Mike Holmes and His Hammer Saves the World

jbushart · February 1, 2011, 2:13am

Mike Holmes visits Sault College for home inspection course announcement

By Frank Dobrovnik

Updated 3 hours ago

Sault College is making it right. The school will soon offer the province’s first two-year home inspection diploma program, with the blessing of Mike Holmes.

The home contractor-turned TV show host (Holmes on Homes) was in Sault Ste. Marie Monday to help announce the Home Inspection Technician (Co-op) program. Students will gain knowledge and practical skills relating to home construction through classroom, laboratory and workshop learning.

“Most inspectors are honest — they just don’t know enough,” said Holmes, who was featured in a segment of Marketplace last year on dishonest home builders.

“They need better tools, better education.”

The program also includes a co-op work placement to ensure graduates have relevant work experience that complements their classroom studies. By the end of it, grads will have the ability to recognize deficiencies in the structural components, exteriors, roofs, plumbing, electrical systems, heating systems, ventilation and air conditioning systems, insulation and interiors of residential homes.

“When you learn to install something, you’re in a better position to inspect someone else’s work,” said Colin Kirkwood, dean of the program.

Up to now, the only training one could get was from the home inspector association, and even that isn’t requisite to hang a shingle, said Kirkwood, a mechanical engineer. “You can take a few courses and call yourself a home inspector.”

Other than word of mouth, a prospective home owner has no other guarantee the home inspector they hire is competent. Now, “You can have confidence our students have actually gone through the process of learning how to inspect a house,” he said.

Classes begin in September. The school is planning for 18 students initially.

School president Ron Common said the college, which is establishing itself as the go-to place for skilled trades training, and the Holmes Group created the program mutually. In 10 years an expected 1.1 million Ontarians will be out of work, “while at the same time there will be 1.3 million jobs going unfilled because there aren’t skilled tradespeople to fill them,” Common said.

“Ontario is facing a chronic skills shortage.”

In 2009 Holmes launched his onw home inspection service, Mike Holmes Inspections, and a new series that profiles home inspections gone wrong, Holmes Inspections, airing on HGTV in Canada.

Holmes, 47, told a packed gymnasium that when he started in the field hiring a home inspector was an exercise in frustration. “The expectation was that you were going to get screwed, that it was going to be a total nightmare.”

While things gave improved, even today, “There are only a few that really know what they’re doing.”

So, the clown who was such a good contractor he had to find work building sets for a television station, is now teaching people how to be something that he only plays on television…a home inspector.

kwood · February 1, 2011, 12:46pm

I guess I will have to step up to the plate now that he has attacked my town.
For a long time I have been watching this town make foolish errors, this takes the cake. I will be having a meeting of my own with top certified plumbers, electricians. roofers, contractors. We will not allow this to happen in our town. It has been proven time and again that young ones cheat on tests just to get ahead, plus they only retain a small portion of what they learn. There are too many failures in the home inspection industry because of people that don’t care, this is what will happen here. Even the way InterNachi scores their tests is according to different standards and care.
I am not saying that taking all "InterNachi "has to offer is going to make you a good inspector but having gone through over eight thousand hours of schooling it is the most up to date. That means Nick and the crew care enough not to be an inspector mill like all the rest and that is why I will do my best to put this attack to rest.
I will not go quietly into the night.

kwood · February 1, 2011, 2:30pm

**Colin Kirkwood, P.Eng. **

http://www.nachi.org/images/stories/bod/colin-kirkwood.jpg

Dean, Natural Environment, Technology and Skilled Trades
Sault College
Colin Kirkwood holds an undergraduate engineering degree and masters degree in business administration both from the University of Western Ontario. Mr. Kirkwood is a registered professional engineer in the province of Ontario, and spent 20 years working in industry prior to joining Sault College as Dean.
What a joke this is all he has behind his belt is 20 years.
My question is what did he do, was he well trained by an organization in HI, not according to his background. What has he been doing for 10 years studying or working? Continuing education is needed in the home inspection industry and any person that does this cannot hold the position of overseeing this kind of schooling. Who is going to have the updated skills to train? I can tell you someone that is already doing it as a profession knows he needs to keep up with the changing requirements.
This is what makes a good inspector so unless the one teaching has continuing education on his agenda he will fall behind in his training and pass that on to his students.
It was hard enough on me to keep up with CE and train at the same time. Ask any that took my class and they will tell you they can’t remember what they had to learn and it was already years behind what " InterNachi" had to offer.
Even Carson Dunlop Engineering will recognize this and are not steping up to the plate to make changes.They have at least compiled books together to start. Is what Mike going to do be the same? I think not.

fmagdefrau · February 2, 2011, 3:21am

I can’t figure the show out. Is he a repair contractor or is he a home inspector? I was under the impression that it was unethical to repair homes that you inspect.:margarit:

jonofrey · February 2, 2011, 12:55pm

Inspectors get blamed on the Holmes Inspection show. He creates the image of a problem, in this case inadequate home inspectors, and now it appears he offers the solution to fix it, i.e. his Home Inspection accreditation.

I watched his so called “inspection show” the other day and after he rips out the drywall from the ceiling of a kitchen he declares: “had I been here, I would have told you not to buy this home”. Talk about hilarious! I wish I had the benefit of ripping things apart during a Houston home inspection. lol

I do like his contracting approach in that he’s not lazy and will go the extra mile to fix things that need fixing but it seems he has no trouble throwing all inspectors under the bus, not just crappy ones. Now we know why.

jbushart · February 2, 2011, 2:43pm

Canadian inspectors could have crushed this bug when it was small…simply by challenging him to an SOP conducted inspection with nothing but a flashlight and screwdriver…one-on-one with another Canadian inspector. He would have been laughed out of the business and would be somewhere milking cows with that dairy farmer, Bob Villa.

Instead, they let him get away with his act and now he is the one calling the shots.

How hard is it to impress housewives on television with a sledge hammer, an ear ring, and heavily edited footage of somebody saving them from something they know too little about to know differently?

pcarter1 · February 3, 2011, 3:15pm

I haven’t seen him do any work yet on this show other than working his mouth and working at hugging the ladies when the opportunity arises. He is a “classic” and I don’t mean that in a good way.