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
In my home town there is a house that was built in 24 hours. It was built in the 20s and is still in use.
Concrete doesn’t need to cure for 2 weeks to build on, unless you’re putting a LOT of weight on it immediately. Framing and siding and all that really doesn’t weigh all that much, considering how much it’s distributed.
Also, where I am, commercial builders can apply for something like pre-approval, where the inspector basically trusts the contractor to do it right, but if they notice an issue on a later inspection, they can force them to go backwards and fix it. So during the insulation inspection, they find that there aren’t enough bolts coming out of the foundation, they can pretty much make them tear it down.
They’ll only do it for GCs who have a good track record though, and they WILL hit back.
My wife volunteered to work on one of those homes. She said it was a shitshow with shoddy work done by amateurs like herself. Paint was sprayed in such a thin layer it would wipe off with your finger. She described it as slapdash. Things were put up fast, out of plumb, and using shoddy materials. She thinks the owners would end up being very unhappy once the cameras left.
Another issue with many of the homes is that the renovations created houses out of place for the neighborhoods with additions and odd exteriors.
I worked on an extreme makeover house in 2009 (I think, it was a while ago) in Connecticut. I worked for a local contractor who was hired to work in the house. We did floors and finish carpentry so it was closer to the end of the build. Most of the work I did was in the dead of night. I had to park about a mile away and take a shuttle to the house. The show had essentially paid for all the neighbors to go on vacation so they could set up catering and other production stuff in their yards.
The building itself seemed pretty traditional, but there were tons of people everywhere and we were being heavily managed by production crew. They wanted to know exactly when we’d be done in a particular room so more people could go in and do something else. Someone else mentioned pre-building all of the framing. This is probably how it worked, but I was closer to the end of the build so I didn’t see this part.
There were also tons of volunteers and production crew running around getting things for the skilled labor to keep us from having to stop working. Like if I needed a drink or more sandpaper or whatever, I could send a VERY enthusiastic volunteer to get it for me. Overall, kind of a weird experience, it was like doing my usual job with a ton of support, in the middle of the night.
How long does it take you to get new tires on your car?
How long does a NASCAR pit stop take?
Kinda the same thing. One is “normal,” and the other has a lot of planning, pre work, and a different goal.
I was on one. Hot concrete that cures at a fraction of the time and an inspector on call 24 hrs a day. I don’t know if the walls were pre fabbed or not. The work runs 24 hours a day. The job finished in the seven days.
They did one in KC like 18 or 20 years ago. I think there was a foreclosed home across the street and they set up an area where people could park and watch. We went a few times. They work around the clock. I didn’t know about the prefabricated stuff though
Pre-built sections that were inspected earlier. They weren’t pouring and redoing the foundation, I’m sure.
Also, the speed at which the interiors are finished lead to very poor quality results once all the ‘beauty lighting’ and carefully planned camera moves go away and the house is actually being lived in. HGTV’s “Love it or List it” has had several lawsuits filed against the network and the contractors they use because it turns out rushing the work leads to the rushed work breaking pretty darn quick.
Worked on one. They used the same slab. And people were working 24/7. That basically it. From my experience. Multiple guys doing the same thing but one for pretty much every room. Me and my team did the low voltage stuff. We had set times to be in and out by. Get in. Be quick. Get out. Fox whatever doesn’t work later.
I worked for a hardwood floor company that installed floors in a house that was on this show.
Trying to install a floor with dozens of other trades working at the same time (in the middle of the night) was a pain in the ass.
Some rooms had a glue down floor. People walked on it before the glue dried and gaps opened up everywhere. Guys had to go back to this job multiple times to fix things afterwards.
I also heard the slab didn’t dry enough before the framing went up and there were big issues with that, too.
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