kisacake

Our ID introduced A & V Aluminium Contractor to us. I checked online and found this forum thread and was relieved to find that they have been recommended by others. However, now that our home is done, I feel the need to warn people who have searched online for reviews of A & V. They are terrible. We commissioned our front door grille, glass windows (both frosted and clear), and aluminium grilles with them. We experienced so many problems with them that I can't even list them all, but a few key issues: 1. Bad measurements of the window frame/track that causes windows and grilles to be easily shifted and dislodged so you can open them even when they are "locked" with the usual sash locks. (!) This is a dealbreaker as the windows we have are by the corridor so people can just break in. 2. The bathroom window also did not fit properly into the window sill. One window even had rust on it! 3. "Powder coated" aluminum grilles do not seem powder coated at all and already had small scratches and defects on it. 4. Insulation and sound-proof quality is very bad They came down more than a dozen times to replace and fix the windows. In the end, after rounds of negotiating with them we now have additional bolts installed in each window pane and grille. However, this causes us to be unable to open all our windows fully without first opening our grilles and doing a shuffle. Overall, it was a horrible experience and I would caution everyone to avoid A & V like the plague. When you are shopping for windows and grilles, it is better if you can see a sample of how it looks and what the quality is so you can what we had to go through, with unexpected things here and there. We have now learned our lesson, and I hope others can benefit by learning from our mistake, too.

I read in a magazine article that homeowners should budget about S$100 per square foot (psf) for renovation costs for HDB resale flats. For a 3-room flat of about 688 sq ft, this would mean a total of S$68,800! Now, I'm aware that magazines tend to jack up the price a little, as a lot of items used are designer items, but this differs a lot from what I've been reading in various forums online. I tend to hear quotes of as low as S$30,000, and S$50,000 would be considered very expensive by most. So, let me hear some advice from you, as a homeowner who is currently selecting Interior Designers - what's a real fair cost for a full HDB 3-room resale renovation, assuming we want our current (very) outdated house to be revamped totally, with no major changes to the existing floorplan? Thanks. PS, if you have any pics of how you did your 3 room bathroom, that would be great too.

Hi Gerald, did you and your gf decide on one of the IDs? I'm looking at FSI too and was wondering if you had a review for them...

Hi unclehua, could you PM me the details of your ID too? Thank you!