Behind the Hammer: How Home improvement Television works and the scandals inside

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[00:00:32] Eric Goranson: It's from one doing the jumping on the Terrace Wood website and sending a picture with Mike Holmstead in front of it with the stump out in front of a house that's going to get later torn down. Yeah, that could be a problem. And he was actually had a home in there as part of the deal. So he basically, I think from my understanding from the stories, he actually got a free home and then turned around and sold it.

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[00:01:19] Eric Goranson: Make sure you follow us on around the house nation. We've got a close group over there where people share a projects. I throw up some special stuff over there as well. And we're really going to be building that out this fall here as we go into fall and really. Be more inclusive. And what I like about it is so many groups on social media, when you post something up, maybe a project you're working on, this one is based on kindness.

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[00:02:03] Eric Goranson: That's just trying to troll and be rude. So there are very limited amount of people coming in there that shouldn't be there. And we do a great job of policing to make sure that it is a kind place to get home improvement advice. And we make sure that it's accurate. And if you want to give us a call here, 8 That number again is 8 If you guys don't know about me, I have been doing around the house, Northwest television show.

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[00:02:50] Eric Goranson: So stay tuned to that. That's why you've noticed a few of the posts coming down a little bit, cause we're geared up. For some exciting new stuff that I can't wait to show you. But [00:03:00] today I thought I'd talk about cause my experience here with the show is I have learned a heck of a lot in 18 months or so of television of what goes on and home improvement TV shows, what happens behind it.

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[00:03:34] Eric Goranson: So, we're going to talk about that in this hour today. So, the first thing I wanted to talk about is there are a lot of shows out there, a lot of them. Now, you've got stuff on Discovery Networks. You've got stuff. Which would be HDTV, HDTV, Magnolia network. And of course you have all these shows on streaming networks.

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[00:04:15] Eric Goranson: On TV of this magnitude, this old house came in and Boston really changed how people look. And that, that was really such an amazing time back then in the really late seventies, where you had home improvement cooking, what later would become their own channels as that evolved in television. They had Julia Childs at this old house.

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[00:04:59] Eric Goranson: [00:05:00] So if you look at this old house, they always have a different contractor in a different home because. That is a real contractor and that is a real homeowner and a real construction project with a real budget that's happening. And so what happens is, is they're actually applying to be there and 99 percent of the materials going in there, that homeowner is decided on.

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[00:05:50] Eric Goranson: And it's such a legacy show and it's something that's been out there forever. I think a hats off to all the guys over there and it's continued success as they continue to evolve as TV and [00:06:00] streaming and everything else changes. They've had some ownership changes out there and there's a lot of new things happening with them and a hats off to those guys.

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[00:06:29] Eric Goranson: Now, these house flipping shows are interesting because many of them are part of the house flip that these people are doing. So, many times these house flippers are not craftspeople, they are real estate people that have gotten into the house flip. Many of these house flip shows are created to create drama, and they're very much like creating reality TV, and something has to go bad, something has to go sideways, Are we going to save the budget?[00:07:00]

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[00:07:21] Eric Goranson: And they're taking way too many shortcuts as a lot of the house flippers do. So that's something to consider that with house flipping shows, they are trying to do it the cheapest, most beautiful way they can, because that's what a lot of the house flippers do. Are there exceptions? Yes. There are plenty of good house flippers out there that are doing the right thing that are really helping people out by taking a house and getting it back on the market to be something cool.

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[00:08:08] Eric Goranson: Now, here's the thing. You also take a look at this before we go out to break and think, man, these people I want to be on and have my own HDTV show or my own discovery show or whatever that is. Here's the thing. Many of these people are not making a ton of money. I have had friends. That had their own HDTV show.

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[00:08:59] Eric Goranson: And [00:09:00] the time that it took to film it almost tanked their living by doing it. So there's an extreme risk of via reward with this. Now the house flippers have had a good thing going because they could continue flipping houses and continue to make money and they built a brand for themselves. So this was one of those things that worked out really well for them because they could continue working.

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[00:09:39] Eric Goranson: The amount of effort that takes in the amount of decades that it takes to get there, it takes seven years, probably of a perfect situation to make that happen. I'll tell you more just as soon as around the house returns.[00:10:00]

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[00:10:28] Eric Goranson: show the next If you're just joining us on the radio, thanks for tuning into the show. If you want to find out more about us, head over to around the house online. com. And if you want to give us a call in the studio with your home improvement question, you can send us a message at the website or 833 239 4144.

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[00:11:08] Eric Goranson: They've got to create content that comes up. So they get advertisers and that's really how home improvement television works. And so there's many ways of doing it. Okay. And so we were talking about earlier about how the house flip shows are flipped. And that's really the big thing is they're working off that host's budget for that house flip.

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[00:11:49] Eric Goranson: The difference there is Craftmade probably paid for that as well as gave the products. That showed up in the show. So they gave away a kitchen [00:12:00] cabinet package or a house cabinet package, and then paid so much money to have that baked into the show as an advertisement. And that of course is how they made money.

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[00:12:34] Eric Goranson: So if you see a brand name, they're probably involved somehow. Now my show, it's a little bit different. I'm just going to tell you the honest truth about it. Many times since we are a locally produced show, not a big network show, they don't actually go after that. So they don't have people out there trying to sell to have product placement in my show.

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[00:13:18] Eric Goranson: Sometimes they do. Sometimes they work absolutely horrible. Sometimes you'll see me putting on gloves and safety gear because I think they could actually hurt me when they fail. And, uh, that's gotten pretty close sometimes where I'm like, whew, that was close and the things like that happen. But my show is a little bit different than that because it's not an HDTV show.

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[00:13:56] Eric Goranson: And Joe, just that, but at the end of it, we have [00:14:00] to put in to keep it legal to make sure that we show people that we got stuff for that. We have to put in a promotional consideration. So people know, Hey, this was a product that was paid for something like that. And you can always see that at the end of my television show, because that's where we put it.

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[00:14:35] Eric Goranson: And this has been a serious subject and there has been a lot of controversies In home improvement television shows, you have to take an eye out, take a look out for because there have been a lot of things that have happened out there where these TV show hosts got nailed. They got busted, they got nailed for doing something that got them in trouble.

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[00:15:21] Eric Goranson: Here's one here that's from the EPA. gov site. So this isn't some crazy TMZ thing. This is a press release. EPA settlement addresses contractors actions on renovation TV show violating the lead based paint rules. Mars construction company will pay penalty and raise awareness of lead safe work practices.

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[00:16:06] Eric Goranson: They're also going to pay a 35, 000 civil penalty. And they have been really going through and watching these shows and nailing it. And what happens is, is these companies, or they start working on a pre 1978 home, and that has a chance of having lead paint in it. This is one of those things where they got nailed for a lot of money and had to go through and deal with that.

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[00:16:55] Eric Goranson: And this one was like, wow. This was a big one up in Canada. So [00:17:00] Mike Holmes from homes on homes and all of his different do it right programming, as you want to call it out of Canada, got absolutely nailed in the press. And here's a story from a CBC out of Canada, CBC investigates their title. Mike Holmes approved homes demolished due to alleged defects.

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[00:17:38] Eric Goranson: Picturesque community on Georgian Bay. Occupied for just two years, the home's once soaring ceilings, big windows, and backyard patio are demolished. Into crushed glass and wood. Three homes are slated to being tore down here. The demolitions of the latest chapter of the saga of terrace wood, a housing development launched in Meaford in 2015 [00:18:00] to match fan too much fanfare.

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[00:18:23] Eric Goranson: So it said third line homes, approved homes are built with innovation, integrity, and commitment to make it right. Home said on a promotional YouTube video. So they have had some problems with this. These homes were poorly constructed. It was cheaper to tear them down than to fix it. Given the nature of the defects discovered in the houses, demolition was more reasonable option than repair.

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[00:19:14] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the round the house show. The next generation of home improvement. If you're joining us on the radio, thanks for tuning in. We've been talking about behind the scenes of home improvement shows and everything from what you don't see and the little things that happen behind the scenes. And before I get back into, uh, the controversies that we were talking about before we went out to break, I wanted to talk a little bit more about.

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[00:19:53] Eric Goranson: So we have to come up with 42 minutes of show content a week. Now that's finished. Great example. [00:20:00] I did the last year. I did the outdoor pizza oven. Now, what we filmed was about 20 hours of the work, but that made about seven and a half minutes of content. So you can start to see how big a pull this can be on some of these projects.

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[00:20:35] Eric Goranson: Where the challenges occur with trying to do this is that we don't have time to sit there and let wait for things to dry. Sometimes great example, a few weeks ago we did a segment on a finishing drywall. We put mud on, I could have sat there and made this a lot longer, but time is of the essence. So I took regular mud, put it on, taped 24 hours, depending on what.

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[00:21:18] Eric Goranson: It doesn't look the best. And I have no problem taking the heat from the haters of, Oh, it's not looking very good. Of course, it's not looking very good. But I'm still showing you how to do it. It's nearly impossible to do that over one coat drywall. So it looks perfect at the end because there's no base for it to dry behind.

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[00:21:55] Eric Goranson: So we end up doing that. Sometimes I'll have to make 2 or 3 different pieces so I can show you instead of letting it [00:22:00] dry. I've already built 1 that's drying and that way we can sit there and do it and that creates a lot of time savings on the shooting side of things. But there's a lot to think about.

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[00:22:30] Eric Goranson: And that's what gets interesting. So we were talking about the different controversies here. And when I went out to break, I was talking about. The Mike Holmes stuff and that's gets interesting with how that all went down and let me give you a little more detail on that And I'll be first to say that yeah, there is a ton of finger pointing here but when it comes down to it Mike Holmes as Somebody myself that runs my own brand.

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[00:23:14] Eric Goranson: Yeah, that could be a problem. And he was actually had a home in there as part of the deal. So he basically, I think from my understanding from the stories, he actually got a free home and then turned around and sold it. So he had a lot to make with this. Now, what's funny is out of those homes, he didn't actually sell one of the packages that was, okay, if you want to pay extra, I'll make sure this is a Mike Holmes approved home.

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[00:24:03] Eric Goranson: Even though he has a home that tells me he didn't show up and take a look at it, in my opinion. So I think that's where the issue is that he. Represented to these people that, Hey, these are amazing homes. You should buy one. Here's my face. Here's my likeness, do all this stuff. And he stood in front of the homes, did a video on it, all this cool stuff.

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[00:24:50] Eric Goranson: I like that Ontario as a government decided to create their own guarantee for homeowners. Tarion, which was established by the [00:25:00] Ontario government to help ensure defects were discovered in new homes still under warranty or repaired. I think that's amazing. I think that's not a bad thing there to have something backing homeowners up.

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[00:25:31] Eric Goranson: And I got a feeling that. Nobody was managing that correctly. And that's my opinion. So we'll see what happens. And now that plays out, but he's got his brand around houses getting torn down that weren't able to be fixed. And that's not a good look for him or the TV network. Now, as far as controversies go, I'm not going to dive into the cosmopolitan magazine story.

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[00:26:24] Eric Goranson: Like he's sitting there in his thousand dollar shoes trying to put on tile. And you could tell this clearly he has never put a piece of tile on the wall. So that stuff is just where they're playing around with the hosts that have no construction experience. And unfortunately I. Don't like her style as a designer.

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[00:27:03] Eric Goranson: Another one that was really big. Was the drama around windy city rehab. And this again, comes down to corners getting cut in the wrong places. And this is where issues come up. So windy city rehab had an issue here, and this was a big one. This was a big one. So they got stop work orders. In the city of Chicago, it took a while for them to resolve it, and they did get these things resolved, but the stars were blocked in a midsummer from filing work permits by the city, which issued a bunch of stop work orders.

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[00:28:05] Eric Goranson: And that was a problem. That was a big problem for them. And all of that. Now, if you've watched house hunters, when we come back, we're going to talk about that one and I like the show, but let's talk about what happens on that show that you probably didn't notice. And this is a big one here. And if you go fill out an application for the show, which I noticed when I did it.

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[00:29:03] Eric Goranson: It's the end of the show, they're drinking down people, it's time to go. It's that time again, it's last call. Welcome back to the around the house show the next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me today We've been talking about behind the scenes of home improvement shows and the stuff that you see out there And we've been talking about recently here some of the controversies and all of that and I wanted to tell this story here because I actually Years ago applied to go on this show or started to and went.

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[00:29:57] Eric Goranson: And then at the end you reveal which one you picked. [00:30:00] Jumping on, filling out the application to be even thought about in the application. You had to have a house in at least escrow or ready to close, which means you had already bought a house in the meantime. So my game when I watch the show and I still watch the show, I understand what it's about and that's okay.

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[00:30:35] Eric Goranson: And again, this comes down. I'm not saying the show's a fake Even though it is, they're presented that to you don't know the difference, but I think what it comes down to is production schedules. And when you see it from the other side, it's fascinating because you're looking at it going, oh, geez, I can't believe they're faking that they can't come back and fly back, bring a crew back out again, just to film the wrap on it from 2 months ago, 3 months ago.

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[00:31:23] Eric Goranson: So that's just what it is. So something to think about when you're looking at HDTV shows, there are some of these shows that I get on and I'm watching on the house flip shows that I am literally screaming at the television going, I feel bad for the people that are buying this house from cutting out structural members to run plumbing.

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[00:32:06] Eric Goranson: Is the law where we don't have to pull a permit for remodeling. Now there are some places that are still like 1925 in the country where you don't have to pull permits for things. It's the wild, wild West. That stuff happens and something, there is something there that would make me very nervous buying a house in one of those areas because you just don't know what was, what has happened to it.

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[00:32:51] Eric Goranson: They basically paid to have somebody 24 seven there that could inspect things. They went along to stamp it, move it, cover it. Because [00:33:00] if the wiring's done and the drywall guys are coming in right after the installation guys, and. Wiring's done and in two hours, you got to have drywall up. Guess what? You have to have somebody there that's doing the inspections.

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[00:33:37] Eric Goranson: You've got drywallers coming in that are doing the hot mud. The hot mud's great. It's set up. It's still jam packed full of moisture because it hasn't dried out yet. But unfortunately, that's stuck in the wall. You've got concrete that even though it's hard enough to walk on, good enough to build on, That you still have issues with that releasing moisture for the next few months.

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[00:34:17] Eric Goranson: So I looked at it and went, boy, it is a recipe for disaster. For mold in those homes. And I don't know if that happened or not, but it was my fear looking at those homes as well as boy, I tell you what I came in later on a couple of them and saw some major issues. Now, a few of the homes that I saw that got really expensive were ones that craft made cabinetry had done, and they had done a thermo foil door, which is that PVC slash vinyl wrap that is shrunk wrap around the doors.

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[00:35:05] Eric Goranson: All of the doors on the project because of how they looked and how they were accepting that moisture because it's just MDF behind it. So with a lot of issues there, I saw one house that I went in afterwards that, that had a lot of cracks in it. And from drywall to it was just poorly done. It was not a quality workmanship job because they had to do it fast and good enough for TV.

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[00:35:46] Eric Goranson: We filmed it in Denver, Colorado. And I think it was season two of that show and working with the production company and the background of that show was you had these designers, the producers wanted me to sit there and [00:36:00] make it so. I would make her cry. She was a college student, just graduated design school, and they were telling me to go in and make her cry so they could get the wrap on that and something.

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[00:36:33] Eric Goranson: They didn't realize that we had less time. So we were told we had 48 hours to do this design. So we planned on. 14 hour days. They didn't tell us that was to eight hour days. So we had to really cut the project back because we had scaled it for something completely different. And I think that was part of the deal was to really get it.

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[00:37:08] Eric Goranson: And I'm like, not doing it. So I cut out cool little black pieces of plastic to sit down on it. So at least the legs wouldn't get adhered to the cabin, but these are the stuff that happened with that. So you got to be careful with some of these shows. That's just how it goes. And again, I'm not out here bashing, but I just wanted to give you some inside things of what I've seen and what happens on these shows, because I think they're great shows.

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[00:37:51] Eric Goranson: So I have to give them that. And some of these other shows, yeah, there's ones I like. There's ones I don't, a lot of the ones on HDTV. They're okay. They're okay. Some of the ones I [00:38:00] don't like the zombie house flipping kind of some of those, what I'd call the A and E network ones. I think those have already been done.

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[00:38:24] Eric Goranson: I want to see us get back to more designer friendly shows on television. Some more skills shows that show people how to do it. But it's kind of like MTV when they went to the real world stuff and they quit playing videos, are we going to get back to really learning about good building, good design, or is all this reality television stuff that we see, is that going to be the wave of the future and be like MTV everybody's wishing for the old videos that grew up with those in the eighties and nineties when they actually used to be.

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[00:39:13] Eric Goranson: It's something I wanted to get the facts out to you. So you understand how these shows look. I'm Eric G. Thanks for tuning in to around the house. We'll see you next Wednesday on the podcast, our midweek update, or we'll see you next weekend on the radio show and podcast, thanks for tuning in to around the house.