The Construction Life

Starting off the video podcast era of The Construction Life Podcast, Jason Schywiola from The Keystone Contractor joins us to share his experiences working with egos, attitudes, conmen, and threatening clients. Jason breaks down his opinion on the profitability of cash guys, how he deals with competitive pricing, as well as how ignorance of risk that can drastically change a quote. After a quick d...

First up!!!! The Tiny Home Show is August 4-7, 2022, in Ancaster Fairgrounds, Municipal Day is the Thursday where there will be a lot of government officials there to discuss a number of things. There will be 12+ tiny homes there for people to walk through and discuss. Over 35 different exhibitors featuring everything you need to know about building, maintaining a tiny home. Let’s get into everyth...

We open the show with a little Dirty Dancing melody. 7 years in the business on his own with his brand but many more years of learning from so many other trades. During his college years he picked up some work with a plumber digging undergrounds 4 months straight and that was his humble beginning. With 4 children Tom has a busy household and he’s had to refocus his energies to keep the money in th...

How did it all begin? Children’s BDay party and a few drinks and plenty of pics about wood and the ideas started flowing. Steve didn’t have any formal construction experience, but he would tinker and build odd things and then friends suggested he should do this as a business and Vintage was born. Steve and Jenn love what they do, they love to create ideas for clients, they love working with mother...

Tony Viera and Dave from GD Contracting Services Inc. are here to share their many stories, from a humble beginning working in roofing and eventually int renovations of all scopes. It all began with roofing, working with their Dad’s and uncles during all extremes of mother nature. Dave did it for 6 years and Tony for 20 years before he got out and began renovating. This show will dive into the edu...

Matteo Nunziata is on the show to discuss changing the construction industry with his app UBild. Of course, we will discuss plenty of construction bones to pick, old school vs new school, trade schools, technology and construction, politics, and so much more, one show not to miss. Matteo began his construction career by knocking on doors and offering up odd jobs, known as Odd Job Matthew in the ne...

I first met Bob nearly 20 years ago and to sit down with Bob, expect hours and hours of your time as he truly enjoys sharing his wealth of knowledge with anyone that will ask. Hold on, for our longest show ever and Carlito and Manny could have gone longer speaking with Bob. This isn’t a show to miss and please do yourself a favour and take notes. At The Construction Life we embrace guests offering...

We open with must be the worst version of Easy, and rolled right into why we are not drinking on a Sunday morning. Larry Serpa from Key Tile Co and Key Surfaces is back. He was traveling back home to Pico Azores with a stop in Toronto so we had a chance to stop by for him to meet some of the Portuguese trades in Toronto. Fabio @fabio.andrade51 who was late to meet up with us on the current job sit...

We open the show with a little Rob Base and it takes two, not the best version but we did it and it’s fitting for today’s show. A couple of shout outs to @hh.concpets sharing a few messages about preparing for a potential recession. @summitexteriorsidaho discussing moving his business from Canada to the States. On with the SHOW we talk about Side Hustles, and we will be doing a series of these sho...

DISCLAIMER The following show is in no way advice on how you should invest into cryptocurrency, always do your own research and source out the information for yourself. Shawn Silva, an Engineering Technologist who created A3C to help others navigate the blockchain landscape and Marco Carlini, a salesperson in the concrete industry are here to share a lot about cryptocurrency, blockchain, NFT’s and...

DISCLAIMER Let’s begin the show by saying that the information shared on this show is in NO WAY legal advice to any of our listeners, please schedule a meeting with a lawyer to further discuss your particular legal issues. Operating his own private practise for 2 years now, graduated University of Ottawa, worked for an investment broker dealer after he did his article for a sports and entertainmen...

This show will relate to so many tradespeople working in the industry, please give this show a listen as Bradley shares why and how he got into construction and the path he took, or you could say the path that took him. Thank you so much Bradley for sharing so much and opening up, I know there are a few other tradespeople listening that have or are going through similar struggles. This show we wil...

What a great show we have, I first met Gwladys and the Grad Concept crew over 2 years ago at IBS, I knew about them through Thermory and the PaCs clip system and trust me, once you use any of the Grad Concept systems, you will never look back at any other type of system for all of your projects. On the show we dive deep into the products and the ease of use, the countless uses for the clips for de...

Amazing to have John on the show talking the fencing business for the past 50 years, from humble beginnings as an immigrant with his grandfather, working on smaller residential projects to full scale commercial and industrial projects of today. So much to discuss on this show, but first up, we discuss the economy and I must say, it is refreshing to hear from a 26 year old like John that feels ther...

Finally have Mike Valchuk, the man, the myth, the contractor on the show and what a show it is. We begin by discussing his 8 years of construction and how during the beginning of the pandemic Mike and his partner Grant O’Neal felt they needed to pivot, shift gears, an idea that will carry through this episode and has been brought up on so many other TCL shows. Mike and Grant decided to seek profes...

Nearly 2 decades in the business Natalia has seen and experienced so much, she is WELL AP, AKBD, CLIPP certified and recently completed her first book, hopefully 1 of 3 of a series of renovation books to help the industry and clients. Natalia is a kitchen and bath designer and there is a difference between her and an Interior Designer and even a decorator. Off to the designing races, Natalia share...

What a great show we have, Paul is here to share his insight into the wonderful world of kitchen repairs and contractors mistakes and of course, we are talking about those short cuts that eventually lead to failures and homeowners are left with dealing with the builder, warranties or bringing in a professional like Paul to get it done and get it done properly. His business and reputation grew very...

What an amazing show we have today, Bethany King, threw herself into real estate after being laid off a job she loved, quitting a safe, secure, soul sucking federal government job, realizing as a millennial she needs to make more money to be able to buy her own home one day, she asked herself several questions and went searching for all the answers. Then came Tik Tok and she used the platform to b...

On with the show, Fix It Friend with Jeremy Ross next level of Handyman Services. 6 years in construction after studying and working in the mechanical engineer field, he had enough of the office environment and wanted to get his hands dirty, that is how Fix It Friend began. Of course, Jeremy had some concerns, lack of confidence if he would be accepted into the industry and would establish tradesp...

We open the show with a few shout outs to the many tradespeople that reach out on social, emails and through the industry. Thank you everyone for making the show the huge success it is as we make our way to over 1 million downloads. I have always said it is all because of our guests and the tens of thousands of listeners. Thank you so much. This show is all about the numbers behind running a const...

Something a little different on the show, the worktables are being turned around, Greg and his brother Justin from Generation Construction, 1.5 years into the business of being a GC are going to ask Manny questions about all kinds of scenarios that we GC’s go through on the daily. We are going to bring up a lot of things and some you may not want to hear but it should be spoken, as you know constr...

Brock from Advanced Property Solutions is back on the show, check out his first appearance on TCL Show #153, and this time he has brought a new friend, Dalton Cousineau from Southpaw Stoneworks and we are going to be talking Brocks first year as a GC and how Dalton is taking masonry and stone skills to new levels. New Podcast to check out – Michelle Farrugia has been on TCL twice now and she’s doi...

What a show we have today!! Let’s discuss a new product that has changed the way you consider cladding and decking, we have Constantine (Kosta) Karolidis, the GM and he shares how it all began and how it’s going. But first, a few shout outs and a lovely story about a lazy and talentless renoactor. On with the show. Kosta runs us through this new product to Canada and the many benefits attached to...

Part Five –50–59-year-olds. #FitnessFridays with Dimitri Giankoulas Our last show of this series and Dimitri gets right into it. Yes, you still need to be active, but at these ages you need to be careful on the level of active. At this age there are a lot of failing body parts and putting too much stress on joints can create bigger problems, especially since older people don’t heal as quickly. Fun...

Part Four –50–59-year-olds. #FitnessFridays with Dimitri Giankoulas This show begins with life stresses, as you get older, you have challenging moments in life, a divorce, separation, loss of a parent or parents, loss of employment and how this can affect your health, mentally and physically. At 50 you need to ask yourself are you doing this for your kids or yourself? Yes, you need to be a role mo...