Rescue My Renovation

Homeowners Chris and Dolores Holman take host John DeSilvia on a tour of their recent renovations, all by an unqualified contractor who did the work entirely too quickly and completely incorrectly. 

Immediately, John notices that there are cracks forming around the opening the contractor made when knocking down a wall. Inspecting a leak in the upstairs crawlspace, he discovers that the shingles were not installed properly either. John DeSilvia wastes no time starting demolition in search of the reasons for the cracking and sagging interior of the home. 

The family is at risk until they get to the bottom of this, and John DeSilvia makes sure their home is structurally sound.

Roxanne Dunn, a single mother and former Miss New Jersey, hired a contractor after losing her previous kitchen to a fire. He was supposed to add a kitchen addition to her childhood home that she shares with her mother. After paying him upfront for everything, he took off - just before their flat, improperly pitched roof caved in and destroyed the shell of a kitchen below. 

For the last six years, their kitchen has consisted of a microwave, a hot plate, and a plastic table inside a water-damaged space. Host John DeSilvia and his team are gutting the kitchen, fixing the roof and redesigning the interior for this former beauty queen.

Amy and Patrick McCay hired a contractor to put a new roof on their house, but what they got were devastating leaks that wrecked their dream home and a lawsuit from the contractor who injured himself while drinking on the job. 

With no money left to fix the damage, these desperate homeowners turned to licensed contractor John DeSilvia and his team of experts to flip their flooded house into a finished space. After repairing the underlying damage with a waterproof roof, they completely gut the kitchen, dining room, and adjoining mudroom. Once the new rooms are airtight, they finish the job with new cabinets, counter tops, and hand-scraped wood flooring. 

So these homeowners aren't left high and dry with nowhere to hang their umbrellas, designer Heather Christo is adding a high-end makeover from floor-length drapes to stunning chandeliers.

Homeowners Tim and Kathy Burden hired a contractor to renovate their downstairs bathroom and entranceway. Tim has a progressive health condition will eventually leave him in a wheelchair, so they needed the space to be ADA Compliant to accommodate their future in the home. 

The contractor left after ten days of work, and he took the couple's $160,000, their entire savings, with him. 

Now broke and running out of time, they need not only a bathroom, but also a reconfigured dining room and entryway so that Tim will be able to get into his own home.

Keith and Jessica Oechsner hired a contractor to remodel their kitchen and upstairs bathrooms. When the kitchen was finished without the custom work for which the Oechsners paid, the contractor took the money and ran before completing the bathroom - bailing on his contractual duties right before his upstairs plumbing alterations led to a waterfall directly into the kitchen below. 

Now their brand-new kitchen is literally falling apart at the seams. They paid for custom, and now John DeSilvia is going to get them the home they hoped for in the first place.

New parents Kate and Doug Cotto wanted to make sure their new home was nice and cozy for their eighteen-month-old son before they even moved in. 

They hired a contractor to re-insulate and side their entire house. What they got was shoddy exterior siding with no weather wrap and freezing interior temperatures--not what they wanted for their new life together and new son.

Bella and Brian Jade hired a contractor to redo their upstairs bathroom. The work was completed, but now nothing stays shut, including the bathroom pocket door, and the grout and tiles are completely coming off the floor. When you combine that with the water damage to their finished basement due to some leaky plumbing, their dream bathroom got a big flush. 

John DeSilvia and his team are helping out this sexy pin-up model and her helpless hubby by remodeling not just the one bathroom, but putting in a second while fixing up the basement as well.

Dolores and Elliot Farmer believed they were turning their current house into their dream home by adding their fantasy balcony to their master suite. But the contractor they hired forgot some important steps - like waterproofing around the new doors - which caused their walls to come crumbling down. 

John DeSilvia comes to the rescue with his team of professionals to fix the amateur mistakes of the Farmer's previous contractor.

Cate and Timothy Dewar's home is under the weather. The foundation is sinking and too low given the area's surrounding water table. The result? Water, water everywhere! They were nearly destroyed by the flooding of Hurricane Irene, and their original contractor followed up with a storm of his own. 

Licensed contractor John DeSilvia and his team are giving the home a little lift - five feet to be exact, and redoing the entire exterior of the home to fix the last guy's mistakes. The family will finally be out of harm's way when the next flood hits, and they'll have a nice new garage to go with that satisfaction.

Expectant parents Bethany and Jeremiah Younossi wanted to re-do the moldy basement in the new home they purchased when first engaged. A contractor was referred to them by a friend, but there was one catch: he needed a place to live during the renovation . . . so he moved in with them! While he was quick to ask for cash, he never finished the job and finally they had to kick him to the curb-literally. 

Now only a few weeks away from the arrival of their first born, the couple is out of money and worried about the health affects of mold on their little bundle of joy.

Suzanne Schiavelli-Backstrom fell in love with the original details of her three-story brownstone at first sight. There was the problem of the antiquated heating and cooling system though, so they hired a contractor to add a ductless HVAC system and bring their thermostat into the modern age. 

But instead of small vents hidden throughout the walls as expected, the contractor removed all of the traditional molding and finish work to install large industrial style ducts - even cutting into their newly restored roof to mount the machinery. 

With water leaking through the roof and the ugly-duct system that doesn't even work properly, licensed contractor John DeSilvia and his team will have to do an entire gut renovation to bring the Backstrom's brownstone back to its former glory.

John DeSilvia gives these homeowners the master bath they never had and refinishes their chimney.

Lynda and Desmond McGoey have a big home, and an even bigger family. With five growing children, they wanted to turn their basement into a much-needed living space, as well as fix the exterior foundation capping. But when their contractor started demanding more and more money, and doing less and less work, they looked into his license and found out it was merely his disconnected cell phone number! 

After he disappeared with all their cash, the basement filled with water - and mold - causing health hazards for their young children and further limiting their already limited space.