I'm watching this show right now and am appalled at what the host, Jay Baker, is saying on camera. The ridiculous part is that DIY chose to show the same clip of him saying the erroneous statement over and over! 4 times it was repeated!

His quote was "40,000 pounds...20,000 tons in each truck". This is very, very wrong. 40,000 pounds = 20 tons. Jay Baker wrongly inflated the amount by 1,000 times. Incredible.

It shocks me that this wasn't caught...and that it was repeated so many times on the show. It just makes him look ridiculous! You'd be hard pressed to find 20,000 tons of *anything* being dumped into a residential backyard.

J.

I haven't seen it but am wondering: Were there two trucks? If so, maybe he meant to say, "40,000 pounds, 20,000 POUNDS in each truck". Still an error, but a little less blatant.

They shoot these scenes over and over with slight changes each time. Probably said it as 40,000 lbs on one take and 20 tons on another. Easy to see how they could get confused.

I find that most of the how-to shows have about three to four errors in each episode. Since few editors are construction savvy, it's easy for terminology type mistakes to get by.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Jaybee,

Joey:

I think you're being a little hard on this Jay Baker guy, whoever he is.

The reason why an error like that would have gone through is because it's not a "material" error. It's not the kind of error that would have confused or screwed up someone who was wanting to tackle the same project in their own house.

Also, it's not fair to call it an "irresponsible" error, either. This is the kind of mistake anyone could make when they've got other things on their mind, like how they look on TV and whether or not their hair is right.

An "irresponsible error" is when the surgeon doesn't bother to check which leg needs to be amputated and goes ahead with the operation anyway thinking he's got a 50/50 chance of getting it right.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nestor,

Fair enough, but I place no blame on Jay Baker. I'm left scratching my head because there's surely an entire team of producers, editors, assistants, and behind-the-scenes people that MUST(?) have seen this before it aired, especially because they showed the same clip of him saying that multiple times.

This Jay Baker guy is over-hauling an entire backyard in a few days, and he can make mistakes. The people whose job it is to create the show ....shouldn't make these types of mistakes.

It's the nature of the business - so many details that go through so many steps to make the final product. You would want to think that so many steps would catch every single little mistake, but it's just not the case. Again, editors are great at editing but there are not specific 'how-to' editors. As such, the editing process may not catch all these little mistakes.

I do know Jay and as a contractor I can tell you that he does know his stuff.

the numbers feel different, depending on whether you have heavy machinery moving the material, or wheelbarrows.

what I find incredible is that there were no "beeps" in "20-beep-thousand "beep"tons "beep."

I just laugh it off.. I am sure if you went back and asked him he would know the difference.
In case you didn't know..
There are two different " tons", the American ton that is called a "Short Ton" and equals 2,000 pounds. The British ton that is called the "Long Ton" and is equals 2,240 pounds.
We also have what is called " Hundredweight", US equals 100 pounds, British equals 112 pounds. This makes for the difference between short and long tons.
Others use what is called "Metric Ton", equals 1000 kilograms or 2,204 pounds. Some call it a "Tonne".