Room to Improve (v2)

Oh sorry I meant the information a reasonable person would like to know.

The insulation level in the attic. For the lamb of jesus

A bit of middle ground is required: many people would find that some fella telling everyone how he does his cookery videos on his phone in the kitchen is (a) boring (b) not going to save you hundreds of euro a year in electricity or energy, or make for a nicer house. So hard to please everyone, I know. Personally, on a house programme, I love to see attractive, beautiful, asthetically pleasing, different, breaking the mould architecture that is also safe, practical, value for money with cutting edge technology and is also environmentally friendly and "cheap to run". There are always compromises and trade offs. Such is life. Interesting to see the processes, the people involved, the firms trying to get a plug in too.

Lots of us are living in houses built 30 or 40 or 50 years ago and wondering how to make them warmer / better / open to ideas.

Room to Improve, while not perfect, is a good attempt. And not much else to watch on TV anyway.

There's only 4 episodes. They could make each one a 2 parter and add the details in throughout.

Also, I'm starting to think Dermot is a grand scheme kinda man. Lots of broad strokes and not much detail. He only gets his vision as the build progresses. I think it's why he gets upset when the clients disagree. He's emotionally tied to it because he hasn't taken the time to step back and be objective.

I imagine Dermots whole schtick is a complete put on and well rehearsed. In fact I'd say he does a few takes of everything he says

Grand designs is what you want

houses that literally destroy lives

hundreds of thousands of pounds overruns

money gone

living in damp caravan in January

husband takes on the work himself

divorce

10 years from start to finish

but they look amazing when they are sold to the next buyer😀

Possibly they can't do something like that for contractual reasons.

He was definitely extremely emotional about those tiles cut from the stone from his father's farm all right. That was a great idea and touch by Dermot to get them. I'm sure they were all genuinely cut from stones he brought to Laois but not on the camera like the one he cut. Imagine the controversy if it transpired someone had taken a short cut and put up cheap Chinese stone tiles on the wall instead.

Grand Designs is a different programme all together, the designs there are generally much more adventurous and ambitious. More like the sort of inspiring stuff that made Dermots jaw literally drop open when he went abroad looking at buildings there, for that RTE series a few years ago I cannot remember the name of.

Only a fool and their money would go to the farm and gather all the stone needed and just hope it worked out.

What any sensible person would do is create a sample first and then price it accordingly. That is the process we saw, in some detail too.

??

Do you seriously believe Bannon just rocked up to the stone cutter without a phone call first? Do you have any idea of how these programmes are produced?

Should we show the visually interesting process of slicing a stone to the viewer and create a bit of 'can it be done' and 'emotional connection' drama or show a phone call?

What would the director of a visual and entertainment programme choose to do I wonder?🙄

So nothing to see with this either.

Read this* couple of paragraphs below and time yourself on it. It took me 60-70 seconds, reading at the speed of the narrator on RTI. In a 50 minute programme it wouldn't kill them to devote 90 seconds to this, and would improve the programme no end IMHO. There are thousands of houses like theirs, built in a mini construction boom either side of 1980, many of them ripe for a retro fit.

"John and Mary had a budget of €68,000 to get the house from a draughty D2 to a comfy A2. And while no two houses are exactly alike, this is what suited them;

The house had exterior insulation of 100mm Acme AAA Insulation installed upstairs at the front, the sides and all down the back. The lower part of the front of the building was left as is to maintain the character of the estate. This cost €10,000

Interior insulation on all exterior walls cost €12,000 and consists of Acme BBB 80mm insulation. The ceilings had Acme CCC insulation fitted to a depth of 250mm, costing €8,000. This included a new insulated water tank and cover.

All windows and the front door were replaced by Coyote windows at a cost of €25,000. These are triple glazed, Super-Duper DDD argon gas filled windows with a 30 year guarantee.

The old boiler went out and is replaced by a Coyote Air Source Heat Pump. With a new tank and fittings, this cost €18,000 and ensures year round low cost heating. Other sundries such as plastering and painting cost €5,000, bringing the total cost to €68,000. As €18,000 is available in grants from the SEAI under their 'Naughty but Nice' grant scheme, the total cost for John and Mary was €49,350.

The prognosis is that they will save €2,450 per annum on energy, their bills now being €500 p.a. instead of €3,000 p.a., with a return of approximately 20 years. Dropping the BER from D2 to A2 has also increased the value of their house by approx. €45,000." [ENDS]

*And I just made the figures and the companies up, the pedants can write what they want.

An analysis of a lot of the criticism of this programme would show that most of it is based in dislike of Bannon or jealousy/begrudgery of the home builders or general ranting about anything RTE does.

So I think you are right, no matter what was presented, there would be criticism found.

It's far from a perfect programme but much of the criticism is overblown.

That was funny all right.

Quite common.

We had all our meetings/consultations with the architect but the drawings for planning were signed by a staff member - the draughtsperson.

Absolutely. Did anyone suggest different? Bannon's involvement in the design and build cannot be assessed by who submitted the planning application or who did the drafting was the point.

Been a long-time watcher of this thread, but to me anyway, many comments are born out of pure jealousy, envy and downright begrudgery.

Strangely that bit wouldn't bother me so much, it's the bit circled in the image below that'd irk me:

Its the 3 switches on the wall to the left of that not being level / spaced properly I would find annoying if I had to look at it every day. If they were a cm or two different fine : but when they are a few mm out it looks as if they half tried but failed. Those tiles you find annonying would not bother me that much, but its a great world we are all different. Either would probably would not bother other people in fairness, maybe sometimes we expect too much of the tilers and sparkies...or maybe not. You'd think that when they knew it would be on tv though, they would take extra care?

You say If they were a cm or two different fine : but when they are a few mm out it looks as if they half tried but failed.

Do you realise one cm is ten mm.

The level of actual payouts to the vacant homes grant is shocking, Room To Improve seems to have the astronomical odds in somehow getting approval, 1 in 50 in the real world getting actual payment...

That was my issue with the Cashel episode. Fair play to the couple for getting the grants and I dont think it should be taken off them - but why are so many other people being refused the grants for houses that are both derelict and vacant. The issue needs to be raised in the Dail.

The actual approval rate is over 50% as outlined in the link.

Unfortunately the article has no interviews with people who were approved but failed to draw down.

I think a follow up to identify the reasons behind the problem would be useful.

Indo seems to have an issue with Bannon recently - was a journalist turned down or something?

Really stupid article. Anyone who bought in 2013 - 2016 and sold in 2022/2023 made a large "profit". But at the same time they are paying much higher for whatever hose they are moving to.

Usually second rate sensationalist rubbish for the indo

Not a stupid article at all if it's providing factual information. Where in the piece does it 'have an issue' with Bannon? If anything it's an advert for the value that he can add to a property. An almost 3 fold increase between the purchase and sale price of the Blackrock property.