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Yes, I heard from some forumers about the ABC Contractor too. I think different builders have different cost structures. Some outsource most of the work and project managed the construction process. Depending on the cost, I find the quality of construction usually quite poor. This is because the builder normally use only those who bid low for the sub-contract and the sub-contractors will usually prefer to rush through the project so that it can be completed on time and they get to collect payment aster. Some builders have a team of inhouse workers and a small factory to fabricate certain wood and metal works for the construction process. It may be less efficient because the builder is making a range of services and products in-house. However, the quality control tend to be more personal and there is more ownership and pride for the work being done. I think there are pros and cons for both approaches and it is not necessarily true that contractors experience same cost and often have high margins. Some could actually be prepared to earn less to secure the deal, some would prefer to ensure that quality is high to promote a good reputation and less issues on warranty and some are simply trying to chop the customers. Different contractors, different strokes.

Agree with Kardtoon that contractors may find it difficult to pool substantial savings from different locations of small houses construction. I built my place together with 2 of my neighbours who are just next to my house. The workers can be deployed to the three sites easily and the builder has a lot of convenience in moving goods, materials and people around. One foreman can look after three sites. The workers could wait for my cement to cure before they start working on the site further. In the meantime, they could work on the adjacent sites. In this way, I got better quality construction as the building process is not rushed and there is no wastage of either workers idling or working on the site too fast, compromising quality before the cement fully cure. My neigbour confirmed the building design and made the payment first. After which, the builder approached me and gave me a highly discounted price taking into account the materials that was used for my house construction. I think the builder basically do it at cost and partly subsidize me because my neighbour has already paid a substantial amount for professional fees, cost of piling work, soil test, etc... In fact, I basically only pay for the piles as the deployment of the piling machine has already been charged to my neighbour. In addition, my builder is bent on "stealing" the deal from his rival construction firm. I was initially planning to use the services of my current builder's rival, until my builder came along and offered what the rival construction firm called, "Impossible Price". At the end of the day, I would not have been able to afford the high cost of construction and get high quality construction materials and enjoy high quality construction process if not for the confluence of factors and circumstances. Another of my neighbour who recently rebuilt his house shared with me that his architect who has monitored my house construction work informed my neighbour that he could not deal with me for anything less than $1.2 million for the demands I placed on the construction process, workmanship and materials. Recently, my friend bought a house and he insisted that I introduce my contractor to him. Guess what? My current contractor quoted him $1.3 million. I guessed, I was lucky.

Congratulations on your purchase of the house. For an intermediate terrace with 2000 sqft land size, the build up can be quite large and you can have quite luxurious interior design. Cheers!

Hi madam, Didn't take any photos. I think the cabinet collapsed because the door is too heavy for the frame. The frame is quite light and the hinges could not sustain the weight of the door. Besides that, the wood surrounding the hinges is made of sawdust of which they naturally waste away over the months especially in high humidity environment. As washing and cooking are all done in my kitchen, that has impacted the cabinets negatively. I didn't feedback to IKEA because the carpenter who came to fix the cabinet told me confidentially not to expect the IKEA cabinets to last. However, I believe the quality of the IKEA cabinets with 25 years warranty should have better standard than what I had bought. I recalled that the frame of the cabinet also collapsed after I tried to use the cabinet without doors. When I put heavier stuff such as clay pots, bottles of floor and rice in the cabinet, the cabinet shelfs started to sag and eventually, the cabinet collapsed off the wall. The wall screws were unable to hold on to my hollow cement block wall. I think the frame of the cabinets collapsed partly because the screws provided was quite short and could not drill deep into the wall and partly the wall was quite inferior (wall was made of hollow cement blocks). Recently, I renovated my place and tore down all the walls. I don't have any problem with custom made plywood cabinets. In my view, custom plywood cabinets are superior to cabinets made from sawdust. For those who can afford and want higher quality products, probably a better option is to install cabinets made from a combination of strong alluminium and chenggai wood with water proof bamboo laminate for the interior and exterior of the cabinet. Cheers!

Email NParks. They are quite responsive.

Hi Yuansong78 You can get an architect and a builder to give you a quote based on what you want. From there, you have a clearer idea of cost and time needed. Quite a few of the forumers here have built their houses through engaging either architect or builder directly. You can ask them for recommendation and access for yourself. Cheers!

When I mentioned $300,000, it was the price as at Feb 2010. The cost of construction has risen quite a fair bit since then. I think a fairly good A&A job will cost more now. There was a report by a forumer who engage an architect for about $100K. If you used her as the benchmark, the PE and submission fee + bringing in new telephone cable, Phase 3 Power supply, etc..., I think the sum could be in the region of $130K upwards. There is also a post put up by Victor that claimed he rebuild his house for $300K. You can try tracking Victor to pass you the builder's contact. So far, I have never come across a reliable contractor that can rebuild at $300K currently. For me, I spent about $40K for professional fees, including submission, PE, architect, CCTV monitoring of sewage pipe, bring in phase 3 power supply, telephone cable and SCV cable.

You may want to use electronic door locks where you can change the pin number or uses fingerprint recognition to open doors.

Is the system wired or wireless?

When the contractor climb up the roof, he would have a better idea of what needs to be changed. Otherwise, at the end, I suspect that you will be charged the total or almost the total sum for the timber change. A lot of them would prefer not to dirty themselves by going up to the roof since they can always charge you more for timber change later. The MOM regulation requires the contractor to put up scaffolding now and the contractor is right that it takes up another $4K. It is not uncommon to have wide variation to the prices for roof change.

The 1400 sq ft may not represent the whole roof because the roof can be made of part concrete and part tile. Agree with you that if one is just replacing the roof tile and some pieces of rafters, it should not cost too much. Sometimes the contractor provide free rafters if only a few are required. Before the work get started, the contractor would have climbed up the roof to survey the place.

If you are planning to demolish the entire roof and building a new one including putting in place new concrete structures to support a new roof, you will need to engage an engineer to help you. There are good reasons why some people do that. When I used concrete beams to support my roof, the engineer and I discussed about how it is going to be done, the materials used and the waterproofing method employed. After which, I worked with the foreman to consider the various practical aspect of fixing the structure of the roof so that it is lasting, will not leak and will not cause my house to become too hot during the day, allow for good distribution of water discharge when there is heavy storm and rain, look aesthetic from the outside, easy to do maintenance when I decide to utilise the roof in future, easy to install solar panels in future and also easy to do painting works on parts of the building that require workmen to climb up. There are really a fair bit of consideration in installing the roof and engineers' drawing cannot specific everything. What the drawing show is feasible on paper, there is much more knowledge in the practice. If you want the roof to really work, you have to be hands on and work with an experience foreman. The foreman also has to supervise the workers quality of work to ensure that you can have a safe roof that can last you easily 50 years without problems. Come 50 years, it should be easy to change the worn out tiles. Generally, if you are only changing the tiles on the roof, changing some worn out timber, it should not cost too much and will not need BCA's approval.

If you have hired the architect and has paid him a fat fee, you may want to get him to do the interior design for you. I know of architects who service the clients very well (eg. exterior design, interior design, accompany client to buy lighting, tiles, etc...) when he is paid full professional fees (usually $70,000 upwards) for construction of a terrace house/ Semi detached house/ bungalow. Cheers!

Thanks for sharing Information is useful for those who plan to rebuild their houses.

Hi all, I just bought a Hitachi fridge and there is an open water container behind the fridge. Somehow, the container is almost full of water and I recently noticed some mosquitoes in my house. I wonder if the mosquitoes are breeding in the open water container. Not sure if I can remove the water. Anybody knows whether mosquitoes can breed in the water container? My previous Toshiba and LG fridge don't seem to have this water container behind the fridge.

Wow.... that's a lot of money to pay for the architect . For the rest of the professionals, you may want to ask your architect for recommendation and do a competitive tender since you are already paying so much for the architect's fee. The BCA, SCDF, URA submission fee should add up to about or less than $10K even if you do erection of the house.

Hi Jason, Typically, the fire insurance policy doesn't cover contents and home owners have to get their own. The fire insurance that the bank make the home owner pay for is only to reinstate the premises to its condition before the fire takes place. The sum insured is the estimated cost of re-instating the building and not the market price of the building. In general, the premium for fire insurance of class one residential home doesn't cost much but the bank make a handsome commission out of the deal. This explains the reason for the high premium cost of fire insurance protection that is paid by the home owner. If the home owner choose to get the fire insurance directly from the insurer (still putting the bank as the beneficiary) and thereby avoiding the high premium on the fire insurance policy, the bank would lose out on earning the commission. Hence, the bank impose a penalty charge of $200 when the home owner insist on getting from another insurer to compensate for the loss of insurance commission. I was told that the commission earned by the bank for each deal can be in the region of 60% to 70% of the premium. Cheers!

Hi Polarlim, 12 m frontage is good for semi-detached. You probably can consider to set back from the side 3 to 3.5 metres and this leave you between 8 to 9 metres for the width of the house. I think this width is good enough for nice design. You may want to consider doing a small basement of about 1000 sqft to put your home shelter, a storeroom and if the place can be made airy, you could use it as a washing area for clothing and kitchen. This would free up some space for you on first level to have: (1) a server room for your internet, TV and telephone box (use that part of the space below the staircase) (2) allow you to construct a wider staircase so that your house will look more grand. You may want to consider installing a home lift too. (3) Give you the space to build a bigger granny's room so that it is more comfortable. You may want to build wider door for the granny's room and the attached toilet such that it is handicap friendly. You can also have a bigger hall and toilets on the first floor. For the second floor, you may want to construct (option a) 2 bigger bedrooms or (option b) 3 medium size bedrooms or (option c) 2 or 3 bedrooms with a small living area for people to congregate to watch TV with an area for common balcony so that it is cooler. Having an extra room (even if it is small) is useful for guests to stay over a day or two or just use for study room. If you need 3 rooms, it is useful to provide for 4. I build 7 rooms in my house when I need only 5. On the attic, you could maximize the space to construct a Master bedroom with toilet and open terrace. If the house has flat roof, you may want to construct it such that you can add a spiral staircase to assess the rooftop for you and your love one to watch the moon and stars in the evening. In short, your Masterbed room can become a mini penthouse with a build-in (a) study area, (b) walk-in wardrobe, © a small pantry with refrigerator, (d) an open balcony and (e) a roof garden assess internally from the attic You may want to re-consider air-conditioning the living room because a lot of people who air-con the living room shared with me that they seldom switch on the air-con for the living room because it is expensive and it takes quite long for the air-con to cool the living room because of its huge volume (ie I assume that you will have high ceiling for the first floor). I only air-conditioned my bedrooms. I agree with you that it is better to use quality materials for the construction. I think the materials that I used for my house construction is fairly good. According to my architect friend, my house is over resourced and built to last many centuries. For me, I think it is good if it can stand tall for 200 years. Some examples include using high grade cement on beams and pillars (similar grade of cement that was used for constructing home shelter), use of Cat6 cables even for connecting door bell, pile very deeply (ie pile up to 30 metres in depth where most of my neighbours didn't even do piling or pile something like 3 to 5 metres deep only). The soil quality is very good in my area but I chose to do deep piling so that the building is very secure. Others include stronger construction methods such that any part of the building including open balconies supported by cantilever can easily take 15 tons of weight, water proof the whole house including the first level flooring, etc... I wouldn't say that my house is built to extremely high quality in terms of construction because there are parts of it which I am still not very satisfied. Examples include no piling work is done on the fencing wall of my house (most people don't do piling except for senior political office holders who do piling on fencing wall for security reason). There is not enough thought that goes into the design of the house such that I still need some floor traps to remove excess water from rain. If the design is really good, it should be able to help me to recycle and filter the water efficiently without the use of too many floor traps. If you mean parquet for bedroom, I think it is okay. You may want to consider using Bamboo flooring. I am using parquet but I think bamboo flooring looks a lot more beautiful and classy. For stone finishing, you will have to make sure it matches your design. I use some stone finishing for external wall and chengai wood trellis within the house. I think chengai wood is more lasting and looks better than trying to use laminated plywood for decor.

Hi polarlim, I will share with you my experience based on the questions that you have posed. Land size 2800 sq ft - Single storey inter-terrace I would like to convert it into a 2.5 Storey Semi-D with open terrace as my neigbour is currently a corner terrace. 1.Could I have some advise on the minium budget i should set aside for the whole project including lighthing, air con and etc... 2800 sqft for intermediate terrace is a good size land. If your land is squarish and has a wide frontage (as opposed to narrow and long land or irregular shape land), there are creative ways to construct the place to make it very nice. You may not be able to make it into a complete corner house but it can be constructed much like it is semi detached. Near my place, there is one intermediate terrace that is constructed to look like a corner house. Budget wise, it depends on the materials you use to construct your place such as solid bricks, water proofing whole house, type of paint, complexity of your electrical and piping works, use of and type of piling, etc... Lighting is not expensive if you choose normal downlight or even LED lights. Air-conditioning can add up to quite a sum if you plan to air-condition the whole house. According to some forumers who choose designer architect, I think they claimed that it cost them $1.2 million to construct. I have also heard of people who construct their terrace house for between $1.5 million to $2 million. There are also those who claimed to have constructed their house for less than $500K. If your requirements are not too high, I think a more realistic budget is between $650K to $900K. 2. How long does it take to reconstruct the house. Construction takes about 1 year, if you are tearing down everything and rebuilding from scratch. 3. Would like to know who should i go about kicking start this? Cold call on the architect or builder or can i sent them email and wait for them to reply, will they? You can start by being clear about your needs such as the number of rooms needed, the type of funishing required, whether you want to air-conditioned the whole house, whether you want to have a swimming pool, whether you want to have water proofing for the whole house, etc.. Once you are clearer with your own needs, you can call for architects and builders to give you quotation based on your needs. These architects and builders can be sourced from contacts in forum, around your neighbourhood, etc... The architects and builders will be more willing to work with you if they sense that you are clear with your needs and have set aside a reasonable budget for the construction. 4. Can recommend architect or builder that any existing member used and found that their workmanship are good. These terrace houses are usually build by small time builders/ architects. Depending on your needs, each builder is probably suitable for particular segments of the market such as low cost and low quality, high cost and high quality, low cost and medium quality, high cost and low quality, etc... Hard to find low cost and high quality but I think there are tons of high cost and low quality. By quality, I mean the build quality and design of your house. This is related to constractors using inferior quality materials such as hollow bricks, lousy cement, minimum rebar to meet the building standards set by authorities, lots of drains, lots of pillars around the house, etc... 5. Understand that there is construction loan available, but it is for short term, so what to do after construction? Have to refinance? You can take construction loan first and then when the construction is completed, convert the construction loan as part of your housing loan. There are many mortgage consultants out there who could help you. You may want to check with your exisiting mortgage loan lender bank first. Thanks in advance for reading and replying me.... You are welcome. It is always to a pleasure to know of forumers who wish to build their own home for their family. Cheers!

I have just TOP recently and using sliding gate. Nothing was mentioned on strobe light and limiter. My gate is just normal sliding gate.

1) Possibility of reducing cost to around $260K for this extend of work? I do not know the extend of work. It is not uncommon for people to spend $400K to $600K on A&A. I know of someone who spent $900K on A&A too. Hence, $360K+ don't seem unreasonable. If you wish for forumers to give you more advice, you may want to detail the itemized works and costing. 2) Any reviews on these 2 contractors: Builders Point and Kim Sing? Never heard of these 2 firms. There are many small time builders. Get to see some of their past works and talk to the owners for reference check before deciding. 3) Any experience of variation orders during construction; ie. contractors request for more money due to some situation during construction etc. Need to keep budget in check. Quite common for VO during construction when you add additional power point, lighting point, want more taps, want higher class sanitaryware, or evern variation to the design, etc... 4) If there is no architect, who inspects the work progress? Do you go down regularly etc? There should be an architect to sign off. In your case, did your contractor inform you that there is no architect?

Agree Quality means different things for different pple. What I meant was quality of construction more than quality of furnishing eg. water proofing the whole house, using only solid bricks, using high quality paint, using high quality cement, etc.. I think Kardtoon house is very beautiful. Pass by once but did not get in to see.

Hi Sally, Happy CNY. Sure, we can chat and you are free to visit me and see my place. I have just recently constructed my house. Already PM you my contact details. I think $600K for all cost inclusive (ie include submission fees, external works, GST, sanitaryware, wardrobe, LED lightings, CAT6 enabled for whole house, etc..) for 3.5 storey intermediate terrace house is a difficult figure to work with as at current prices. My estimate that the actual cost of construction plus partially furnishing such as wardrobe, LED lighting, KDK fans, CAT6 enabled etc.. ( you buy your own electrical appliances, sofa, dinning table, beds, etc personal items..) should cost around $700K to $750K (all hidden cost added). If you are looking at a $100K reduction, you may have to sacrifice one level such that the house become 2.5 storey. I am talking about a properly built strong house using quality construction materials. Cheers!

Hi Kelvin, Cong Xi Fa Cai, Happy CNY. I think the price you are paying to rebuild your house is competitive. What is the ceiling height for your basement? I was quoted $120K for the construction of a basement with 1000 sqft space, 2 toilets with bath, a device to suck out warm air, air-conditioner and I would be able to put the home shelter at the basement area. Decided against it. Now, I think the cost to construct a similar basement would be higher. Your price of $800K excluding 7% GST to construct 4,500 sqft of built up is fairly competitive. How do your contractor compute the built up space? Is it all areas including your balcony, bay window, planter box, RC ledge, car pouch, etc...? Increasingly, I noticed that my neighbours who are beginning to construct their houses tend to pay prices in the range of $700K upwards even for intermediate terrace with land size of less than 2000 sqft. I think it is a bit tight to budget $6 psf for marble and $3 psf for homogeneous tiles. I didn't use marble for my house construction. For homogeneous tiles, I paid about $5 psf inclusive of GST and some of the more designer type of homogeneous tiles cost me $15 psf. In addition, I used some feature wall stone for the exterior and granite for interior. Can't remember the exact price I paid, I think feature wall tile is about $28 psf and a slab of black galaxy granite is about $1000. I used about 7 slabs of black galaxy granite for vanity top in toilets, kitchen top and bar top counter. I think the granite I used for my flooring is cheaper, cost around $10 psf. I believe good quality fine marble cut from bigger slabs of marble cost much more than granite. Unless you have special lobang to get the tiles cheaply, you may want to budget extra for the purchase of tiles. Yoongf is right, you may want to budget an extra $100K for the furnishing. Carpentry works, Chengai wood features in some places, some furniture such as sofa, dining table etc.., sanitaryware, lighting, fans, air-conditioner (if this is not included), CAT6 terminals in every room and living area, extra power points so that you have more flexibility, electrical appliances, LED lighting (optional but good to have), landscaping, etc... I believe false ceiling should be included in your contract.

Hi Gong, Basement construction typically cost more than putting up another level. The cost of constructing the basement is dependent on a few factors such as whether there is any sewage pipe from your neighbours' house that run across to your house, the size of the basement, the depth of your basement and other technical specifications. I don't think it make much difference in terms of cost when constructing a basement on a ground that is slightly lower than your neighbour's house. My estimate of an additional basement construction alone can cost an additional between $120K to $250K for about 1000 sq ft of space. The total cost excluding furnishing for constructing a decently build 2.5 storey house without basement that yield about 3000 + sq ft of built up space can range from anything like $600K to $700K. If you add basement, the cost estimates could be in the region of $720K to $950K. In constructing a new house, I don't believe in going for complete basic. Certain things you can save and there are certain items that one should not cut from the wish list. Examples of items that can be save are: 1. Use Indonesian Teak Parquet instead of Burmese Teak Parquet or bamboo flooring 2. Use of lesser windows (to reduce heat in the house, one can reduce the size of windows esp if your house is a corner terrace/ semi detached) 3. Point 3 is related to point 2 - the reduced window size also mean that one will use less curtain materials. 4. Use a turnkey builder instead of engaging an architect separately to manage the project. If you have further questions, you can pm me your hp and we can chat. I have just constructed my place and my memory is still fresh on what I have done and what are the things I feel are mistakes in construction.