Mike Holmes new show, Holmes Inspection is finally airing on HGTV in the U.S.
It’s similar to Holmes on Homes except Mike doesn’t do the work. He’s a big star now. Mike wastes the first 12 minutes of the show “inspecting” the house and having a fit over everything that doesn’t meet todays code.
Then, Damon and the crew come in and fix everything. I like the episodes where there are legitimate problems. Termites, massive leaks & mold, rotten wood etc.
Some of the episodes piss me off. Mike can be pretty anal about small stuff. He loves the sound of his own voice. A lot of the codes he preaches about didn’t exist when houses were built in the 1950’s and 60’s. He’s always changing stairway rails because they aren’t high enough or the spacing is too wide. A tiny hole in the garage leads to a 5 minute lecture on CO2. Spackle the damn hole and STFU Mike.
I got the most upset with an episode a couple weeks ago. The HO didn’t get an inspection. She had a shower drain clogged with hair and hadn’t even called a plumber. It was only a 15 min job to fix. Mike was pretty anal in this one. Takes down a front door awing and doesn’t replace it. He removes an outside central Vac outlet someone had been using to vacuum out their car. I’m pretty sure code doesn’t give a crap about vac plugs. I’d love having a vac plug in my carport. I hate dragging a full size vac out to the car.
My favorite episode was the termite house. :eek: That sucker was eaten up. They found a huge open area in the foundation that was letting them in. One weird thing was, Orkin didn’t tent the house. Around here, the cover the house in a tent and fog it. Then they inject poison in the ground around the foundation. On Holmes Inspection they only injected poison. They didn’t fog the inside.
Quoted for truth. I can’t say that they piss me off so much because I’ve never seen a full ep- I catch either the first or last 15 minutes, usually- but he fancies himself quite the charismatic guy. I often find that if he was running through the list of problems he’s found and/or corrected, I’d want to say “hold on- slow down. Talk me through each of these one by one.”
Also, while I think he’s probably really good at the inspecting part of it, there’s no way in hell I’d leave the decisions for finished work and decoration (materials, color, design, etc) up to him and his crew.
Considering the break the home owners get on the bill, they easily surrender some design decisions.
It’s a Catch-22, people: To get this far with this type of program, you have to be a bit full of yourself and generally have the disposition Mike does. There have been other shows with a similar theme, but it’s Mike’s persona that is required to give the show real pop. So, you have to put up with him when he jumps to the worst possible scenario, because he’s seen it and dealt with it (e.g., the plumbing was done wrong because this sink won’t drain!) over and over again.
It’s normal to react that way when you constantly pursue and repair other people’s lazy and dumb mistakes.
I am amazed at how many new HO’s don’t do basic maintenance after they move in. Caulking is something I learned from my dad. Right after moving in, get a ladder and spend the weekend outside scraping out old, loose caulk and replace with new. Spackle holes in drywall. Replace air filters on the furnace. That’s basic HO 101 we did with every house my relatives ever owned.
Mike’s crew does a lot of caulking on almost every episode. Several episodes featured clogged air filters that hadn’t been replaced in years. <disgusting> People seem to expect a perfect, maintenance free house when they move in. That’s not going to happen.
Mike has saved some families from disasters. Some of the houses had massive mold and rot damage. That can easily cost more to fix than the house is worth.
I learned a lot more watching the early seasons of Holmes on Homes. They actually explained how to do stuff. That’s why I enjoy reno shows.
Many people think their responsibilities of home ownership end at paying the mortgage (and many others don’t even go that far). I’ve learned a lot from the reno shows, and fortunately enjoy spending my free time taking care of my house.
I like Mike, because I appreciate his ethic of “do things right the first time, dammit!” even though, if people did, he wouldn’t have a TV career.
As annoying as it is when homeowners don’t do basic maintenance (though I don’t know if caulking things you can only access up on ladders necessarily counts) I’m far more annoyed by things like plumbing that tries to make water drain upward, or that isn’t properly vented. The other thing I just do not get is overloaded electrical panels. That’s so basic, and so dangerous, and always so clearly done by someone who isn’t qualified to touch electrical.
I really appreciate Holmes on Homes for that, also Income Property. It doesn’t hurt that Scott MacGillivray is deliciously easy to look at, either. But I think if you really want to get that sort of info now you have to head over to DIY Network, moreso than HGTV.
the house they showed on the 20th was interesting. i wouldn’t have gone near that house. the room off the back of the house was so unsafe it was really scary. how the home inspector missed that i just don’t know.
i live in a 100 + year old house with a room cantilevered off the back, i know rooms hanging off a house. i would have run up the street waving my arms yelling danger! danger! after seeing the back of that house.
the end result after poor damon had about (oooot) 100 heart attacks fixing it, was breathtaking. i don’t believe i’ve see a better job than that. it was brillant. the fellow that did the decking is a master artist. seriously took your breath away.
the picture the home owner did for the crew was very funny and cute.
I recall Damon’s shock when he realized only a single 2x10 was holding one side. He was expecting a doubled 2x10. If Mike had been there working, I think he would have gotten rope and pulled the structure down. Damon (following Mike’s earlier orders) supported it temporarily and risked working underneath it.
Mike’s still very much in charge even though he’s not there working. At times the stress almost seems too much for Damon.
One thing weird about Mike’s shows. He doesn’t use unskilled labor for the hard stuff. It doesn’t make sense to pay a skilled carpenter $25 an hour to dig dirt or jackhammer concrete. In the real world, you hire some dropout and pay him $8 an hour for the grunt work.
I guess for tv, they want familiar faces doing everything. But, it sure makes it hard on Damon’s crew. He even makes the girls jackhammer concrete. That’s nuts. They’ve had several crew members quit over the years. If I had a skilled trade, I wouldn’t dig dirt or jackhammer either. There’s a reason why people spend years learning a trade. You educate yourself so that you don’t have to do unskilled grunt work.
i swear i couldn’t believe how bad that was. when they leveled the room and it was about 6 inches above the posts that were holding it up… that was scary dangerous.
I don’t have a central vac in my house. I’ve seen the maids use them in hotels. Don’t they have a metal cover over the hose jack? It wouldn’t be hard to seal it in the winter with a piece of plastic sheeting and some tape. Although, most homeowners probably wouldn’t think to do it.
Why would you need to seal or wrap it? Central vac ports are already airtight - there’s a gasket under the lid so you don’t have half a dozen 2" diameter holes sucking air every time you turn the system on. Whether or not the hole in the wall is airtight is a different question.
FWIW, Mike’s contractor license has lapsed. Now, he runs around pointing out the problems and Damon heads up the repair efforts.
Silly aside… I now have an image of a six foot tall parrot saying “Awk! Air behind water! Awk!”
Mike Holmes is way too preoccupied with pushing “products” that every home builder “must” use to be considered competent in his eyes. I think a competing network should have a show called “Jones on Holmes” or something where another inspector or crew goes behind him and picks apart his work each week.
I think that people have gotten so accustomed to paying other people to do things that they forget that there is little shit you can do.Don’t forget slapping on a new coat of paint, or retiling, or replacing cabinets and counters.
That is a fun show, more people should put in rental properties if they have a house that will allow that type of remodel. I have spent so many years with roommates that the idea of strangers living in an adjoining space doesn’t bother me.
That was very scary, and it would wooble when people moved around in that little room @_@. I loved the decorative woodwork wall on the deck that guy made, that was amazing.
I loved playing with the jackhammer when my work crew was clearing an area to build a new machine shop … half the time you could find me out with the crew getting all sweaty and working as hard as they were. And there is nothing quite as fun as getting a sledge out and bashing down a wall.
They make insulated boxes with hinges that fit over plumbing fittings, and gas outlets, not a problem to put one over the vac outlet. I wouldn’t have let him remove it.
Though I have spotted some great products that I would kill for but htey are either canadian only or professional only [like that kerdiboard]
Nope. If he did something I hated, every day I’d look at it and hate it. However, I will say I haven’t seen him do anything too hideous so far, although I haven’t seen many of his finished products. It’s possible that the homeowners are allowed to establish certain guidelines- “no ceramic tile, paint colors from these swatches only, no granite and keep in mind that we intend to remove this wall in the future to open up the kitchen”.
Mike wastes the first 12 minutes of the show “inspecting” the house and having a fit over everything that doesn’t meet todays code.
A lot of the codes he preaches about didn’t exist when houses were built in the 1950’s and 60’s. He’s always changing stairway rails because they aren’t high enough or the spacing is too wide. A tiny hole in the garage leads to a 5 minute lecture on CO2. Spackle the damn hole and STFU Mike. 
Around here, the cover the house in a tent and fog it. Then they inject poison in the ground around the foundation. On Holmes Inspection they only injected poison. They didn’t fog the inside.
But I think if you really want to get that sort of info now you have to head over to DIY Network, moreso than HGTV.