EXCLUSIVE: DIY SOS Star Nick Knowles MAKES emotional marriage CONFESSION

Nick Knowles has revealed how his marriage survives all his travelling for work (Image: Getty)

Former Strictly Come Dancing star Nick Knowles has admitted he finds it difficult to get the “balance” between work and family right. Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk the BBC presenter, 63, detailed how he and wife Katie Dadzie, 34, cope with the long periods away from home required by his job as he films his BBC shows and his Channel 5 travel shows admitting: “It’s a huge imposition on my family for me to do what I do and it has always been.

“But it’s how I make a living. It’s like people working on oil rigs or people who are in the army or in the armed forces. If it’s your job and that’s what you do…I mean, I try to spend as much time as possible at home, and for a lot of my projects filming is in the UK,” he pointed out. “But even then I’m away filming those for around 10 days at a time,” he conceded.

Nick and Katie only married in June this year and he revealed she often manages to accompany him on his work trips which makes maintaining their relationship easier.

“Katie’s very good in that she will travel with me when she can. A lot of her work is done on a computer. She runs her brother’s catering company. She writes books. She’s just published a novel. She runs her own laundry company that she’s built. She does websites. She does coding. So she can do that from her laptop, wherever she can work.

“So she tries to travel with me quite a lot because my location work keeps me wherever I am. I’m very lucky that I have somebody who’s prepared to put herself out that much to be around and so that we can spend more time together.

“Absolutely, finding time for family is the most difficult thing about what I do. But I think that’s true of almost everybody trying to find the right balance between family and home life,” he admitted.

Nick Knowles is raising awareness of the ways people waste energy in the home (Image: Smart Energy UK)

Nick was speaking after teaming up with Smart Energy GB on a new campaign that busts common household myths — from energy use to the tips and tricks passed down through generations – in order to save people money on their energy usage.

“I’ve obviously been around around home improvements and things like that for most of my working life, and I’ve been involved with various Smart Energy things over the years in terms of solar power and developments in ground source heat and then that kind of energy. So this is just really the next step,” he said explaining his involvement.”

He continued: There’s been a massive change over the last few years in terms of everybody getting these smart meters. They’re in 70% of homes now (and while) they don’t save you money in and of themselves they just show you what you’re spending money on and where you are wasting it. So it’s a good thing to make you think about it a bit more.

“When you’ve got a smart meter, and you look at it when you put the kettle on, if you’re only making a cup of tea for one and boil the entire kettle, you can actually watch the amount of electricity you’re using. Whereas if you only put a bit of water in there, you’re saving a lot of money. You’re not talking about hundreds of pounds, but actually incrementally all these little things add up. And so having a smart meter means that you can see all this happening.”

Nick is working with Smart Energy GB to highlight how smart meters can help you access energy reward schemes.