Local Contractors had Local contractors had a big part in ABC’s "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’’ built in Wells recently. Steve Bryer and Jim Smyth, seated from left, joined Ken Walby, Scott Smith and Dan Bryer standing from left, during construction. (Photo Kristoffer Roveillo)

You can count on front man Ty Pennington being there, his trusty megaphone close by his side.

The new home afforded the family will surely be spectacular, and faithful viewers of the show might already be speculating what special design features will be implemented to help facilitate Doug Goodale’s life without his right arm.

But what viewers might have trouble seeing is just how hectic building a home in a week can be.

"It’s pretty stressful as you can imagine. The noise never let up. The lights were always on," said Southport’s Dan Bryer, one of two main foremen on the site. "You’re working on sleep deprivation. You’re literally working on top of one another. It was pretty tense at times."

Bryer was one of a healthy contingent of contractors from the region to participate in the build. They include Scott Smith, Ken Walby, Shawn Pitcher, Bill Walsh, Matt Harriman, Jim Smyth, Steve Bryer, and Jeff and Tracy French of Wiscasset.

"There had to be close to 1,000 people," said Walsh of his midnight arrival on the site. "It was just a maze of blue t-shirts and white lights. It was awkward. It was like your first day on the job."

As a dealer for Katahdin Cedar Log Homes, Bryer was first contacted about the show in July. He was asked to compile a list of his top two choices for all subcontractors. That list was eventually pared down once more before filming began.

And when it began, it did so in earnest.

With daylight hours came a mass of volunteers, both a blessing and a hindrance to contractors.

A roughly outlined schedule didn’t take into account the home’s foundation not setting properly.

"That pretty much fell apart immediately," Bryer said of the schedule. "Three and a half days in we were relatively certain we weren’t going to finish."

But an intense eight-hour stretch was enough to get the construction back on course.

"We threw everyone we had at different projects," said Bryer.

Since two episodes are filmed simultaneously, interaction with Pennington and company was virtually non-existent.

"I was naïve," Walsh said. "I thought there’d be some break during the day where Ty came by and said, `Hey, how are you?’"

"I was never really aware of where the cameras were," added Bryer.

So come Sunday night, camera time for the local contractors is anyone’s guess.

What isn’t up for debate is that the house is something special. "There were some pretty unique components to it [that] you obviously wouldn’t see in a normal home," said Bryer, adding that the house is just under 5,000 square feet. "It is very, very nice. Very big."