I know enough about construction to know that a foundation needs at least 2 weeks to cure enough to be built on, yet in the show, they manage to tear down and rebuild an entire house in 7 days? How did they do this? Most of the framing would be modular/prefab so that would be easy to build inside of a wee,.but how do they overcome the obvious issues such as the concrete needing at least two weeks to cure, plus having the city/county/state inspectors inspect each aspect of the build? Or is it more likely that the house takes a month or two to build and with the magic of editing they make it appear that it only took one week.
In: Engineering
Let come back tomorrow when the framers, electricians, drywallers, mudders and painters finish up to move in the furniture……
They obviously don’t.
It’s TV. Everything you see is staged and the people need to wait months before going back to the house.
Remember “Pimp my ride”?
Very famous for telling massive BS to the viewers. Look it up on youtube you will be baffled.
Home near me was on this show. Most of the framing was completed weeks prior and set up in a staging area. When it came time to build, it was basically just putting the puzzle pieces together. Worked 24/7 for a week straight.
Much of the structure was prefabricated ahead of time into walls that were already framed, and exterior panels already sheathed (oddly enough, this leads to straighter walls because they’re all put together on a jig instead of framed in place.
Concrete can also be made to cure considerably faster with calcium mix.
Then the installation is done using a massive crew (and a lot of coordination). We’re talking 10-20x the number of people that would normally be working on a house. Code inspectors are usually on hand to inspect immediately. As soon as a wall panel is up, electricians are already running wires, plumbers already running piping, etc, and as soon as code inspector signs off, drywall goes up. This also happens around the clock. There’s little to no cutting and sawing or any of that because everything is prepared ahead of time and it’s just like assembling an overly large piece of IKEA furniture.
In the beginning they just tore the inside down to the studs and remodeled, by the end when they were building the whole house, I believe it was mostly manufactured/componentized homes on the existing foundation.
Yes waiting a couple weeks is optimal but many times I’ve seen the framing crew to come in and start building after 3 days
there is also rapid set concrete which hardens in hours.
That being said, I have also seen many times people framing after 24 hours and just being real careful. It doesn’t compromise the concrete in any way, and not cranking the bolts 100% till a few days later.
Not saying it’s proper or good practice but it’s done
What about inspections?! My city requires inspections of almost every step along the way and they can take weeks to get an inspector on the site!
In addition to the prefabrication everyone has talked about, they also tended to cut corners and generally perform shoddy workmanship. Quality takes time. If you’re focused on the deadline quality gets deprioritized.
([Source](https://www.nar.realtor/magazine/real-estate-news/homeowners-sue-tv-makeover-shows-alleging-shoddy-work))
Lots of people and good coordination. In the same way supermarkets can be moved “overnight” between locations when a new build is done. If you’ve got a good plan, and enough people to execute, you can do a lot.
They arrange permits well in advance and pre-fab as much as possible. They get the city/neighborhood onboard. City permits cover both the build and the filming. The event affects the whole neighborhood. I went to one of the build sites once and got to high-five Ty Pennington. They had barriers and there must have been 50+ people loitering in that otherwise quiet neighborhood waiting to catch a glimpse. It was not pleasant for the neighbors.
It became less exciting for the builders over time as the show started pressuring companies to help families pay off existing mortgages and increased property taxes on the new, giant house. Smaller, local contractors got squeezed and taken advantage of.
The construction quality suffered. They didn’t delay for weather, which impacted quality of everything before the house got to a weather-tight stage. As far as the show was concerned, when you get a free house, it’s on you to fix it. Sometimes things weren’t to code. Sometimes the light switches were just for show. When you rely heavily on volunteer and unskilled labor, quality suffers.
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