Ks Toh
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Everything posted by Ks Toh
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This is the waterproofing contractor I used to repair the leaking roof, inter-floor water seepage and spalling concrete problems. Not too bad.
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Yes, I am glad that I have been able to resolve the water seepage & leakage issues. At least for the time being. There is already some very minor leak again at the yard roof but I will monitor a while longer before reporting to the contractor.
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You and I had the same idea. I don't understand why some workers do not use their brains, especially since you marked the location. In my case, I always make it a point to stick a masking tape horizontally across the desired location and mark out in block letters: TOWEL RACK HERE. I also have a rack similarly installed just above the top of my glass door. See here. The glass door swings out, but I did it just in case some user swings it in. As a matter of fact, it is now being used swinging in.
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I can't recall but is it standard for faucet sets to come with the flexible hose? I thought the flexible hose are standard hoses. Anyway, I think the problem is not in the L copper elbow but the way the plumber installed the hose. I think the hose is twisted when he fastened it.
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If price difference is not too great and your air-con ledge / power supply allows you to put two compressors, from my experience 2 in 1 is definitely better. 1. No matter what they claim, I find multi-split systems not very good at cooling the rooms. 2. Again, no matter what they claim, I did not find multi-split systems saving me much electricity. Not sure why. My theory is that for multi-split, you have a much larger compressor, and so even if you switch on only one blower unit, the whole compressor has to work. True, they claim to have some sort of electronics that will step down the energy consumption when you turn on only one blower, but I am not sure how well that works. 3. Air-cons do break down once in a while. In a system 4, you will be completely without air-con. In System 2, you still can use 2 of the rooms. 4. When one of your air-con breaks down beyond repair, you will be thankful you need only change two rooms. Mitsubishi is one of the tried and tested brands. You cannot go wrong. However, when comparing specifications and prices, do note that there are two different bands: Mitsubishi Electric and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. For more info, you can read here.
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These were the repairs the contractor quoted me: Unfortunately, I was not around to document the repair process. But i found this HDB video which may be useful. Area now looks as good as new!
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Spalling Concrete One day, a part of the staircase ceiling decided to start falling off. I thought it was due to water seepage but the place was dry. Then I thought someone knocked a ladder or some hard object against it. But the contractor who came told me it was spalling concrete. I have no idea how it was caused.
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The grouting material travelled through the cracks and started coming out of various other cracks in the ceiling. They also travelled up to the drainage outlet in the upstairs toilet and came out of a crack line in the PVC down pipe. The false ceiling was then covered up and repainted. I hope the repair is effective.
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A hand pump was used to pump the grouting material through the injection ports into the ceiling.
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As my upstairs toilet was just newly renovated, it did not make sense to hack away the toilet floor. Instead, the water-proofing was done by injecting De Neef polyurethane grout upwards into the floor slab. First, the false ceiling was cut in several places. Then holes were drilled at the leaking areas to insert some kind of injection port.
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The contractor quoted the following repairs: I learnt quite a bit from this contractor. He did a quick drawing for me to show that for the toilet floor, there should be a first layer of tiles/marble, followed by a porous cement/sand screed, then the water-proof membrane which sits just above the hard concrete floor slab. I had thought that the water-proofing is done somewhere just below the tiles, to prevent the water from penetrating into the floor, but he said no. He said many contractors just hack away the tiles to do the water-proofing but this is wrong. He says the correct way is to hack away not just the tiles but also the cement/sand screed all the way to the hard concrete. He further explained that water is bound to seep between the tiles into the cement/sand screed. But this layer is porous and meant to allow the water to flow to the floor trap. And that is why if you look at the floor trap closely, the sides of the first few cm of the down pipe are very rough, made up of cement/sand screed only. It is only further down that the sides are smooth PVC. If the sides of your down pipe are smooth all the way from the opening to down below, it looks really nice but it is wrong! I also came across a HDB video clip on inter-floor seepage repairs. The process is similar to what my contractor described.
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Unfortunately, I face such a problem. Water stains started to appear on the false ceiling of my daughter's room. I thought the water was coming from the air-con ledge but the water-proofing contractor investigated and informed me that the water seepage was from my master bedroom toilet, which was directly above her room. When we opened up the false ceiling, the following could be seen at the ceiling:
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Inter-Floor Water Seepage Inter-floor water seepage is a common problem, especially in older properties. The main cause is the breakdown of the water-proof membrane in the floor slab due to wear and tear over time. In HDB properties, you report such problems to the HDB and they will point out that: So, the general position for HDB flats is that both the upper and lower floor units share 50/50. However, I have come across cases where under a certain scheme, the sharing is as follows: HDB 50% Upstairs 25% Downstairs 25% In private condominiums, you report such problems to the Management Corporation and they should assist you to resolve the problem. The apportionment will have to depend on the facts of each case. However, the starting position under the law is that the upstairs unit is presumed liable unless he can prove otherwise: So, generally speaking, in a private condominium, the upstairs unit will have to bear most if not all of the repair costs. However, in a landed property, you are on your own. Upstairs and downstairs all belong to you.
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Agree with you. Apart from viewing from impossible angles, the areas and spaces are generally exaggerated and shown to be larger than actual. A toilet can look so big that it can accommodate a large size tub with extra space for you to dance around but in reality, it is already a squeeze with a small tub and you have problems opening the toilet door! Even in this RT forum, I see many 3D drawings quite different from the actual outcome. But 3D drawings may be useful to those who otherwise cannot visualise. But need to remember these are like show flats and artist's impressions.
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Yes, your information is correct. However, do note that the telephone cabling may not be your ideal network cabling. For example, for network cabling, you may want to have your distribution point in your study, and for all your network cables to start there. But for telephone wires, I think they normally start from the db box outside your unit? It may not be the ideal location for you to put all your routers, switches and other devices. However, if your OpenNet TP is there and you just want wired internet access to the rooms, yes converting the telephone cables to network cabling is the easiest, fastest and cheapest way to go. For more info, you can read here: http://www.renotalk.com/forum/topic/62505-top-kew-drive/?p=835957 or Mavicaste's blog for a more complicated network.
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This was the Davco material I saw the contractor using: He also helped me patch up a leak into my hall from the air con trunking area. If you are staying in an HDB flat, you probably have no such worries. If there is any leak, you just call the HDB or Town Council. If you are staying in a private condominium, I guess you have to call the Management Corporation. But if you are staying in a landed property, you are on your own.
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For the yard roof, I was quoted a substantial sum to replace the entire roof. But this time, repairs were possible as I could access the roof from my 2nd level room. So, I chose to repair rather than replace, at a substantially lower cost. The water leakage was apparently from the polycarbonate joint termination against the wall. For the kitchen, the water was apparently coming in from some electrical wire casing on the RC ledge just outside the kitchen. The contractor quoted the following repairs, Surface Preparation (Item 1) followed by Waterproofing Works (Item 2):
