Blood, Sweat & Tools

Blood, Sweat & Tools is a Canadian television series broadcast on Discovery Channel. The series is hosted by Helder Brum, Rob Koci and Hillary Manion, who also act as the challenge judges and expert advisers to the contestants.

Format

The series is the successor of Canada's Worst Handyman, and has a broadly similar format, but with an emphasis on rewarding competent handiwork rather than finding the nation's worst handyman. The couples are divided into teams, who are each tasked with undertaking a number of handiwork-related challenges, with the overall goal of improving their skills and confidence. At the end of each episode, the most improved couple is awarded a prize (unlike Canada's Worst Handyman, no couple is named the worst). At the end of the series, a $50,000 cash prize is given to the most improved couple, as voted on by the public.^[1]

Contestants

• Steve Garner and Richelene Bautista, a young couple from Winnipeg, Manitoba, by their own admission are in serious need of an education in handiwork. Steve's projects around the house have almost all ended in failure, and Richelene has virtually no knowledge of tools or handiwork whatsoever.
• Jesse Graham and Holly Dusome, partners from Penetanguishene, Ontario, are rapidly discovering the limits of their handiwork abilities when trying to adapt their house for their young family. Both have different opinions on what their primary problem is, with Jesse considering Holly a control freak, and Holly in turn accusing her boyfriend of being too sloppy and not planning enough.
• Danielle Routliffe and Tyler Routliffe, a husband and wife from Woodstock, Ontario, are childhood sweethearts who fail to see eye-to-eye on handiwork. Danielle considers herself to be very capable, but Tyler is worried about her destructive tendencies and habit of abandoning jobs.
• Jake Sharma and Nicole Sharma, a husband and wife from Mission, British Columbia, have a house that is full of incomplete jobs, including exposed wiring and incomplete plumbing. Jake is convinced that he's a good enough handyman to someday start his own business, but Nicole is less convinced.
• Fabian Sprik and Luayn Sprik are a husband and wife who live in a former hotel in Teeterville, Ontario. Fabian dreams of restoring it to its former glory, but so far has accomplished little, much to Luayn's annoyance.

Synopsis

     WINNER - The team was named the winner of the series, and awarded the $50,000 prize

     IMP - The team was named the most improved of the episode

     NOM - The team was nominated as the most improved of the episode

     OUT - The team was eliminated, and is out of the running for the grand prize

Episode 1: Let there be Tools!

Original airdate: April 13 2015

• The Workbench: After getting into the prefabricated cabins that will serve as the base for each couple, the teams are each tasked with building a workbench, which should ideally be 36 inches tall, sturdy enough to support having heavy tools permanently attached to it, and most importantly, portable enough that it can easily be carried outside and back into the cabin with a minimum of fuss. The Red Team seemingly manage this challenge well despite a lack of communication between Fabian and Luayn, but then realise that they've made a terrible mistake by building the table far away from their cabin, with no consideration as to whether or not it will fit in. As a result, they have to resort to chopping off a large chunk of the legs, resulting in a very low table and ruining what would otherwise have been a respectable performance. On the Pink Team, Danielle insists on going ahead without measuring or even marking the wood, and Tyler's insistence that she do the job properly results in a stormy build, and a table that's of barely passable quality. The Green Team are the only ones who go to the trouble of measuring the example table built by the experts, but Jake's imprecise measurements and troubles with getting to grips to the tools result in a very haphazard-looking table that noticeably sags in the middle. Much to the experts' alarm, Jake gets Nicole to act as a human brace while he screws the top into the frame. The Purple Team's table proves to be by far the worst, as the inexperience of both Steve and Richelene, along with the former's lackadaisical attitude and the latter's nervousness, results in a table so poor that it totally falls apart when being viewed by the experts. The Blue Team perform easily the best, as despite Jesse's somewhat brusque leadership, their table is completed quickly and to a very solid standard. As a result, their table is judged to be clearly the best and they are named the first challenge winners, and co-forepersons for the next challenge.
• Team Challenge: The Fire Pit and the Swinging Chair: The candidates are split into teams of men and women, with Jesse leading the men, and Holly leading the women. The men are tasked with building a fire pit from bricks, mortar and gravel, while the women have to assemble a flat-packed wooden swinging chair. Construction on the fire pit generally proceeds smoothly thanks to the work of Jake, who had already built a similar fire pit for his home, though he soon finds himself having to do the entire project, with the other men, especially Tyler, taking a backseat. Holly predicts that the chair build will go smoothly because "women follow instructions," but a power struggle soon emerges between her and Danielle, who insists that they don't need the instructions and that they should push on ahead. As a result, Nicole steps in and supervises the project to completion. The following day, the swinging chair is found to be able to hold four people (even though it was only designed for two), while the fire pit easily withstands a lawnmower being driven into it. Though it's noted that both Jesse and Holly did relatively well as leaders, Jake and Nicole are judged to be the standout performers, and so the Green Team are named the second challenge winners, giving them an advantage for the next challenge.
• Toilet Replacement: For the third and final challenge of the episode, the teams each have an hour (except for the Green Team, who have an extra 10 minutes) to remove the toilets from their cabins, and replace them with new ones. As an added challenge, one member of the team must remove the old toilet, and then the other must install the new toilet with no help from their partner. Whoever completes their installation to an acceptable standard (measured by being able to flush a bowl of popcorn) in the shortest amount of time wins. Despite Jake managing to get the old toilet out even before the 10-minute headstart is up, the Green Team rapidly falls apart among infighting between him and Nicole, who even threatens her husband with physical violence. They end up taking a total of 57 minutes to finish the job, with Jake noting that if not for their headstart, they would have been in serious danger of not finishing the job at all. The Pink Team fare little better, with tensions continuing to run high between Danielle and Tyler. They finish a little faster at 55 minutes, but their toilet doesn't flush quite as well as most of the others (though still does it well enough to be considered a pass). Jesse refuses to trust Holly to install their toilet and so ends up doing both halves of the Blue Team's job, in violation of the challenge rules; they complete it in 43 minutes. Things go very smoothly for the Red Team, who complete their job in 36 minutes thanks to Fabian having done this job before. However, they're pipped to the post by the Purple Team, as Steve's unorthodox approach of fully assembling the toilet before installing it pays off, resulting in them finishing in 33 minutes and being named the challenge winners.

Because they each won a challenge, the Blue, Green and Purple Teams are nominated as the best of the episode. In the end, the experts note that the Green Team totally imploded in the episode's final challenge, and decide that Jesse's violation of the rules in the same challenge cannot be ignored. This means that the Purple Team are the first to be named the best of the episode, as they got better and better in every challenge, and the experts were extremely impressed with Richelene in particular, for showing by far the most improvement of any of the contestants. She and Steve are rewarded with a Japanese "Smart Toilet" worth $3,000.

Episode 2: What's Up, Dock?

Original airdate: April 20 2015

• Window Installation: In the episode's first challenge, each team is required to remove the old single-pane windows from the kitchen area of their cabin, and install a double-glazed replacement. Since the new windows are larger than the ones they are replacing, each team will have to cut larger holes to fit the windows in. The installations will be tested by the experts spraying the window with a fire hose. The Pink Team prove to be by far the worst performers in this challenge, as uncertainty over how they should proceed and arguments between Danielle and Tyler see the project rapidly descend into total chaos. Matters nearly come to a head when Tyler comes dangerously close to slicing through a live electrical cable, and his carelessness and Danielle's screaming reaction causes an argument between the duo and Hillary. They take so long to cut their hole that the challenge ends before they can even attempt to install the window, and Danielle and Tyler are forced to take the full force of the fire hose through the empty hole as punishment for their failure. The Blue, Green and Purple teams all complete the job to a reasonable standard (albeit with Jake and Nicole on the Green Team continuing to argue fiercely during their project), but their windows leak due to inadequate usage of the expanding spray foam. At first sight the Red Team's window seems badly askew, but the experts are shocked to find that the window itself is actually perfectly level; the rest of their hut is in fact what's not level. The window itself holds up perfectly to the fire hose test, and so the team are named the winners of this challenge.
• Team Challenge: The Floating Dock: Fabian and Luayn are placed in charge of an ambitious project to build a floating dock from lumber and foam floatation blocks. Unlike the gender split in the previous week, the teams can be divided up in any way, and Luayn supervises the Blue and Purple teams in cutting the lumber to size, while Fabian has the Green and Pink teams handling preliminary assembly work. During this phase, Hillary notices Steve using the power tools in an unsafe manner, and consequently bars him from using them for the rest of the challenge, entrusting Richelene to do the job instead. Work is initially slow, and further delayed when Fabian notices that the dock's frame has been put together poorly, forcing the teams to take it apart and reassemble it. When the dock is eventually finished (with a diving board added as an extra embellishment), the teams are faced with the difficult task of getting it into the water, a problem which Nicole solves. After some additional work reinforcing the structure, it goes into the lake and successfully floats, and even stands up to all the contestants attempting to capsize it standing on one side of it. For the second week in a row, the standout couples are felt to be the Green Team and the task leaders (the Red Team), the former for being the most valuable contributors, and the latter for successfully organizing a very difficult project. This time however, the decision swings in the direction of the task leaders, and the Red Team win their second successive challenge.
• Outdoor Showers: For this challenge, the teams are each tasked with building a hand pump-powered outdoor shower for their hut within a 90 minute time limit (100 minutes for the Red Team, as a reward for winning the previous challenge), though are thrown a curveball by being given no instructions, only the required materials. Whoever finishes to the required standard first wins. The Blue Team's build soon falls apart due to arguments between Jesse and Holly, eventually causing Jesse to storm off the project. He eventually returns, but not in time to save the project, which they fail to complete in the allotted time. The experts judge the work that they did complete to be actually quite good, but tell them that teamwork is clearly a major issue for them, and one that needs to be resolved if they are to succeed. The Pink Team experiences another troublesome project, which immediately gets off to a difficult start due to Tyler insisting on creating a detailed plan, but Danielle not believing a plan is necessary at all. They end up being unable to get their hand pump working, and so resort to attaching a hose to their kitchen taps. The shower works, but is the last to be finished, barely making the 90 minute time limit. The Red Team squander their head start through a lack of planning, and it takes Fabian and Luayn a long time to get things together and build their shower. The result is arguably the closest to the shower the experts were expecting the teams to build, though is very rickety. Like last week, the Purple Team take an unorthodox approach by assembling their frame upside-down, using tall sheets of corrugated steel for the shower walls rather than the wooden panelling used by most of the other teams, and having their shower spray out upwards to provide a "rain" effect. The result is very solid overall, though the time spent righting the frame prevents them finishing in first place. Victory therefore is claimed by the Green Team, as Jake and Nicole are able to put their differences aside and build their shower relatively quickly; while they stick the pump at the opposite end of the water line to most of the other couples (meaning that their shower needs a second person to pump the water), this is still considered acceptable by the experts.

This week, only two teams are in consideration for the most improved, namely the Green and Red Teams. While Hillary argues that the Green Team should be named the best for working better together than they had done in the past, and also argues that the Red Team's rickety shower should preclude them from being named the best, Rob and Helder ultimately agree on naming the Red Team as the best, for winning two challenges and doing generally very solid work across the episode. Fabian and Luayn are awarded with a $1,000 diving board, though are befuddled as to what they'd actually use it for.

Episode 3: The Walls Come Tumbling Down

Original airdate: April 27 2015

• Bunk Beds: Each team must convert the two bedrooms of their cabins into a single, larger bedroom with a bunk bed. To do this, the teams must knock out the dividing walls, and then assemble the beds from scratch. In keeping with their tradition of unorthodox approaches to projects, the Purple Team build their beds outside of the cabin, with the bottom bunk being free-standing, and the top bunk held in place by a chain hung from the ceiling. Unfortunately, the two mismeasure and find that their beds don't fit in the way they originally intended, forcing them to be placed at right-angles. This, along with the fact that Steve resorted to just smashing the dividing wall with his boots rather than using the reciprocating saw (as everyone else did), cements their performance in this challenge as the worst. In what is rapidly becoming a familiar pattern, the Pink Team is slowed down drastically in the early stages due to Danielle and Tyler's bickering over what approach to take to the project. Despite their continued arguments they do finish the bed in time, but are criticized for the very small gap between the two bunks. Conversely, the Red Team has a very harmonious build, but their bunks turn out to be too far apart, 15 inches over the recommended distance. The Blue Team manages to build what in most aspects is the best bed, with railings and a ladder, but miss out on top spot due to forgetting to add a brace to the top bunk, along with the horrible working atmosphere between Jesse and Holly. Therefore, the Green Team, who managed to work together well after some initial arguments between Jake and Nicole, and also ended up making an overall very solid bed, are named the winners of this challenge.
• Team Challenge: The Gazebo: Jake and Nicole are given the job of leading the contestants through the task of building a prefabricated gazebo, along with making a picnic table from scratch, and building a barbecue out of an old oil drum. Jake assigns Fabian and Jesse to build the picnic table which, despite getting very little direction from Jake, they complete without any trouble. The barbecue is mostly handled by Steve, who also manages to finish it without any trouble, though considers Jake's leadership to be more than a little nitpicky. Nicole leads the remaining contestants in assembling the gazebo, and quickly gets very flustered and snappy, causing the build to progress slowly. Things speed up once the remaining contestants join them, despite Nicole continuing to maintain a negative attitude. However, after having already witnessed several safety violations (including Jesse and Fabian both needing to be reminded to wear eye protection, and Jake's unsafe use of the angle grinder), Rob drags everyone aside to reprimand them for failing to wear the safety gloves that they were specifically instructed to use. He warns them of dire consequences should he see any more safety violations, but minutes later Fabian is caught without his gloves on a critical part of the build. An infuriated Rob immediately shuts the build down and declares the project a failure; consequently, no team is named the best for this task, and no-one gets an advantage for the next challange.
• Boat Lifts: The third and final challenge for this episode gives each team 90 minutes to assemble a boat lift from a combination of a kit, and lumber that each team must cut to size. Whoever completes their boat lift in the fastest time to an acceptable standard will win. For the second episode in a row, the Blue Team fails to finish a challenge due to Jesse and Holly's inability to work together, and unlike the previous week, the experts tell them that their boat lift would likely not have been deemed acceptable even if it were finished due to the generally poor workmanship. The Green Team actually manage to finish in the second-fastest time after yet another row between Jake and Nicole (which causes the latter to briefly storm out), but their lift is not considered up to scratch by the experts, due to it being far too small (to the extent where it can only barely hold a child's canoe) and having various other faults. The Red Team are the slowest of the teams who actually complete the job, due to confusion over the tools needed; their boat lift turns out to be of generally passable quality, though is a little wider than it needs to be. The Purple Team decide to save time by building their lift from offcuts from the Pink Team's lumber, and the experts have no major criticisms of their work. However, they're beaten to first place by the Pink Team themselves, as Danielle and Tyler finally manage to work together harmoniously, agree on a definite plan for the job, and finish it quickly.

Before naming the most improved team, the experts drop a bombshell; prior to the final episode, two teams will be eliminated. They do not tell the teams how or when this will occur, but hint that as of now, they consider the Blue Team to be the worst of the five due to leaving jobs unfinished and having shown no improvement in their ability to work together. The Red Team are also privately concerned that any repeat of their careless safety violations could result in them being thrown off the show if they commit a bad enough mistake.

Again, there are two teams in consideration for best, namely the Green and Pink Teams. Hilary argues that the Green Team should be named the best, as they've been consistently strong until now, and are making major progress toward working together better, despite the occasional argument. Helder, on the other hand, feels that the Pink Team deserve to be named the best as a reward for turning their act around this episode, after their generally dreadful performances in the first two episodes. In the end, Rob sides with Helder, and the Green Team are passed over for the third time in a row, with the Pink Team being named the best. Their reward is an outdoor Sicilian pizza oven, and while Danielle admits that she has no idea how to make pizza, she's going to learn it now.

References

External links

• Official website

See also

• Canada's Handyman Challenge
• Junk Raiders