peck420 peck420:
Although I have a great deal of respect for the ideology behind Mike's work...don't take his book (or shows, for that matter) as gospel.
Please, do your own due diligence.
As much as Mike Holmes knows the one thing I respect him for is always bringing in the proper trades to do the job. That is the one major failing of hiring someone to do a complete renovation and then letting him have complete control.
When I got out of the Navy I worked with a friend who had a reno business and we always told the homeowners that if there was any electrical or plumbing work we would be bringing in the appropriate tradesman. It saved us alot of headaches and stress knowing that it was their ticket and insurance that covered any problems not my buddies.
But, as amazing as this sounds we also lost alot of contracts because of the cost of having the right people. A surprising number of homeowners wouldn't want to pay tradesmen rates and wanted us to do the electrical and plumbing, so for Mike Holmes to blame contractors for "all" the homes problems is disingenuous since half of the problem might just have been the homeowners penny pinching by finding a sleazy contractor who was willing to do every trade on the cheap with untrained, unqualified people and then being shocked when the reno went south.
But if this is just maintenance tips then great, it may save the homeowners some headaches and cost by showing them how simple it is to maintain your home rather than paying for major repairs later on. I do know that he's had a column in one of the Vancouver papers for the past couple of months and was unpleasantly surprised to see that he had an article on Gardening.
Maybe he should stick to what he knows and just like he preaches start letting the experts do the job.