Room for improvement ... and lots of it.

[soundman]

one particular mate of mine made me solemly swear that I would strike down any television renovator that approached his house while he was away with a wheel brace.

[Wild Dingo]

These shows are as has been said horrendous... there workmanship is appalling their safety levels almost non existant and the speed they do these things in leaves one to wonder what corners they cut to get there aside from safety.

the auction squad is another that gets up my goat... get these houses {east coast as always! I mean cant these galahs cross the flamin nallabour occasionally?? on second thought stay there!!} worth on average something like 500,000 and go in blast away and whallah auction it of for what? an extra 30,000?... most of what they do the owners could have afforded to do anyway even including the cost of tradesmen and hiring equipment if not doing themselves... and then they flog the houses off with the allusion of "look how much extra we got for just doin this much work! any dumb slob can do the same thing"

While I bet the ones that watch these shows like hawks week in week out are the poor dopey buggars that could a) never afford to buy such a place b) never afford to do the alterations muckups and coverups that these idiots do c) think they can do it cause "we saw it done on Auction Squad and it looked so easy!" so whats the dopey buggar watching do?... goes right out and hires a mess of stuff whacking it all on the already over taxed credit card of course... then gets stuck in making a heck of a mess of it... then when conceeding his inability to match it with the AS mob relents and calls in the trades to fix the mess theyve made... taxing the credit card yet again... then they try to sell it hoping to get the same figure that the mob on AS got and hello they get nowhere near it!!... aside from the fact that their house had nowhere near the value of the ones on AS in the first place and cause of course if youve done your homework before the auction youve talked to the neighbors found out about all the stuff ups and the trades and such and of course as an investor your gonna keep that price low... and the poor gullible shmuck is left with far less than they thought theyd get...

Ohhh one thing I recall seeing on the one show of Reason For Disaster was they "found" a beautifully stacked pile of Oregon Teak or some such fine timber around the side of the house {open to the weather of course } and bright eyed and bushy tailed all excited bugalugs leers at the camera and says "Wow this is really great timber I think I can do something with this" and into it he goes making something totally useless and then paints the ruddy thing some revolting color that matches nothing in the room he sticks it into!!!

My mob ever tries that on me and I tell yer Im outta here!!... or they are! As I said to the missus thats cause for the D word doin that to a fella... I mean I gots masses of fine Tuart out the front and then theres that beautiful Sheoak and Jarrah gawd can you imagine the damage that mob of dipsticks would do with all that?!!! :eek: NO FLAMIN WAY!!! :mad:

aaaggghhh gak gag I hate these programs! :mad:

[Sir Stinkalot]

Shane .... its allright .... how are they ever going to get all of that machinary past all of that Tuart you have sitting on your lawn? It will be a program in itself just getting the Dingo Digger around the back

[Pulpo]

[[B]QUOTE]
]Originally posted by averack [/i]

[B]I love TOH and like NRDU thought that the products they use are not available here. Well not all maybe but some of them. A couple of months back they showed a plumber using a plastic pipe joined with a crimping tool. Neat stuff I thought and then a couple of weeks later whilst checking out a new unit under construction guess what they were using for pipes! Yep they were using crimped connections, quick and easy to install.

In regards to the plastic pipes:

I'm no expert but in the US this product is growing in use quite a bit, reading the forums would suggest it anyway.

The flexible plastic pipe is probably PEX (Polyethylene) a flexible plastic water pipe that can with stand high pressure and high temperatures. It can replace copper entirely. Rats maybe a problem but no ones really reported it.

Look at www.theplumber.com

PB [Polybutylene] is an older technology and used little, its inferior to PEX.

There's also CPVC with is rigid plastic piping which also can with stand high temperatures and pressures.


Anyway back to home improvement shows.

This Old House is in a different league to the others, although I did prefer their old series as they were more informative with less time wasted just talking instead demonstrating.

The pommy versions are a laugh; I did see a follow up story on one, as they interviewed pass participants of changing rooms. Very funny, almost no one left the new change as is. All complain about some things and some spent a small fortune fixing it. One had not even been 1/2 completed but the show had ended so the owners had to finish it at their expense.

These shows frustrate me, they show nothing of value, and they ALWAYS run out time every week. State the bleedin obvious like I have used bricks for the boarder [really I thought they were wood logs]. What's more if they did complete the job in the required time it would be a mess.

Cheers

Pulpo

[Zed]

I've done a fair bit of renovating and consider myself pretty good at it... and I must say that some of these shows are pretty ordinary - they always seem to to be some blond chickie who does the fluffy arty stuff (you can swap the blonde for a gay bloke if you want), some old fart who plants things that die and some mug chippie (sorry...) who does the structual work. Oh, dont forget the looooooser!!! who does all the hard yakka but doesnt say much. So what do you get ? a gang of plants, some paving thats usually in an unusable or unmowable shape and some ugly F****ing pond that grows alge and mosquitoes. And MIEN GOTT!!! the colours they choose! Retch!

But I must say I quite like the boof headed carpenter on "Blitz" and to be fair on the odd occasion all those shows give some good advice that can be used elsewhere - most recently I liked the idea of an automatic room separator on "The block" that the same sex couple (had) installed. The better half likes the advice on when to plant the appropriate plants.

I've only just joined the forum and have read through some of the posts - I hope Im wrong - Im getting the impression that there are a lot of cranky old men who just like the opportunity to have a whinge at something. )


(gotta admit my missus loves 'em all)

Cheers

Zed

[Sir Stinkalot]

Changing rooms is somewhat different in as much as two parties enter into the agreement with their eyes open ..... Sure the result isn't much to look at but they know what they are getting themselves in for and tend to enjoy the experience. Most of the rooms would require alteration after the show has left but that is part of it. The Australian show did do one of those 'where are they now' specials and there were a few rooms that were left as the show intended but more that needed to be altered. I would object to the suprise "make up", the owner has no say in what the result will be nor do they have any idea what area of the house or yard is being "modified", at least with changing rooms they can suggest a room that they would like changed, give their friends an idea of style that they are after, and if worst comes to worst they were looking at redoing the room themselves anyway.

[gold leader]

Good point stinky, but at the same time, I have seen the participants of Changing Rooms tell the decorator implicitly "Please do not touch the ....". But they just can't help themselves. They go and recover the sofa, or paint the sideboard, then wonder why the owner goes mental at them for ruining their family heirloom.
Add my Big Thumbs Up for This Old House too, quality viewing

[Baz]

Hi Guys, have you ever noticed on those shows, particulary Backyard Blitz that the owners never end up with a clothes line, very rarely is one shown when the project is finished. Always wondered where the owners stuck up a clothes line after the show was produced, probably pulled out Jamie's water feature and stuck one there.
Cheers
Barry

[Wild Dingo]

Originally posted by doorstop
And the flamin' mongrels always turn the old mans' shed into a bloody playroom/conversation pit/ entertainment area.... where is the poor "B" s'posed to put all his woodworking stuff, his lawn mower, the bloody boat.... insensitive flamin' poofs!
And they never ever go back in 12 months to check on hteir victims!!

What a wonderous rant there stoppers!!

But think about it for a tic mate... firstly they would have used abused and buggared up all the tools in the shed within the first 5 minutes while waiting for that Kannards mob to rock up with all the hired gear... so thats his tools all trashed... what the hell hes not there is he and by the time he works it out theyve gone so thats what happens to a "B"s tools...

As for the boats well they get sliced in half painted a purty pale pink motif with some luverly pale blue seascape with lots of big bold colors and hung on the wall or fence... so theres the boat stuffed... and the timber well see above...

The old "B"s buggared before he pharts... hopefully he will have retained the beer brewery he snuffled under the floorboards before they came and he can crawl under there with rover and get well and truely smashed pass out and stay there till the whole flamin flock of galahs have well and truely buggared of down the track... cause sure as blazes if he comes out theres gonna be flamin WAR!!! :mad:

That is of course unless hes taken on being close to his feminine side and thinks all that color and stuff ith far bedda than hith little mucho thed... eh thethil? yeth thirel

[Sir Stinkalot]

Sorry to bring up old news again .... but last night I caught the last few minutes of "DIY Rescue" .... they had converted a garage/basement into a lounge room with a tv and couches for the father and young (I would assume under 8) kids .... this area then opened out onto a large deck and out to the garden where I would say 50% was dedicated to a childrens play area. Ok so what is wrong with that I hear you ask ... they appear to have done a good job with qualified trades and it came up quite well unlike some other reno shows ... well the problem is that they sunk a spa into the deck between the new indoor area and the childrens play area. There was no fence what so ever around the spa, or the childrens play area. They bought the happy couple out at the end of the show where the kids and I assume neighbours kids were sitting next to and around the spa thinking it was the best thing since sliced bread.

I did catch the start as well and the builder guy was quoting the BCA stating that the ceiling needed to be at least 2400 so I thought that they would have twigged to the spa fence. Even the tradesperson (if they used one as I missed that bit) putting in the spa should have mentioned something about a fence.

These shows are dangerous to the clueless Joe Blow who thinks that the sunken spa in the deck looks great and he will give it a shot next weekend.

Safety Stinky. :mad:

[Eastie]

I would like to think that the relevant building inspector/surveyor would have had to sign off on the works under a building permit, thus picking up their gross negligence. Unfortunately these laws don't protect people from such neglect until the relevant surveyor returns to inspect the works and orders the improvement.

Shame, shame, shame.

[Sir Stinkalot]

Shame

[Sturdee]

Stinky

I have to admit that I watched that show as well and during the show when they were installing the spa they mentioned that it had a lockable cover as well and needed to be used by them.
They said that's why it complied with the regulations.

Regard


Peter

[Sir Stinkalot]

Ok thanks Peter ... as I said I only saw the first few and last few minutes so I am happy to stand corrected (please do not sue me DIY ).

I am still suprised that a lockable cover would be all that is required to comply with the regulations. It doesn't take much for mum or dad to lift off the cover and then forget that they left something inside, or to run inside for a shower before replacing the cover ..... at least with a fence it is always there and it has a self closing gate. I know for sure that if it was my house with little kids I would be making damn sure that there was a saftey fence for extra security.



Stinky ... always looking after the little person.

[DanP]

The worst bit is that they take an idiot who has torn his house to bits (the easy bit) and then doesn't have the know how to fix it and they reward his uselessness by fixing all his huge stuff ups.

Dan