iltheas

hi zanie98. to be honest, if you were to post earlier, i think we would still have signed up with mr tan. see, he came across as a nice uncle type, who convinced us that he will monitor every 2 days or so. we asked a straight question, will he supervise? he said, yes, he will, every 2 days or so. we were looking for a hands-on contractor who will supervise his workers. and instead, we got a salesman. he never come to our place. well, he does, but i have to call him every single day to make him come once. i think in total, he only came to our place less than 5 times.

this is the hole for the water pipe from the basin. look at that. the guy didn't even bother to at least make it smooth notice that the pipe is slanted? notice that i didn't complain about it? that's because after all the other glaring workmanship, the pipe is nothing at all. while i'm at it, attached is the picture of the cultured marble area between the basin and the cabinet. notice how the cabinet is pasted to the marble? notice the white cement that's supposed to seal the gap? oh, if you see really closely, you will see a white line across the cultured marble itself. this is because the cultured marble was too short. wrong measurement, so they cut too much, and so the basin can't sit on it. they have to paste a small piece to increase the height of the marble itself by 1 inch, just so the basin can be installed. they were going to paste a pink marble (notice that the colour of my marble is coffee) when my wife noticed it and asked them to paste the same colour. the fact that we have to tell them to do so, what does that tell you? we really have lots and lots and lots of pictures of other defects. we're not showing them here yet as we're still hoping that it will be rectified. if they are not rectified, i will post them here. i'm still giving him a chance.

hi summerholiday, i'll take your painter anytime i'm attaching the pictures of my master toilet's vanity top/cabinet. look at them, looks nice isn't it? now, after the nice external, we open the cabinet door, and we see this!! how pissed off would you be? see what i mean about he can, but he doesn't want to? or maybe, can't be bothered at all?

hi lawry, nice pic how long did it take you to do that? i dunno about a plus or not, my wife's the one who saw them. i was at work. hi yoongf, i think i got you, especially the SOP part. but my concern is still, is it normal to have only a bit of the glass in the frame? what you're saying is that, the glass will always be undersized, and will not touch the h metal or the wall directly. most likely, there will still be some gap. which is fine, if quite a big chunk of the glass is inside the frame. but my glass is like barely held by the frame like that. maybe need to put here the exact measurement of the glass that is inside the frame? looking at lawry's pic, i think at least his glass is inserted a bit deeper than mine.

Hi SK, if you feel satisfied with Mr Tan's work, then good for you. Either Mr Tan really make 'nice nice' for you or you're not picky like us and can tolerate mistakes more than we do. But for the amount of money I'm paying him, he should have done a much better job!! Don't get me wrong, as I said, the carpenter did do the external part well. It's only the internal part that he doesn't care. He CAN do, but he DOESN'T WANT to. That's what I'm trying to say. I will try to post some more pics later to show you what I mean, and then, maybe, you'll understand why I said that. And before you say about touching up or Mr Tan doing something about it, he implied to me on the phone that he's NOT gonna do anything about it. That's how Mr Tan is to us. I dunno whether we can argue with him to change his mind, we'll see and will keep you updated. Again, he treats you nicely us normally, or he treats you normally us badly. I need other ppl who's using Mr Tan to comment before I can decide.

Was? Meaning, no longer? And please define 'a lot' . I dunno if mine vibrates a lot or not, later test it when I'm home (eating snake now lol ). It does vibrate/shake, but I thought it's normal as it is frameless.

Hi yoongf, yup, you're right, there's a water pipe below that goes thru the frame. I see what you mean about the H profile metal strip. But shouldn't the glass at least reach that said metal strip? Are you saying that the metal frame is too thin? So in addition to the glass being cut too small (so only a bit of it are actually in the frame), the frame is too thin too??

Hi all, just wondering. Attached is the picture of my frameless shower screen. I feel that the tempered glass is not secure at all as the part of the glass that is 'held' by the side frame (the one that holds the glass to the wall) is too short. What do you think? Any expert here can give comments? Oh, the top of the frame is not covered as all. Is this normal? As for the part of the glass in the frame, shouldn't it be deeper? Thanks.

I guess my renovation is almost finished. To anyone who even consider of engaging Mr Tan, I would advise you NOT to. The only workmanship that I find good is the tilings. Problem: 1) Delay delay and delay. Even the carpenter made a remark that all the reno is being delayed. Means he's delaying EVERYONE, not just ours. Probably we're supposed to feel better as we're not the only sucker out there. 2) Their work is not systematic at all. It's like, whichever worker is free, they'll come and do something. It doesn't matter if the step is illogical (such as flooring before painting). Now my laminated floor is done, and the workers have to walk in and out to enter the bathroom to do the cabinet, shower screen, etc. 3) Carpentry looks ok from outside, but inside is crappy like ****. It's like, the carpenter feels that since the outside is good, inside doesn't matter at all. 4) Dunno whether the painter is his own painter. At first he seems to paint carefully. The end part though, he can't seem to be bothered, and anyhow paint. Sometimes the painter paints, sometimes the general workers paint, which is worse. Time to go back? They just go back. Didn't even bother to close the tin. The worker even lied to my wife, saying that the door has been painted 2 coat eventhough my wife notice that they've only painted one coat. My wife actually took the tin and did the touch up herself. 5) Our toilet's brand is Baron. Supplied by him of course. The button is often stuck in the flushing mode. It happens often enough that it's getting annoying. SK, you said you have to change the toilet bowl, what's wrong with yours? 6) His materials is EXPENSIVE!! 1-gang light switch, he's charging us $15, and the quality is much much lousier compared to those we can get in HomeFix, and HomeFix is only $5! I admit, this one is my own fault. This is additional stuff, not in the contract originally. Therefore, by the time we know that he's charging so much, it was too late. We wouldn't mind if the quality is the same or maybe better, but with such crappy quality?? Attached are the pics: Above is our toilet cabinet. Notice how rough the edges are near the pipe? I think I can do a much better job myself. This one is interesting. We did a shoe rack at the entrance. The shoe rack covers that main electrical point (whatever you call it). The carpenter had to cut a hole to accomodate the box, and just like the cabinet in our toilet, the carpenter didn't bother using proper tools. Probably just saw it on the spot. As we can see the rough edges, we asked him to do something about it. What did he do? He screwed a brown piece of wood to cover it. The shoe rack is white!! I definitely regret signing up with this guy... Let me say this again, there isn't any perfect contractor. There's bound to be problems here and there. But with the speed he's going (or lack of), I expected a perfect job, not this kind of shabby job. Workmanship is bad, speed is bad, material is bad as well. So NOT recommended.

SK, we had the 'opening ceremony' on the 1st of aug, and the hacking started on 6th of aug. so i guess, this is the 7th week. anyway, didn't get to go to his office. i called him in the afternoon asking where his worker is (note, singular, i didn't even expect a troop already), and as usual he said coming (and as usual, noone came). i also asked if i can go to his office in the evening, he said okay. after work, i called him, and he said he prefer to talk on the phone. probably knew that i was gonna scream at him. he said, everything would be done by this weekend. and no, i didn't believe him either. as mentioned, all i chased him for for the past 2 weeks are: 1) get the painting done for the master bed room. just 1 more coat will do. 2) install the lights. 3) fix the trunking and the switches. close all the hole of the old switch as we moved it somewhere else. 4) get the laminated floor for the master bedroom done. that's it. that's all i've been chasing since last week. to be fair, someone did come on saturday to install the laminated floor, and i told them no, i want the paint to be done first as i don't want to spoil the floor. so i guess, yeah, that one is my fault. but having said that, i think it's common sense that the paint should be done properly first before the floor rite? i was going to list all the things that's not finished (and there's lots of them!!), but i think that will sound like i'm whining. heck, i'm already whining enough. honestly, the 'specialist' workers are not bad. the tiles are pretty good, and the carpentry is not bad either. false ceiling is not bad. but for the time they took to finish the bloody thing, i expected a PERFECT JOB! i can understand if there's only 1 man painting, and 1 man doing the tiles. but why can't while 1 person in the bedroom painting, another person doing the lights in the kitchen? lights in the kitchen won't disturb the paint in the bedroom rite? can anyone tell us, for a contractor to have 6-7 projects, is that a lot? like more than he can handle? or is it just normal, and too much would be 10+? PS: i'm gonna go to his office again tomorrow to get him write me black on white, the expected end date. i can understand delay due to unexpected problem. i'm pissed with this delay coz noone came at all!!

Apologies for the 'disappearing act'. Currently using Mr Tan's service as well. I just told him that I wanted to the contract under hoon hoe instead of eagle design, no tricks/words play needed. But before you rush to his office to sign, please read on below. For your info, I'm currently staying in the flat that's being renovated now. I'm doing something major, involving total renovation of the 2 toilets, hacking the living room floor, even hacking 1 of the bedroom wall. Total cost is $26k, probably increase to $27k with all the small2 things. Yeah, I'm living among the dust and the smell and whatever crap you can think of. Got no choice, have to stay there as I have nowhere else to stay (unless I rent somewhere, but that's another long story). The flat itself is a resale flat, but the previous owner kept it in the original condition, and he didn't look after the flat very well, so yeah, I'm pretty much redoing everything. Anyway, to begin with, I'm very frustated with Mr Tan. He promised me that the renovations are going to be done within 6 weeks, and this is the 7th week? 8th week? and there's still no light at the end (literally no light as I'm living in the dark now. Only 2 lights are working, the common room that I'm staying at, and the common toilet). There are way way way too many complaints that I have on him, I just can't list all of them out. Off the top of my head: 1) Maybe leaking pipes? Oh, 1 of them has an obvious dent as well, right near the heater. Maybe the worker thought that as long as the light's not installed, I won't see it. 2) Oh, how can I forget this. The formica for the kitchen cabinet is of the wrong type. We picked 1 colour/texture, then we went back to replace with another of a similar colour but diff texture. Wanna guess which texture that the cabinet has now? 3) Hmm, after a long long long wait, the kitchen table top came. It was in 2 pieces, so the guy had to join them. When it's done, you can see a bump at the edge of the table, right at the join part. Maybe coz he's working in the dark as the light's still not installed yet? 4) There were days when no worker came to our place at all. I did tell him from the beginning that we're staying there, and we would like the work to be done fast. He said no problem. Oh really, no problem at all?? For the past 2 week, I have to call him _every_single_day_ in order to push him, asking him who's coming today or tomorrow. He always answer the same way, "Yeah today my worker coming". Same answer everytime, and same result everytime, noone comes. It comes to a point where I just can't trust his words. Any sales know the meaning of 'over-promise'. I feel as if I'm the supervisor (or rather, my wife. I'm working while she stays at home). Btw, I did tell him weeks ago that our furnitures are coming in on the 15th Sept (he did say 6 weeks, and stupid me, I fell for it). I had to postpone it to mid Oct. But I can't postpone my bedframe, which is coming this Saturday, and my wardrobe, which is this Friday. Master bedroom: lights/trunking not done, paint need 1 more coat, and the laminated floor's not there. I give up. Anyway, SK, I have no idea how/why Mr Tan treats you so nicely. Maybe coz you told him that you recommended lots of ppl. The way he treats us can't be more different. Bring us for dinner? Yeah rite. Bring us to buy lights? Uh huh, sure. Maybe he treats you extremely good and treats us normally (which is bad for me and the rest of you). Maybe he treats you normally and treats us badly (coz as I mentioned above, I call him every single day to push him). Either way, there's a huge difference of treatment between yours and mine. I told him I would recommend my friends as well, but I planned to do so when the whole thing is done. The ppl I planned to recommend to him are my real-life friends, who will kill me if I recommend the wrong contractor. I'm so glad that I haven't done so, and now I'm sure I won't recommend him. I do believe what everyone says, no contractor is perfect, there sure be some little problems along the way. Do you think mine are little? Later on today, I'm going down to his office to scream at him. Will see what he says. *F-ing pissed*

Hi stoutkid, yup, i emailed you recently, asking for the quotation. i've never actually posted in the other forum though. so not sure whether i'm the one you were thinking about when you said 'talked' but you did ask me for my block no, so you can tell him that you recommended me. i haven't sent you yet, will do it after this. to be honest, we didn't really search around for contractors as we didn't have the time (it's a long story). that's why we came to a few forums to check for recommendation. the problems that i found with mr tan are: 1) though recommended by you, you haven't actually started the reno yet (at that time). so when you recommended him, at that time, your recommendation was more for his personality than his work (no offense meant, but i'm a suspicious person by nature ) 2) i checked with radac, and they said that it's better to go with a company that is registered with them. if a holding company is registered with them, but the subsidiary company is not, it's counted as 2 different entities (legal wise), and therefore, they can only help with contracts done with the holding company, not the subsidiary company. 3) i searched google high and low for information on him. i only found 3 people (including you) that actually 'declared' that they used his service. i'm sure that there may be lots more that used his service but didn't post it online. as we don't have that many friends who have renovated their place before, we can't really ask for advice or about his reputation. 4) searching in other forums, there's no mention of his name whatsoever. it's not like ho bee (as can be seen in this forum) or other contractors. btw, i did try calling patrick, it's like making an appointment with a celeb. i gave up having said that, we are going to sign with him. for reasons as follow: 1) we do like him he looks (and behaves) like he knows what he's doing. i say that because i actually approached another contractor who's been around for more than 30 years. while that contractor is also quite nice, he doesn't strike me as someone who knows his stuff. maybe he has a superb team of sub-contractors? i don't know. he must have something that allows him to last 30 years plus rite? 2) his price is pretty good. i do wonder how he manage to provide so cheap. but comparing with a few other quotations, some of his stuff is also a bit more expensive. having said that, price overall, his quotation is still cheaper. i don't mind if i were to pay a bit more for good workmanship. remember, you only get what you pay for. 3) other contractors need a few days to get their quotation ready, he did ours on the spot. either he really knows his price, or he just never change the price for the past 5 years as a final note, i haven't even signed or started the renovation yet, therefore at this point of time, i can't actually recommend him. not yet anyway, gotta wait a few more weeks. as we know from some of the horror stories here, things might be rosy for the first few days, but afterwards?

So you're saying I shouldn't take him is because of the Eagle Design is not listed? As in, if I insist on getting the contract done with the name of Hoon Hoe, it's okay? My problem is actually 2 parts, 1 is about the legal aspect, (which you have just clarified, thanks! , and the other 1 is whether anyone knows or has heard of his project.

Anyone used Mr Tan's service before? Any advice/comment? We went to a few contractors, and his seems to be the cheapest. Not sure about the quality/workmanship though. His name card states "Eagle Design, subsidiary of Hoon Hoe Brothers". Hoon Hoe is listed in hdb website and radac, but Eagle Design is NOT listed. He said that Eagle Design is created so the customers can avoid paying GST. If I were to engage him, should I insist on getting the contract done by Hoon Hoe instead of Eagle Design? Thanks.