The episode followed eight-year-old Rafi, who was left with life-changing brain damage (Image: BBC)

DIY SOS viewers were left in floods of tears within minutes of the show starting as Nick Knowles and his team tackled one of the most emotional stories in the programme’s history. The episode followed eight-year-old Rafi, who was left with life-changing brain damage after suddenly falling seriously ill. After spending a year in hospital, Rafi finally returned home – but his family were struggling to cope in a house that was no longer safe for him or equipped for his complex care needs.

Facing the devastating possibility of having to send him back into a medical facility, his parents made a desperate plea to the BBC team to help them keep their little boy at home, where his recovery has already shown remarkable progress. Host Nick was seen wiping a tear from his eyes as viewers on X admitted, “This is the most emotional episode of DIY SIS I’ve ever watched. God bless this family, they deserve it so much #diysos.”

Nick Knowles and his team tackled one of the most emotional stories in the programme’s history (Image: bbc)
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Another penned: “FFS Nick I normally manage to at least wait until you’ve started before I’m crying” another added: “Man, I didn’t get past the first 5 minutes without getting emotional. “What an amazing set of people these are, that do all this hard work for such a rewarding finish. I have so much admiration for everyone involved.” The tears kept flowing, as fans gushed over how deserving the family is, especially as without the help fixing their house, little Rafi would be forced to go back to living in hospital.

“This family are just so together and were dealt a really hard blow. Utterly deserving of #DiySos help,” gushed one viewer. A second shared: “If I was a multi millionaire, I’d spend my money sorting out peoples houses like this.” A third gushed: “There’s so much negativity on the news at the moment, but seeing the #diysos team and all the volunteers coming together to help people they don’t know is something really positive to hold on to.”

Another added: “I’m absolutely bawling my eyes out at #diysos What a courageous and super strong boy. It’s awful what can happen in life sometimes.”

Rafi’s father Dean said the transformation of his room into a space filled with different colours of the rainbow had “changed their lives”.

He said: “It’s been absolutely beautiful to see the transition and Raffi is enjoying it as much as we thought he would.

“He also loves the garden as that was a small space to begin with and we weren’t expecting it to be used so beautifully.

“To the team, thank you for changing our lives as it’s been everything we needed.”

He added Raffi’s recovery had seen a “massive” improvement since moving from hospital into the transformed house in March.

“He’s very far from where he was on that show, as he’s now taking steps, he’s able to remember, he’s talking, all because of the spaces that they’ve made here,” he said.

DIY SOS presenter Nick Knowles said the transformation had been “huge undertaking” that involved more than 600 tradespeople.