3Cube

Strongly advice in your case for Semi D, spend money on Professional Engineer is more than enough. The PE should be able to get an Architect (ie: minimised fees) to endorse for Authorities' submission. The layout you can give input of your requirements to the PE or interior designer. This way you save a lot on consultant fees & all your budget is properly used (ie: no wastage, everyone actually does work for the money paid). Unless you are budgeting anywhere exceeding 2 million for your job (which I doubt so) then go for the full team of consultants. The QS & M&E will be laughing all the way to their bank.... (Easy money for them)

Generally, if you are building semi-d or terrace, M&E Consultant is unnecessary as the Licensed Electrician, Licensed Plumber / Gas, Air con sub contractor can double up for authoritirs' submission requirement M&E Consultant is generally needed for large Commercial job like shopping complex Government Building where M&E is more complicated.

What you want is basically increase of build-in floor area which means added structural floors, which in turn means added loading on the current foundation. High propability that upgrade / addition of foundation is a must. You people should understand extension of this nature is not like Lego where you can add or remove without thinking of overall foundation support.

Google for pivot door & look under google shopping tab. Just get the pivot ironmongery & get your door contractor or handyman services to install.

In addition to my last post, you should note on the following: If your job is going thru the tender bidding process, The section for piling will contain provisional penetration length in order to establish the total amount. This amount will be subjected to variation order to adjust for actual pile penetration record as witness & endorse by the RTO (Resident / Registered Technical Officer, previously also known as Clerk of Works). The provisional length is to enable completeness & uniformity of all competing bids for fair comparison during the tender bidding stage.

I feel the need to clarify in case anyone was comparing cost & to avoid misconception. The price for piling varies due to different land / soil / earth condition. This also depends on the actual driven penetration depth. Hence if anyone is comparing cost, you should be looking at the rate per m (also rates for mobilization, etc) instead of overall total amount of the piling item. Usually piling works contractor depend on the bore log of soil report, site location's conditions, pile sizes & the piling plan to work out the rates.

Structurally speaking, all building must have foundation. The sub-catagories under foundation type are Pile Cap (for caping a pile & facilitate load transfer), Footing (mostly not capping any piles but sometime, depending on soil condition, may cap Bakau Piles). Of course things like reinforced concrete pile are part of the foundation (by definition structural element under the building embedded in earth / soil) What I'm stating here is just a simplified explaination for laymen's understanding. Bakau pile are basically timber in nature (or Bakau tree trunks to help you understand visually). It is installed either laying horizontally (usually in the case of drains, culverts laid parallel to lenth of drain or culvert) or vertically driven into the soil. Just google to see how Bakau pile looks like. I would strongly urge you to check with a structural Engineer on contents of my post. I maintain my content in my previous post on this thread is true, based on the numerous project I've personal involved over 20+ years. Please understand it is simplify as I don't meant the post as a lecture but more of general knowledge to help laymen's visualisation. Sort of a non-numerical statistical summary. In your post as attached, you mention raft foundation. Basic analogy, Raft foundation is like visually the building is a boat on water (soil) where the raft foundation is like the hull (base) of the boat in direct contact with the water (soil). I speculate this is why it's named as "raft". This is design / use to ensure even settlement of building on the earth / soil.

Plate Loading Test is basically stacking of huge stones on top of the pile position to be tested. The Stones is meant to simulate the designed bearing load for the particular pile to check the pile's effectiveness to bear the load. This is usually carried out for big, tall commercial project such as production factories, skyscraper, HDB flats. Usually for landed residential such as terrace, bungalows, semi-detached house, a PDA (Pile Dynamic Analysis) test would suffice most of the time. Such Plate Loading Test would usually be required if there are some irregularity with the pile's penetration depth, PDA results, etc.

I'm sorry if you feel that way. But I'm just stating the facts. You are most welcome to dispute my post.

There should not be any such contractor. These are not generic equipments or materials like cement, bricks & the likes. This is the gist of free market economy. If you invent or is a manufacturer of something proprietary, you can basically charge anything & be rich!!! Think logically!! A branded equipment usually has proprietary parts made by that particular brand. If there indeed were third party contractor, how would these company be able to earn any profit if they can only buy the parts from the brand. It is also likely the schematics are proprietary & you risk messing up the system, along with any software safety features, which renders the lift unsafe to use. This is applicable as with all mechanical equipment. Even if there are such "authorized" contractor, the price; logically, would not deviates a lot. Think PROPRIETARY then you'll hopefully understand. Also, let this be a fair warning to all future potential lift owner. Don't just look at the installation cost & buy the cheapest. Ask about the maintenance aspects.

The Vent is meant for air to flow into the shelter. Usually position on top of the steel door. I've constructed one house with a basement that consist of a bomb shelter, Entertainment room, Maid's Room & an extra room. Water table is non-issue as the basement floor / walls concrete were mixed with waterproofing additive chemical & another layers of waterproofing were applied on external basement wall's surface before backfilling of earth is done. I've also designed another property with a basement that has rear, left & right walls. The front wall was omitted to serve as vehicle's access (ie: carpark entrance.) In such cases. I position the bomb shelter in the rear of the "basement" & allocated a lot of softscape design by working with a landscape architect to minimize / neutralize vehicular smoke.

A basement shelter frees up option / space in your 1st storey for other purposes (ie: space planning for living room, dinning room, kitchen, etc). Not to mention the asthetacical appeal benefits as some people may feel the steel door or the steel vent opening unsightly. You also don't have to based your interior design around the shelter's unsightly doors, vent, etc If you have the budget, I strongly encourage it. You can have one of the shelter's walls to double up as part of basement wall. You should be aware of the requirement by Civil Defense on the internal floor clearance area & the volume in relation to type of housing / occupant's number. Google the "Civil Defense bomb shelter handbook" & download it for additional information.

My opinion on Performance Bond: This is the assurance given to the employer (ie: property owner). In my past experience, there are numerous cases where owner runs out of budget & fails to pay which in turn affects the project cashflow & the contractor becomes the financier instead. This almost always ends in messy court proceeding. It's a double edge sword. In most of my own company's turnkey job, the alternative way to assure the owner can be to propose a higher retention sum in lieu of the Performance Bond. This way, the builder do not need to set aside capital for collateral with the Insurer to secure the bond. The added retention on progressive completed works serve as assurance for the owner. This ensure all finance are fully focus on procuring the materials & labors to complete the works in timely manner.

Clarification on Retention Sum" There is a limit on this. The mechanism is as follows: 1) Every monthly payment, Ten percent is deducted from the accumilative total claim. 2) When the deducted amount reach the limits as spelled out in the SIA contract's appendix, no further deduction will be made. Example" Assume Contract Sum: $1 Million Contract Period: 10 months Retention: 10% (Limited to 5% of Contract) 1st Progress Payment: Accumilative Claim: $100,000.00 Retention: $10,000.00 !st Claim Payment: $90,000.00 3rd Progressive Payment: Accumilative Claim: $330,000.00 Retention: $33,000.00 Less: Claim Paid to date: $200,000.00 3rd Claim Payment: $97,000.00 5th Progressive Payment: Accumilative Claim: $600,000.00 Retention: $50,000.00 (Limit of Retention) Less: Claim Paid to date: $400,000.00 3rd Claim Payment: $150,000.00 In the example, The $50K will apply to all claim from 5th Claim onwards until the final account. Half of this will be release upon TOP completion with final half upon DLP (Contractually known as Defects Liabilities Period as spelled out Appendix in SIA Conditions of Contract)

Most of the time, the 3rd Parties Liabilities clauses in the Contractor's All Risk Insurance Policy (to be procure by the builders before contract commencement) will apply in this scenario. Say the cost of the repair as $X. The Excess in the insurance is $Y. The builder will claim from the insurance company $X - $Y. If the repair cost is less than the Insurance Excess, then the builder will do the repair themself.