Impossibly cheap extensions on TV shows?

richard686

spannerzone wrote: »

I don't believe most of these TV shows that renovate houses for such low prices... Homes under Hammer or whatever that awful daytime TV show is called is a classic example, newbies pay too much for a house in an auction, apparently spend £500 on a total rewire, £1200 on new boiler, rads and all plumbing and £1800 on a flashy kitchen.

Either they're not including VAT, labour etc or they're getting friends etc to do work for next to nothing.

Indeed...

It's the kitchens that make me laugh, £1800 on a kitchen, it must be real quality!

Our place needed completely gutting, re-plastering, new ceilings, re-decorating, completely new kitchen (which meant gutting back to brickwork) and it was all done by local tradesmen over a period of a couple of years. (we weren't living there at the time).

Once I made the mistake of adding up all the bills over the 30 month period of work and could not believe the cost.

If I'd knew the cost at the point of purchase, I wouldn't have bought the house!

Anyway it's all done now and it's lovely, we just want the Orangery to finish it off.

artbaron

richard686 wrote: »

Anyone get the feeling that many of these make over / double your house TV shows feature impossibly cheap costs, just to stimulate the building trade?

Exactly, I've said this for a long time. On almost every show of this type I've seen the estimates and spends have been absurdly low. Complete house renovation including new bathroom, new kitchen, living room extension, rewire, central heating - that will be £30K please. Sure, in your dreams, try £130K. I don't know how they get away with lying like this on allegedly factual shows.

Sausage11

Double Your House FHTM is the one I really notice as having ridiculously low costs.

But then I realised they describe is as "Cost of Build". So they may be accurate in terms of the build costs themselves, but they then infer that these are the total costs involved whereas the full costs are probably double.

By the way, does anyone know if people that go on shows such as DYH get a kitchen thrown in? No matter what budget they always seem to end up with an amazing kitchen that probably cost a minimum of 20-30K!

richard686

artbaron wrote: »

Exactly, I've said this for a long time. On almost every show of this type I've seen the estimates and spends have been absurdly low. Complete house renovation including new bathroom, new kitchen, living room extension, rewire, central heating - that will be £30K please. Sure, in your dreams, try £130K. I don't know how they get away with lying like this on allegedly factual shows.

Exactly!

I have developed an eye for costings on Grand Designs lately. This week the couple were hoping to build an enormous house for £300k and I guessed the actual cost exactly..(£600k)

richard686

Sausage11 wrote: »

Double Your House FHTM is the one I really notice as having ridiculously low costs.

But then I realised they describe is as "Cost of Build". So they may be accurate in terms of the build costs themselves, but they then infer that these are the total costs involved whereas the full costs are probably double.

By the way, does anyone know if people that go on shows such as DYH get a kitchen thrown in? No matter what budget they always seem to end up with an amazing kitchen that probably cost a minimum of 20-30K!

Well in a recent episode, they got a used (ex-display) kitchen. Quite how that helps everyone else I don't know? I imagine every kitchen supply place being emptied the next day, selling all their displays off at 1/3 the new price... not...

I also love the way they do the before and after shots. The before has the colour turned down to almost black and white and the after shot has been professionally dressed and accessorised to look bling!

I remember an expose of the older make over shows where the owners told the real story of hordes of tradesmen descending to finish the job and the owners ripping it all out afterwards because it was all nasty, skin deep workmanship, just done to look good from a distance for the one camera shot at the end. (exactly the way you'd want a set designer to work).

spannerzone

Yep, 60 minute makeover shows where they replaster a bad wall, repaint and fit new shelves etc in supposedly 60 minutes....gripfill acres of MDF painted purple and staple some curtains to the wall. Nice.

I suppose many of us fall for this, all those propery ladder shows created a massive boost in the early/mid 2000's I suspect. I soon discovered that it takes more than an hour to renovate a house