House Flipping

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Sitting in the waiting room at the Dodge Ram repair it shop last week and the TV was tuned to one of those House Flipping Shows. Photogenic young couple. Building inspector was requiring a complete rewire on a 950 sq ft home. Price was $2000. Can you Resi persons really do them that low? It was stripped to the studs.
 

qcroanoke

Sometimes I don't know if I'm the boxer or the bag
Location
Roanoke, VA.
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Sorta retired........
I've seen the show that is filmed in Texas and they quoted $800.00 to replace 10 existing receptacles with GFCI's.
I'd do that all day for $800.00.
 

Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
Sitting in the waiting room at the Dodge Ram repair it shop last week and the TV was tuned to one of those House Flipping Shows. Photogenic young couple. Building inspector was requiring a complete rewire on a 950 sq ft home. Price was $2000. Can you Resi persons really do them that low? It was stripped to the studs.

well, reality TV doesn't require reality, just a camera.
can you wire a house for $2,000? can you buy the material for $2,000?

that's as believable as the photogenic couple actually doing the house refurbishing themselves.
 

infinity

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I'm a fan of Flip or Flop but I cannot believe some of the prices they're quoted for renovations like $6000 for an entirely new kitchen with granite counter tops.
 

gadfly56

Senior Member
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New Jersey
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Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
Sitting in the waiting room at the Dodge Ram repair it shop last week and the TV was tuned to one of those House Flipping Shows. Photogenic young couple. Building inspector was requiring a complete rewire on a 950 sq ft home. Price was $2000. Can you Resi persons really do them that low? It was stripped to the studs.

If it's already stripped to the studs and doesn't need a new panel I'm guessing you could do it for $2,000 depending where in the country you are, although that would be a little low in NJ. Further assuming this is a bungalow style house with no basement. That 950 sq ft is pretty small.

The thing that interests me the most is how you make that happen and keep things in line at the building department. Here in NJ there's a 20 business day allowance in the law for the department to do the review. And if they don't, no penalty for them and no automatic issue of permits for you.
 

mgookin

Senior Member
Location
Fort Myers, FL
If it's already stripped to the studs and doesn't need a new panel I'm guessing you could do it for $2,000 depending where in the country you are, although that would be a little low in NJ. Further assuming this is a bungalow style house with no basement. That 950 sq ft is pretty small.

The thing that interests me the most is how you make that happen and keep things in line at the building department. Here in NJ there's a 20 business day allowance in the law for the department to do the review. And if they don't, no penalty for them and no automatic issue of permits for you.

Many places have no building department.
 

user 100

Senior Member
Location
texas
Sitting in the waiting room at the Dodge Ram repair it shop last week and the TV was tuned to one of those House Flipping Shows. Photogenic young couple. Building inspector was requiring a complete rewire on a 950 sq ft home. Price was $2000. Can you Resi persons really do them that low? It was stripped to the studs.

Oh sure you could for $2000 in that situation- house isn't that big and if everything was kept to a reasonable code meetin' no frills minimum. Think cheap everything-carlons, res grade s and r's, those 2 lamp flush mount fixures (yes, they still make those and they're still installed in 2016:happyyes:) no fans...... The issue is how much you charge for labor and for 2k total it won't be much.:D
 

Sierrasparky

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USA
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Electrician ,contractor
Not seeing the show, I would assume that price was for rough in only as they probably already budgeted to install new fixtures and such. No new panel, striped to the studs. That is a one day deal on a the cheap.
 

JFletcher

Senior Member
Location
Williamsburg, VA
Sitting in the waiting room at the Dodge Ram repair it shop last week and the TV was tuned to one of those House Flipping Shows. Photogenic young couple. Building inspector was requiring a complete rewire on a 950 sq ft home. Price was $2000. Can you Resi persons really do them that low? It was stripped to the studs.

A lot easier/less time consuming if it's stripped to the studs. $2000 tho? Some areas you'd need almost 20% of that budget just for AFCI breakers alone. Gotta figure that there is a substantially lesser amount of drilling too.

And yes, Christina is 'photogenic'. :D
 

goldstar

Senior Member
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New Jersey
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Electrical Contractor
Sitting in the waiting room at the Dodge Ram repair it shop last week and the TV was tuned to one of those House Flipping Shows. Photogenic young couple. Building inspector was requiring a complete rewire on a 950 sq ft home. Price was $2000. Can you Resi persons really do them that low? It was stripped to the studs.
There's also a show entitled "Love it or List It". They're buying houses for $800K and better. The times I've watched the show the cost of repairs was almost as ridiculously low as that. Fulthrotl said it right, reality only needs a camera not actual reality.
 

chris1971

Senior Member
Location
Usa
Several years ago we were hired by a show that was doing a bathroom renovation for a couple at their home. We did all the electrical work they wanted done. They would have us stop at certain points during the work, give the tools to the homeowner and then they'd start filming like the homeowner just did all the work. :roll::lol:
 

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
I could see a contractor doing work at little or no profit for a chance to get on TV and be able to say their work was featured on a popular TV show.

I can also say that the wide variety of quotes I got for similar remodeling work when I had some work done pretty much convinced me that there is no "fair" price. They were all over the place. Some contractors just seem to be very cost effective for certain kinds of work and they are hard to beat.

A couple weeks ago I called a guy who did some work on my mom's roof to come replace a few shingles that had blown off as I no longer wish to crawl around on my roof. He charged me $50. Granted he was only up on the roof 10 or 15 minutes, and the shingles were left over ones from when it was re-shingled 15 years ago, but I would have expected a much higher price. Just driving to my house probably took him the better part of half an hour.
 

rippledipple

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Location
New Jersey
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Electrical contractor
tv show

tv show

A lot easier/less time consuming if it's stripped to the studs. $2000 tho? Some areas you'd need almost 20% of that budget just for AFCI breakers alone. Gotta figure that there is a substantially lesser amount of drilling too.

And yes, Christina is 'photogenic'. :D
They never include labor costs on those shows!!
 
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rippledipple

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New Jersey
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Electrical contractor
tv

tv

A lot easier/less time consuming if it's stripped to the studs. $2000 tho? Some areas you'd need almost 20% of that budget just for AFCI breakers alone. Gotta figure that there is a substantially lesser amount of drilling too.

And yes, Christina is 'photogenic'. :D
They never include labor costs on those shows!!
PHOTOGENIC, you mean HOT, don't you!!!!!!!!!
 
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growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
Sitting in the waiting room at the Dodge Ram repair it shop last week and the TV was tuned to one of those House Flipping Shows. Photogenic young couple. Building inspector was requiring a complete rewire on a 950 sq ft home. Price was $2000. Can you Resi persons really do them that low? It was stripped to the studs.


A few weeks ago I saw a house that was not much bigger than that that was rewired for $3K. They skipped all the formalities such as permits and inspections and that was a real time saver. They didn't bother with Arc Fault breakers or even GFCI protection in some areas (where required) and there are some ceiing fans mounted on plastic boxes. Not a single hard wired smoke .

I wouldn't won't to do it but there are cheap rewires out there.
 

user 100

Senior Member
Location
texas
A few weeks ago I saw a house that was not much bigger than that that was rewired for $3K. They skipped all the formalities such as permits and inspections and that was a real time saver. They didn't bother with Arc Fault breakers or even GFCI protection in some areas (where required) and there are some ceiing fans mounted on plastic boxes. Not a single hard wired smoke .

I wouldn't won't to do it but there are cheap rewires out there.

It's entirely possible even w/afci- a gas fed house of that size wouldn't require that many cts- you could go the min 2 sabcs for kitchen, do a couple of 15s for all the lighting, a 20 for the bedroom receptacles in both bdrms, a 20 for the single bath, a 20 for the washer and dryer, and a 20 for dining and lvg rm recs, a 15 or 20 for whatever gen use hallway recs etc , a 20 for ext rec's- gfci where needed w/ bare minimum and cheap everywhere else, skip even the fans, do only lights.
 
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just the cowboy

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newburgh,ny
Take two

Take two

A few years ago they filmed a reality show at my horseranch, they called and asked-
Them - Do you have many horses?
Me - Yes 60 or so.
Them - Do you have a barn?
Me - Yes 300 foot long nice barn.
Them - Does it have any of them things a horse sleeps in?
Me- Yes I have about 10 STALLS.
Them - How about one of those horse boxes you put a horse into move it?
Me - Do you mean a HORSE TRAILER yes I do.
Them - Can we film a reality show there?
Me - How much do I get?
Them - You want something?????
Me - Ok I’ll do it for a thanks to "Triple WStables" at the end of show.
They come out to film and the scene is they are going to reposes a horse.
The first actor a girl asks me "How would I feel if they were going to take my horse" I gave her a brush and said build a bond with the horse.
The second actor asked " What would I do if they were taking my daughters horse" I said just look at the way she is attached already to that horse.
The third actor asked " What would I look for if I was taking her horse" This was a big macho guy with a NY accent so I said you would go up and open its mouth and look for its tattoo. And I go up and open a horse’s mouth and fold back the lip and he was " NO NO NO I’m not doing that."
Well they filmed the show in two takes, and that’s when I found out that reality TV gets away with it because it is UNSCRIPTED.
Oh and the never gave me billing at the end.
 
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