arowana

hahaha. you pay 45k means over liao. If you don't control the payments, you will always be at the mercy of the contractors.

kitchen counter tops always best to go for natural stones. Can take hot pots and will not discolor over time.

My tiles are always Made in China tiles so far. But for my next house. I'm planning to go for non-homo tiles like marble or granite etc. If you are willing to spend more on tiles, might be worth going for better material ones. If you still think it's better to stick to homo tiles for convenience of cleaning, then i would also suggest get the best quality made in china tiles.

Dear all, I wanted to ask for more feedback on design and build contractors who specialized in landed property. This is not about general contractors. Just in case some people are not sure, here are some notes about D&B contractors - Only contract with 1 company to do the whole package of A&A/recon/rebuild for you from consultation, design, construction etc. - They usually also work with limited number of templates for the house - Cost is cheaper than doing the other route which is having separate contracts with the Architect, general contractor, PE, QS etc - Time from start to finish is also faster - Still does offer some level of customization within the templates. - Biggest cons are limited designs and no truly competitive tender system I have looked through this website and searched online. I so far can find only 2 names. The rest do not have design and build construction for landed housing as their main business hence i didn't mention them. - Meridian Homes - Nic& Wes Builders Appreciate any other names and feedback and experience if possible. Would appreciate if i can get response only from actual home owners and not marketeers of the company so as to keep the discussion authentic. Thx

I learnt that plot ratio doesn't matter for landed housing. Only floor height n overall restriction on number of floors matter. And of course the min setbacks for the front, back n side.

Just get the manual version. For automatic, the sensor can become insensitive after awhile

Dear all, Not sure if you all notice this also. I see many property listings where the plot ratio rule is not adhered to. Granted i'm not sure exactly of the official plot ratios of all the listings on URA website but assuming we use a base ratio of 1.4. Most listings have overshot this number by quite abit in terms of their GFA built up. So is their current house illegally reconstructed/rebuilt? Or am i missing something here? Is the plot ratio a strict rule which BCA will check and follow? Am refering for regular landed housing, not strata titled landed. Thx,

Dear Friends, Need your feedback in terms of what is the average and advisable % of combined income used to service home loan. We are planning our next home purchase of a pte property. We are intending to pay up our existing HDB loan first before buying a pte property and are working out the numbers based on how much monthly cash we should top up to service the home loan. Assuming we have max CPF OA monthly contribution of $1150 x 2 = $2300, and out combined gross salary is about $20k, we are evaluating how much monthly should we top up in cash to service the 30yrs home loan. Our jobs are relatively stable. Thx

hey all, what's the cost for a tear down and rebuild for 7000sqf approximately for total builtup? Total land would be about 5000sqf I was hearing the costs is around $300psf on average. Does that make sense?

Hi all, As above. Brand new in box and unopened. Selling for $100. Just take and go at Telok Blangah Heights. Drop me a msg at 85185319 as i hardly check here. Cheers.

pinkbean, if you see my other posts, you'll realise i mention 1 common but very important point. Payment plans. When all of us home owners manage this better, we wouldn't hear anymore of such problems. Your ID can behave like this to you because your balls are in her hands (Sorry if i'm crude, but this gives u an idea rite?). You have paid out too much, too fast for too little corresponding work to be done. It's like your boss can shout at you to do your work but u can never repeat that to your boss because your boss can fire you anytime but u can't fire the boss. In reno contracts, it's all about who has the power, you or the ID/contractor. I've heard enough stories to come to the conclusion that it's better for the home owner to have more power in this case. When you have not paid for what has not been done, your ID will be nicer to you mostly, do work quickly on time so as to get paid. Simple. I agree that if you have a good contractor/ID, you can pay alil bit in advance. It's fine... sort of to give and take also and respect the client-contractor relationship. The important thing is that the power balance always tilts in your favor. If your ID/contractor- does a bad job? demand a proper job is slow in his work? demand he move faster works fast and keeps u updated constantly? pay him abit more in advance... You can only do the above when the power balance tips in your favor and the power balance can only tip in your favor when you control the payment plans and pay only after work is done. It's not about how reputable the company is, it's not about how good and seemingly honest and innocent looking your ID/contractor is, it's not about how much of a good feeling you have with your ID/contractor. IT's ultimately about the payment plan. It's because ultimately you can always threaten as a last resort to get rid of your ID/contractor and change him provided there's a reasonable breach in contract. Oh yeah, general contractors only pay their sub-contractors after job is done, sometimes on credit somemore! so if they can do it, why can't you demand that from the contractor?

simple lor.. u dun pay last bit.. tell them do a good job then case can close. they definitely have to clean all those stains and dirt especially when related to the work like paint marks, grouting fines, cement patches etc..

Hhaahahahahha that's what most pple think. Use id doesnt mean he'll coordinate everything swee swee for u. Go read this forum fully, got tons of horror stories from id n contractor alike. Using id or contractor, one will still need to continuously check on progress. U only r paying more for id becoz he's able to better coordinate the design element n choice of materials. That really is it. N yes most ids got very good sales talk

sigh.. another problem like this... It can only be rectified when people learn to control the payment plan. Only pay what has been done or pay partly in advance abit only. When one controls the money, then the power balance is tipped in your favour. I've only left 2 pieces of carpentry to finish fully (i.e. they are already being built halfway as of now) - tv feature wall and dining room storage seating cushion bench. Then just touch up on painting at those injured spots and I'll only be paying the 2nd last 15% today after going to see my place again. I'll pay the last 15% after ensuring all defects are rectified and handover by early next week. Contractors/IDs will always want us to pay up as much as possible, we always want to pay as little upfront as possible. It's about negotiations that allows both parties to be satisfied with the payment plan and an acceptable timeline handover date. My contractor was willing to accomodate our payment plan as we were a recommendation from his preivous customer and we told him we are wary of the renovation industry due to all the horror stories. So he was relaxed about it. Will set up a T-blog and share my contractor when all is completed..

is there any breakdown of the quote?

this is how mine looks like.. lights are supposed to be ware white color (doesn't show in picture). SMD5050 higher grade (brighter) LED than conventional SMD5050. Each LED is producing about 16Lm/LED, compared to normal 12Lm. I dun have any apparatus to measure but I put both typs of leds side by side and light it up. There's a difference for sure. Total length of the light strips are 30-35m.

Let u know that i did a complete reno of 52k plus on my 1300sqf hdb. Hack all floors. All walls. Electrical, false ceiling all do etc. Agree urs is condo so there's tighter time frames for hacking, shorter wroking hrs are allowed etc n urs is 1800 sqf. But still, your price is way too exp. Coming back from aus, the contractor must hv seen u to be a ripe carrot for chopping. Also u hv not settled the real final price inclusive of discount before signing contract n starting work. The saying 'will take care of you because u r my fren's fren' is rubbish in such situations and all forms of biz. Only the mafia can say that and mean it. When it comes to biz, best for everything to be in black n white. On the conception of workmanship, i can only say a contractor is as good as his sub contractors bcoz the contractor himself is not going to do all the work outside there. He'll be subcontracting parts of the work to diff craftsmen outside there - tiler, carpenter, ceiling specialist, electrician, plumber. The skill of the contractor is in selecting the best team n communicating n managing everyone. Yes i will pay for that premium but it has to be reasonable. Unfortunately, u didnt do enough homework to check. Try to ask for 20% discount at least. U hv been chopped severely. I dun need to disect ur quote in detail. One look can see certain items hv been charged dble.

Erwin, what you stated is correct. There comes more disadvantages of using LED... You can tell that lighting guy he definitely doesn't know his stuff. To measure brightness in terms of lumens by itself is useless, you need to measure it in terms of Efficacy Ratio - Lumens/Watts. Basically how much light a light source can produce using the lowest amount of energy. LED the best available out there for our kind of commercial lighting is 65-70Lum/W. Fluorescent T5 is 100Lum/W for the 4ft long models. There is clearly no way of competing unless you only need a bit of lighting at each point but need it to be stretched over a longer area. Then LED strips can come into the picture. Transformers best not to spoil, spoil liao must replace.. **** exp!

er... stainless steel?

for cove lighting.. u mean T5 lighting? Go for T5, still the best for cove lighting. There's an existing thread on this in Electricals section.. go search for it..

what one can do is create a gantt chart and layout what plans or needs to be done week on week. Layout clearly what will need to be provided by you also so that there's no misunderstanding of lateness in delivery. GEnerally 5 room takes about 2 months there about. More carpentry will need more time. Because a contractor usually uses 1 carpenter for all the carpentry work also. So the carpenter can only do the carpentry work one by one, it wouldnt happen consecutively. I'm running into my 2.5months of delivery and trying not to rush my contractor too much but understand that i've quite alot of carpentry so this is not to be unexpected. Putting a late delivery clause will only make the contractor give you a much later delivery handover or doing a rushed job which nobody really wants also.

what one can do is create a gantt chart and layout what plans or needs to be done week on week. Layout clearly what will need to be provided by you also so that there's no misunderstanding of lateness in delivery. GEnerally 5 room takes about 2 months there about. More carpentry will need more time. Because a contractor usually uses 1 carpenter for all the carpentry work also. So the carpenter can only do the carpentry work one by one, it wouldnt happen consecutively. I'm running into my 2.5months of delivery and trying not to rush my contractor too much but understand that i've quite alot of carpentry so this is not to be unexpected. Putting a late delivery clause will only make the contractor give you a much later delivery handover or doing a rushed job which nobody really wants also.

sorry man.. if u made such a mistake... you have to live with it. No black and white. You could have insisted on seeing the contract first before starting anything. There's no such thing as 'friends' in business. Keep frens and work separate.

yes you can cut the LED if you do not require the full length. You should go to www.dealextreme.com it's cheaper. If you want to use it more for cove lighting, get those that are single color only. The RGB - changing color kind is cute and nice but more for decorative effect, because the color is not truly representative of the actual color. There are also 2 main kinds of LED diodes being sold in the market outside there - 3528smd and 5050smd. 3528smd is a dimmer version and only consumes 0.08W of energy whilst the 5050smd consumes 0.24W/LED.of course more energy consumed, the brighter it would be. Good luck..

now you feel like you are being squeezed down there. But how much have you already paid up? Since you sign already, then no choice lor. you have to honor.