Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgary14
I recently watched an episode of Property Brothers on HGTV. They helped a young couple renovate, list and sell their single detached home.
Like many other renovation shows, most of the actual work wasn't shown - and there was a lot of it. The downstairs had termites in the walls, electrical that needed rewiring, part of the foundation needed to be redone. And something Ive never seen before - they even had a raccoon living within one of the walls. It was so bad the couple was actually embarrassed.
After all the work was done the total cost was $25k. This included a basement reno (partial), and some major foundation work.
The cost of $25k seemed almost comical. I'm no expert on the cost of renovations but I know people who paid $40k to have their basement finished - small, basic and nothing fancy at all. These jobs were minor in comparison to what this couple had one to their home.
My question is how out to lunch are the costs quoted on these shows? They make it seem like everything can be done fast, easily and on the cheap - when in reality I think its quite the opposite. Ironically this was under the 'reality tv' category.
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As a decorator, a lot of contractors will rip you off, especially when they know you don't know.
Usually, you are supposed to charge twice what the cost of the materials is, half is parts, half is labour. So if a room's materials cost $5000, the job should be $10000 total.
That's the rules that they follow on the shows.
However, they charge lots for anything they can get away with. For example. Crown moulding, the best stuff costs about $1.50 for contractors per foot $3.50 for Rona/Home Depot. So, say you have a 10 X 10 foot room, you'll have 40 linear feet total, so total cost is $60 give or take a couple bucks. However, most contractors would charge around $1000 for that to install. It is a bit of a pain in the butt, but I've put it in dozens of times without any prior knowledge of what I'm doing and it's not much more difficult than putting baseboards on.
That's just one example, but they'll literally try anything to gouge you.