23 pm ET by JOHN_SPRUNG
I'll have to check her I mean the show out. Toronto or "Trawnuh" is a ways down from us but we get down there occassionally when we need traffic jams, crime, road rage and Theatre! (Dam NHL lockout)
Who is the blonde babe on while you were out?
Have a good day yawl!
Cliffy
It really is a decent show. Candice is just a bonus.
Her electrician Chico is good. He can snake a cable anywhere, wish he would show how. It just ends up done. Lots of recessed lights and wall sconces and such.
I have daughters also so I know who Mary-Kate and Ashley are. Probably would know even without them.
So what are you doing without hockey?
I'm hoping my girls grow out of the Mary Kate and Ashley phase. Mine are 8, they don't need all the superficiality of the famous twins.
The absence of NHL hockey is even starting to become old news up here. Found myself watching 20 minutes of 9 ball from Foxborough the other day. The real hockey comes Monday and Thursday nights when the Hardy Bullets, a team comprised of the 20 something all the up the 60 somethings in our little town hit the ice for the fun of the game. I'm sure the national beer consumption goes up a little those nights, after all like Molson says "Its a Canadian Game". Gary Bettman, Bob Goodenow all all the rich overpaid owners and players can take a hike!
Have a good day! (it is -25 today, that is about 0 I think in F)
Cliffy
I enjoy the show, but I noticed a few things that I wouldn't do...he uses piffin screws a lot. And his sparkies tend to use the "back stab" outlet wiring terminals, while I think using the screws is the only proper way to go...but some of the stuff he finds is pretty darn funny.
Cairo' I agree 100% about those back terminals, they should be outlawed, our ESA guy doesn't care for them. The drywall going vertical with butts going to tapers drives me bonkers. Did you see last night? I had a few laughs, they fixed up a real jackpot, but now Shawn is getting trained for a spinoff show.
Have a good day.Cliffy
Saw the show where Shawn had a better idea for the tile. But then they started to do commentary like they were on Orange County Choppers. Kinda changed the tone, Maybe they are trying to package for the US market.
I thought they were giving Shawn the set up to do his own show! I just watched this weeks episode, they did an awesome job on a recroom with a bar and iron gates.
Have a good day.
Cliffy
Cairo: Iknow I'm missing an obvious inside term but what is a piffin screw?
Cliffy
In honor of the great Lord Piffin of Breaktime, it is the correct and technical term for what is often called a "drywall screw".
Piffin screws are often misused for various purposes, I believe the original thread was about using them to hang kitchen cabinets. We were fortunate to have Lord Piffin himself make some posts here clarifying their use and misuse.
As he has repeated often, drywall screws are properly used for......hanging drywall. And that's it.
I just watched an episode last night. Seems to me that he must have tripled the homeowners' original budget for his small kitchen. Ripped everything down and started new. Here's a question for everyone. If I bring my truck in because it doesn't want to start, does the mechanic change the starter, battery, distributor, sparkplugs, wiring, new paint job, etc............... or does he identify the problem and repair it without breaking the client financially. My point is that not every client you deal with has a couple of hundred thousand to spend, yet they still need their house completed. Get a permit for everything, work within the homeowners' budget, do it right the first time and on schedule and everything should be fine. I think Holmes on Holmes is way over the top with his critical views ( I'm right, their wrong). But it's entertainment and I watch the show all the time. LOL. I do agree that Real Renos is more realistic to the real world of renovations. Both shows are worth watching and I'm suprised they aren't south of the border yet.
I've never seen the show , I don't think it is available here in the states . I think it should be for what I am paying for cable T.V. . I am in agreement with you . I have been working with metal studs for years . You can do anything you want to with metal studs . And there is other applications you can do with these studs , to carry cabinets or anything else for that matter . And they are cheaper and faster to assemble.
Mike - Foxboro , Mass.