Canada’s hit HGTV show ‘Rock Solid Builds’ has busloads of fans flocking to Newfoundland ahead of Season 2

By Elisabetta Bianchini, Yahoo Canada

The hit Canadian HGTV show Rock Solid Builds is back for a second season (premieres Jan. 27 at 10:00 p.m. ET) as Randy Spracklin and his crew take on more stunning home renovations and custom build projects while battling Newfoundland’s harsh weather, including a hurricane.

“More excitement, more fun, and a little bit more challenges,” Spracklin teased to Yahoo Canada.

Spracklin faces these challenges right at the beginning of the series, as he juggles complicated projects and adding new people to the crew. There is also a renovation project in St. John’s that Spracklin highlighted as particularly difficult.

“The biggest challenge that I had, since I’ve been at it, was in St. John’s, we had to move one room to another room, it was an old house, next thing you know we had an excavator inside, digging,” he said.

“It looked like an easy one and then it turned out to be a major, major job.”

If that’s not complicated enough, the weather was also particularly difficult while Rock Solid Builds Season 2 was being filmed.

“We had all kinds of crazy weather conditions, believe it or not in June we had snow,…and then we had a hurricane this year,” Spracklin said. “Stuff got [broken], stuff that blew away, definitely plays a big factor.”

Busloads of fans flocking to Newfoundland town

Since the first season of Rock Solid Builds aired last year, the town of Brigus has gotten a lot of attention, fans have been travelling all the way there to see some of Spracklin’s builds.

“Little did I know getting into this TV kind of life how many people [were] actually going to come to the island,” Spracklin said. “We had busloads of people coming in from all over the country.”

“They’re coming here to see us, they’re coming here to see Brigus, they’re here to see Newfoundland. There’s days in Brigus that you couldn’t even get to the streets, there was that many people. But you know what, it was great for our economy, great for all the businesses. So it’s pretty cool when you think about it.”

Fans of the show are also reaching out to Spracklin to show off their Newfoundland slang.

“I don’t know how many people, when they reach out now, they say ‘that’s mint,’ ‘tangley’ and ‘best kind,’” he said. “It’s pretty cool to be able to, I guess, start a whole new language for the rest of Canada.”

Some people even want to move to Newfoundland after watching Rock Solid Builds.

“A lot of people now are reaching out, wanting to move here,” Spracklin said. “Believe it or not, I’ve got people reaching out that have never ever been here, watch the show, see the scenery, see the houses and see the people, and wanting to come here.”

What it’s really like to have the big reveal at the end of a home renovation show

Of course, it wouldn’t be an HGTV show without the big reveal at the end, when the homeowners get to actually see the finished product.

Spracklin revealed that some people have actually never seen the project at all, some people have seen a bit more as they progressed through the work.

“In some cases, I am pretty nervous…[about] how they’re going to really look at it, because some of the stuff they’re actually just leaving up to us,” he explained.

“That added nervous factor is definitely there but at the end, everybody loves it, it’s exciting, and I think that’s part of the thrill too, doing something that’s different, something that you really don’t see everyday, and seeing the reaction.”

Ultimately, restoring these old homes, with their quintessentially Newfoundland style, is what Spracklin is particularly passionate about.

“There’s something to be said about the older homes and I just think about years ago, they did it with their two hands, they had no power tools, they went in the woods, they cut the logs, they brought them out and they built the house,” he explained. “A lot of them were fishermen too, so they were good craftspeople and then they built a house for the family to stay in.”

“That carpentry, that fine detail, I definitely love to keep it but I also love to put it into newer homes because that is part of our history, part of our culture.”