snoozee

depends on where you install the pivot mechanism. if your main door is 1.2m wide and your pivot mechanism is installed at 20cm from the edge of the frame, then you still have around 1m to walk through. standard room doors are usually 800mm or 900mm wide so with 1m width for main door should still be sufficient.

note that you are not allowed to make any modifications to the vent itself as it is against the law. even though the regulations allow for the vent to be partially covered during peace time with architectural fittings and such, it explicitly mentioned against "Modifying, altering or tampering with any part of the ventilation openings, plates and the mounting devices such as bolts and nuts." The plastering of the vent hole would most likely fall under "modification, alteration" and hence is illegal no matter what the seller tells you. if you want to be clear, can always contact SCDF for clarifications.

mine is independent. it really depends on what type of lock set you want to install on your main door. if you want to be linked to the side gate, then you will need to find a lock system which can be triggered via access card of keypad (eg: those office magnetic door locks) and then have the system linked up to your side gate access control system. Technically can be done and it's just a matter of what is being used and how it will end up looking aesthetically.

for CCTV, there are plenty of resellers so it's just a matter of who you decide to go with. the usual brands like Hikvision or Dahua should be quite safe. Unless you want something from a single brand which has complete package with WIFI solutions, then Ubiquiti has a complete solution from CCTVs to access points and POE network switches, routers, DVRs, etc. what kind of intercom are you referring to? are you referring to video doorbell with intercom or just internal intercom system? for video doorbell, I think AWS had mentioned some recommendations in another thread. If you are looking for internal intercom, maybe can consider using a PBX phone system instead. I have a Panasonic PBX system installed for my house and it has intercom functionalities besides being a house phone for incoming/outgoing calls.

is the company which quoted you for WIFI is also the electrical subcon for your builder? when i rebuilt my house, my WIFI was already planned in advanced based on the floor plans and the network wiring is part of the electrical works quote. This was done so that the electrical subcon will pull all the necessary network cables for the walls as well as ceiling (for WIFI access points) and I don't have to do add on later. It's easier to do all the conduits when construction is ongoing rather than retrofit later. I won't say the quote is dubious but equipment markup is there and I showed you the retail pricing. the company who quoted you would have gotten the equipment even cheaper due to discounts, etc from the sales channel partners. Also there is a mistake in the quotation on the access points. The total cost is based on 10 units but quote is for 9 units only. Can't really comment on the manpower cost for configuration but if your builder's electrical subcon can pull the conduits and cables, it shouldn't cost you $2k. To really plan out WIFI for a building, the floor plans need to be studied first so that the optimal locations for access points can be planned. Just because you have a detached house, it doesn't mean you need to have WIFI access points everywhere though this may reduce the chances of you having problems with the coverage. but too many access points may also cause you problems due to signals crossing each other and such due to the proximity of the access points. WIFI signal doesn't just cast itself in a single plane but is like a 360 degrees coverage with certain areas of the device casting more signal and certain areas casting less. for my house, i have 4 access points and when i am in my MBR in the attic, sometimes I get connected to the access point on the lower level instead of the one in my room. I do not know what is your house layout but if you feel this quote doesn't seem right, seek other companies to quote based on your house floor plan. then you can compare quotations and see whether this current one is fair or not.

how big is your house that your contractor quoted you 9 access points? HP AP22 Aruba Instant On Wi-Fi 6 AX1800 Smart Mesh Cloud Access Point - $259 online HPE 1420 24G PoE+ (124W) Switch JH019A - $460 online APC 500VA UPS - $120 online one thing good about HPE products is that they have limited lifetime warranty. if you are rebuilding your house, you should tell your electrician to pull the conduits for you first. else you will have problems trying to pull wires through walls, etc to get to the server room

tempered glass should suffice since the doors won't be acting as barriers

search for operable wall. these are the wall partition panels which are commonly found in hotels function rooms and banquet halls. there is one company (great year industries) who is the agent for a german company (abopart) and the german company has glass panel operable walls like the photo below.

then it would be something like those event halls in hotels which have removable walls using partitions. Get your contractor to source. When I was scoping up my house requirements, I heard my architect mention about this type of panel walls and seems that cost start from 5k onwards.

my architect specified it as "sliding and folding" glass door. I think any aluminum window/door contractor can do. nothing special about it as it's just normal aluminum framed glass doors with special hinges and sliding tracks unless you are asking for what @Kellhound found in the video he shared

Well, you are the owner so you make the final decision. yes, bifold doors but multiple panels and you can slide everything to one side to open up. Also with a master panel which is a door for daily access. Similar to the video you found but different technology.

if your sliding door rollers start to fail, you may have problems opening/closing the doors. maybe instead of sliding doors, do slide and fold doors? then you can use one of the panels as a swing door to enter/exit the house. of cos this is provided you are not planning to install any grilles as the grilles can get in the way.

is your door and ironmongery under your main contractors scope? if yes, just tell him to go and source for you. pivot door just uses a different type of hinge mechanism from normal doors and the door frame is different also. normal doors have hinges on the edge and the door will close "inside" the door frame but the frame for pivot doors will be around the door instead.

yes this is correct. basically it is the precon survey with photos being taken of the condition of the neighbours houses. this is done so that any disputes to your neighbours' property damage during your renovation can be confirmed that it was due to your renovation and not because of original damage. mainly to protect against false claims. BCA is the one issuing permit to start work and not URA. without the consent forms of your neighbours, BCA will not issue the permit. Unless the neighbour cannot be reached after numerous attempts, then BCA will allow for that particular neighbour's consent to be excluded since cannot be reached to provide consent. Ask your contactor to be on the ball about this and you may also want to go and help find the neighbours out of courtesy. My own project was delayed because one neighbour played hard to get and we never managed to obtain the consent after 2 months of trying to reach the owner even after sending registered letters and going to the house to look for them.

If you want pivot doors better confirm it first and let your main contractor know early. Cos the frame would be different and you will also need to cater for the pivot mechanism in the floor as well. Else you will have a problem if the normal door frame is installed as the design of normal door frame would be different from pivot doors frame.

Can’t comment on the cost but since existing pipes already 20 years old, better to change them. Using bigger pipes to each storey before reducing to smaller pipes for final outlets will ensure better water pressure for each outlet even when multiple outlets are in use.

with RC roof you will need to do proper waterproofing before the final screed layer is applied. concrete itself is porous so water can seep through if water proofing is not done properly. also RC roof would be heavier than other roofing options so you may incur addition cost for your entire building if you want a RC roof. honestly, no point doing RC roof unless you are building a roof terrace for entertainment usage.

not sure if you saw the quotation that @prodriver6 shared on his construction cost. the builder had quoted 65k for architectural and PE fees. so assuming the PE is paid 25k, the architect would have been paid 40k for his services. Now his quotation is of a total of 1.1M. So after deducting the QPs fees, it would be 1.04M of construction cost. If say he went for the architect route and the architect charged him 100k for the services (based on 10% of construction cost), there would be an additional cost of 60K for the architect fees. However if the builder charged him more than 60K in VO because of changes after the submissions, etc, then it would have cost more to go with his design and build contractor compared to going the architect route. Personally, I feel it is better to confirm all requirements before getting a quotation rather than signing a quotation based on estimates as you can go from "money not enough" to "money really not enough" if the VOs start to add up. Not sure if your builder's quote includes fees for RTO but you will need to hire a RTO for the construction process and this RTO is usually preferred to be someone neutral since he/she is supposed to check on the builder's work. So if the RTO is someone familiar to the builder, then there may be conflicts of interest.

If the quote is given after the structure and foundation is designed, then your contractor should have factored the plate bearing test cost in somewhere already. But reading your other thread where you mentioned that you went with design and build contractor, then you need to confirm on this already. This is one of the drawbacks of signing a quotation before the building design is done and confirmed as you face potential VOs due to nothing being confirmed at the point of signing.

What type of foundation did your PE design for? For 45k, I don’t think it is piling right? Sounds more like doing footings or raft foundation with this price for substructure

in SG, the wind direction is usually North-South for most of the months with some changed to East-West for a few months. This is why property agents always tout N-S facing houses as good buy. A well designed house should allow for cross ventilation such that air can flow in from the front of the house and exit from the rear (and vice versa) regardless of facing of the house. This is more so for inter-terrace as the house does not have any openings at the side as opposed to semi-d which has one side openable. That's why inter-terrace house sometimes has air-wells designed to bring the hot air up from the living room to the top. But if there is no way to bring the hot air out of the house, the air-well is redundant since the hot air would be just stuck in the top floor. While mechanical ventilation may help, it is always better to have cross-ventilation so that the air can be vented out naturally from front/back of the house. One thing about cross ventilation is that you need to be able to let air enter and exit and the way to do this is not to have any obstructions for the air in the first place. But a lot of house owners would just build solid brick walls as boundary walls and this will just obstruct the air from moving in and out in the first storey. So without free flowing air, the hot air inside the house will just remain stuck there and heat up the house. While people can argue that the solid boundary walls are needed for privacy/security reasons, there are other ways to mitigate this like using fence and putting in plants to act as shield for prying eyes. Plants also have a cooling effect when wind blows through it as well. And don't expect a 1.8m high boundary wall to provide you that much security as it can be scaled over easily (remember the low wall for army SOC).

pricing can also swing wildly without COVID. If the contractor is not interested in taking up the job, the pricing can be quite high. I think the contactor would rather quote high and not get selected rather than reject to quote the architect as this may mean the architect may not invite the contractor for future quotes anymore.

normally part of the building contract unless the test fails then your contractor may claw back the cost for additional test(s) from you.

i'm using dahua 6MP CCTV. 2MP resolution would be very poor. you can pay for 8MP or even 4K resolution CCTVs but they would be much more expensive. POE means Power Over Ethernet. for conventional CCTVs running on coaxial cables, you will need to supply another 13A socket such that a power brick can be plugged into the power socket to provide power to the CCTV. But for POE devices, the power is drawn through the same Cat 6/7/8 cable from the switch which also provides the power. So basically you just need a single ethernet cable to transmit the power and data. It's much more convenient and you don't have to pull separate set of power cables to provide power to the cameras. Every POE CCTV camera will need to have a single ethernet cable which is connected back to the DVR which has POE capabilities. AP is Access Point for WIFI which is different from CCTV unless you are buying wireless CCTVs which is another topic on its own. For the quotation, let's just say you are paying for warranty (I hope at least 1 year) and also the labour needed to install the system for you. if you really want to know how much is the equipment cost, you can always search online for the individual equipments listed to find out the pricing. For me as I can DIY the installations, etc, I basically paid a fraction of what you are quoted. The only things I couldn't DIY is the laying of conduits and cables so this part is done by my electrical subcon as part of the building cost.

This is photo of plate bearing test done for my house. test is done on excavated ground at 1.5m deep as that is the depth of the bottom of my footings as specified by my PE.