Are these guys morons?


I've watched a few episodes and I'm having a hard time believing these guys have a lot of experience in home construction/renovation industry. The first episode that made me question their judgement was a town home that had a large bulk head in the kitchen. This was a really narrow house, and there were no bulk heads on the walls. Plus you would have to wonder why the bulk head was there in the first place. It's not like the builder put it there for the hell of it. The wife really hated that the bulk head was there and wanted it gone. Of course the brothers said "No problem". Anyone with experience would know that is not the case. Sure enough, the open up the bulk head and all of the heating runs for the third floor are in that bulk head. So they ended up keeping the entire thing because there was basically nothing they could do about it. Another episode featured an old beat up rental home vs a more modern ranch. The husband actually said they they should go with the ranch because it would have better electrical and insulation. The other house was an old true brick home. They buy the old brick home. Now the home inspector did flag the home as having knob & tube, which you would expect in that old of a home. You also expect a brick home to have NO insulation, which is exactly what they found when they broke open the exterior walls. Plaster right over brick. Again, this is not rocket science. Anyone who has worked on older houses will know this. That one small thing that the expert brothers overlooked ended up costing the home owners almost a 1/4 of their reno budget. If these guys were truly as experience as they claimed you think they would warn potential buyers of this before they purchase the house.

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im sure they knew, maybe it was a teachable moment that would hit home to the rest of us morons.

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While that might be nice for TV, I'd be extremely pissed if I was a home owner and my contractor missed an obvious problem to "teach me a lesson". These are suppose to be peoples actual homes that they pay for with their own money. If I'm hiring someone to give me expert advise I would expect exactly that.

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I agree. The Property Brothers are supposed to be the experts and they don't tend to plan well at all for these problems. They are the ones that convince the owners they can have everything they want and try to get them to see the potential in a dumpy neglected house. They should also be honest and realistic about the potential shortcomings of the property and plan some of the budget for taking care of structural issues.

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I'm starting to think some of these "problems" they come across are already known. I just don't feel the homeowners are as upset as they could be to see money going down the drain.

HOWEVER... I've seen some of these homeowners not blink an eye at another $2000 but go totally overboard over another $200, so who knows.

People have said they believe this show is somewhat scripted and that might be true. It certainly "feels" scripted at times.

I think sometimes they use some of these "problems" as teachable moments.

I hear at times Jonathan mention "contingency" money. I realize this is a bit of money earmarked for potential pitfalls but I wish they would discuss that part of it more. Were someone to be using their show as a bit of a guide to doing this themselves, they would be missing out entirely on how people get caught up in "Renovation Hell" by not planning for things like bad subfloor, bad wiring, etc.

"Posters entering a discussion for the purpose of attacking the others are quickly ignored."

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