Last night, I found myself watching a TV show with the intriguing title of “Help! I Wrecked My House.” Purely for vicarious thrills, you understand — my own particular house is fine, thank you very much.

This program is just one of many real-estate-based offerings on the HGTV channel and has already started its third season.

I’ve dabbled in watching a number of these shows, and I must say this one’s better than most.

In most other shows, an army of electricians, plumbers, contractors and decorators troop through a property, redoing everything about it from cellar (if there is one) to chimney top (ditto), and rendering it unrecognizable in the process. But — and here’s the part that drives my husband wild — it all somehow gets done for about $50 in labor, and maybe $35 in supplies.

In short, unbelievable. Not even close. Even the venerable granddaddy home improvement show of them all, “This Old House,” is getting harder and harder to believe.

Worst of all, I almost always like the “Before” version better.

“What happens when the family hates the redo?” my beloved asks. “Do you think they just scrap that show?”

“If I know anything about TV production,” I tell him, “they’re never scrapping a frame of that footage. I think they probably just bring new families through the house until one of them likes it — families who look enough like the first.”

Several things impressed me about “Help! I Wrecked my House.”

For one thing, the “Before” situations are so completely dreadful that I even find the “After” infinitely better. My favorite excerpt so far features a young husband who has gutted the living room, raised the roof joists and somehow installed what he thinks is a supporting beam. (Spoiler: he is wrong.)

“Oh my gosh, what happened?” says the star and creator of the series, Jasmine Roth, with forced cheeriness.

“I got in a little over my head here,” the husband admits. “Me and Larry did all this.”

So who is Larry?

“My dad,” says the wife. “My retired 73-year-old dad was here helping out.”

“He’s a retired contractor?” quizzes Jasmine.

“No. A 73-year-old retired podiatrist. He has no idea what he’s doing.”

Jasmine tells us a little later that she actually didn’t feel safe standing for very long inside the incompetently gutted structure, and that this was one of those times when she fought to keep a straight face while talking with “home-wreckers.” I like her spirit.

Another thing I like about this show is that they use believable figures —last night’s construction had a budget of $71,000 which got completely used up.

I am always amazed that the couples in these shows stay married. In last night’s episode (Season 1, Episode 6), they were still together in their small home, even though the husband had utterly failed at reinstalling the toilet in the main bathroom. The episode was actually titled “The Toilet is Still in the Hallway.” The couple had apparently been friends and sweethearts since childhood, but there is a limit to everything.

What impresses me most is that Jasmine undertakes some emotional repair work, along with the more tangible kind. Instead of simply tossing that balky toilet into a dumpster, she laid it out on a tarp in the backyard and gave the husband a sledge hammer. Smash therapy! Later on, after a few false starts, she was able to coach the couple into successfully installing a new one — together. I have no doubt she saved that marriage.

I watched it all, riveted by the awfulness of what this couple was living with, but eventually I noticed that my husband was shaking, sitting on the couch with me.

“What’s going on?” I asked him, a little concerned. “Are you all right?”

“I’m just fine,” he managed to gasp.

Turns out he’d been shaking with laughter. “I was just trying to imagine what you’d be like in that kind of a situation.”

Somehow I didn’t think this was going to be a compliment. “Bear in mind,” I said sternly, “there’d be two big differences if this show were about us.”

“Really? What?”

“First difference: You would never think of installing a support beam without an engineering analysis.”

“I’m glad you realize that. And second?”

“If you tried, I’d be gone.”

In the final analysis, I’m watching these shows like some people watch traffic accidents, just to see how bad things can get.

In the meanwhile, it makes for quite an amusing time.