Civil engineer and prefabricated housing expert Benjamin Cox is one of this year’s contestants on reality TV show The Block.
An engineer taking part in home renovation TV competition The Block sounds like the perfect home ground advantage, but it can be both a blessing and a curse.
As civil engineer Benjamin Cox MIEAust CPEng discovered while filming the latest season of the reality TV renovation juggernaut, professional skills can be a trump card over the power saw-wielding competition. On the other hand, you’ll be the object of ridicule if you mess up your measurements.
“I’m not looking forward to the episode where I measure a wall about a metre short,” Cox told create. “There were about a million other things going on and I got distracted.
“It was just for wallpaper but it’s not the best. Everyone else on the show had a good chuckle about it.”
Cox, 32 and his dance teacher partner Emma, 33, were among five couples who constructed homes from scratch for the show’s 21st season.
Filmed over 12 weeks in the central Victorian tourist town of Daylesford, this iteration of The Block saw the contestants work on new builds with just the framing completed when they arrived in town.
Having specialised in structural engineering, primarily prefabricated housing, over the course of his professional life, Cox said he felt immediately comfortable on set despite the intrusion of TV cameras filming every potential wrong move.
“It was a huge advantage being able to read plans, for instance,” he said. “It’s second nature for me, whereas Em really struggled with working out measurements.
“But we complement each other. I’m the more pragmatic, structured and technically inclined person on the team. Em had a bigger job than I did on the show because it’s more design-orientated.”
Time management is one key to structural engineering. Audiences will have to wait to see if Cox’s affinity with Gantt charts to manage tradies, deliveries, inspections and Emma’s inevitable styling curveballs helps them triumph over the competition, but the methodical and problem-solving nature of the engineering profession paid dividends.
“Probably my biggest advantage was with the Truecore steel frames. Whenever there was a query whether we could pull something out or alter something, I had a good understanding as to whether it could be done or not,” he said.
Impressing the nation
Cox and his partner, both keen renovators with a solid history of flipping houses, also seized a structural advantage in selecting the only house that had been constructed on stumps.
“The others were on slabs, and I just thought it would be easier to relocate services and with drainage issues, being able to access under the subfloor,” he said.
Constructing a house in a whiplash-inducing 12 weeks had its stresses, Cox said, but it paled in comparison with his work in the prefab construction industry.
“Having to crane in big wall panels and make sure loads and the lifting equipment were tested … In respect to what I had been doing, it was really pretty elementary, but just fast-paced.”
Representing the broader engineering industry was something Cox was acutely aware of amid the inevitable stresses of long days on set, and a panel of judges ready to cast judgment on misaligned tiling and soggy landscaping.
“I tried to hold myself well because I knew it would reflect on me and the profession. Everyone else on the show didn’t have the expectation of knowing what they were talking about. I definitely felt I had to make a good impression on the nation.
“So there was a bit of stress at times.”