snoozee

It’s not the panels but how the system is set up to tie back to the national grid. You need to tell your PV panel contractor that you want to do this and they should be able to advise you further and set up for you including applying for accounts and such with SP/EMA

Since 1997 to be exact. But any approvals issued before that does not need to comply. This is confirmed by BCA as I had asked why a certain development need not have HS even though the developer is still building and selling the landed houses today

Yes that could be a possibility. But if it is a new built, there could be other reasons for such a big setback. Check where your last IC is in the house and you may also want to buy the SIP from PUB to check if there is a sewer running through your backyard or not. If there is a sewer line, the developer may have opted to setback from the sewer instead of building a trench and building over it. This will also mean you may have problems building any extension as well.

get hold of your building plans. i believe the house is older than 10 years old as owners in recent years would not just rebuilt the house and leave such a big rear set back. most likely the previous owner only did some A&A work to refresh the building and didn't do much on the structure. whether can extend or not you need to find a PE to look at the plans and then decide from there. even if the PE decide can be done, you will likely need to create new foundations for the new extended area to support the extension.

not sure about my wife's friend's family. But I spoke to my neighbour and apologised for the inconvenice caused to them.

yes it can be done and approved. not common as many will baulk at the cost of digging a basement. unless your house is in a low lying area which is below the 4m SHD, then you could excavate just a little bit and build a "basement"

what is stated in the scope of work for the contract you signed with your architect? Have your architect submitted the plans to URA for approval? Have you obtained the PP or WP from URA? If there's no submissions to URA yet, I'm not sure what you PE is submitting to BCA since your building plans has not even been approved by URA? Unless your PE is just submitting to BCA the demolition plans than your architect wouldn't have any comments on that since there's nothing much to comment on by the architect for demolition since method statement for demolition is done by PE and not architect. The builder's quotation should be based on URA and BCA approved drawings since there might be major changes required on the draft design especially if URA doesn't give approval. Building design and layout should be discussed between owner and architect. After approval of plans and start of construction, the builder has to refer back to architect on design clarifications and such. Of cos you as the owner can be involved but the clarifications of details should be between the builder and architect. When there's queries by the builder, it would normally be near to where the workers are planning to construct already so the architect should respond to these clarifications soon. If your architect is going to take 1 week to reply, then your construction may get delayed if the workers can't proceed with what is intended to be done. you still can change your architect even after submissions. you just have to pay your current architect on what has been done till date. Again it goes back to my first question on what is indicated in the contract you signed with your architect. If there's no black and white, then it's hard for you to dispute on whether your architect is doing what he is supposed to do or not.

SP wholesale price Pros - no contract - normally cheaper than other retailers cons - subject to supply demand so rate is not fixed for example when electricity prices increased this year, those home owners who have signed contract with retailers at a lower rate will benefit since they are locked in at the lower rates for the contract period. but when SP tariff drops, these home owners who have signed contracts at a higher rate will still be bound at the contractual rate though this would normally still be lower than the standard SP tariff The SP standard tariff for the last quarter is at 22.55cts per kwh. I'm was paying around 17.45cts per kwh on the wholesale rate. so basically a savings of about 5cts per kwh

just to add on for retention sum, if the owner is taking construction loan to finance the construction, the bank has a say on how much and when the retention sum can be released to the builder. so it does not mean that upon TOP, half of the retention sum will be automatically released to the builder. owners who are taking bank loans to finance the construction has to read all the terms and conditions from the bank carefully.

my view on installing PV panels is that you are essentially paying for the electricity for the next 7 to 10 years up front. PV panels don't last forever and you will need to maintain them maybe after 5 years or so with parts needing replacing. while it sounds sexy that you can get free electricity, the reality is that you need to pay for the equipment first. let's just say the entire set up costs you $21k with ROI of 7 years. so your cost per year is $3k or $250 per month. if your house electricity usage is not going to exceed $250 per month based on SP tariffs, then you are in fact paying more for electricity for the so called savings. while there are grid tied systems where you can sell back excess electricity, you need to factor in the deduction of transmission cost for this. also in order to really pay for no additional cost, your day time generation and sale must be equal or more than your night time usage when electricity can't be generated by the PV panels. so unless SP's tariffs shoot up to 40cts or 50cts per kwh, you are better off signing up for SP wholesale rates for now instead of investing in PV panels now. just provision for the wiring now and if the technology improves to much in future, you can do the installation then.

my understanding is that remission is only applicable for demolished houses and building a replacement. A&A or reconstruction is not applicable before the house is demolished, usually owners will be taxed at the residential rate. but once demolished, the property tax is computed based on land value which is much higher hence need to apply for remission. however it is best is check with IRAS on the finer details of the regulations if you want to know more.

no. it's at my contractor's own cost.

in order for solar aircon to work at night, you will need to have some sort of battery storage to store all the electricity generated during the day. are you prepared to take the risk of installing big power walls with lithium ion batteries? i'm sure you have read the news over the last few years where PMD charging caused fires in flats.

The contractor fixed back the collapsed wall and my wife’s friend’s parents are still staying in the same house now. for my case, the low party wall which collapsed was removed by my contractor and redone properly together with the wall on my side.

My wife’s friend’s parents place had their wall collapsed when their neighbor tore down their house and rebuilt. when my house was rebuilt, the low party wall with my neighbor on my detached side collapsed due to soil movements from the excavation from my side. I think whether can add on structure on the top depends on how the existing structure and foundation was designed. If the structure had been designed with provisions for additional attic in mind including the RC floor slab already cast during initial construction, then adding the attic structure ( columns, beams and roof) at a later stage might be possible. But if the house was designed just for a 2 storey house and want to add on a full RC floor slab and roof later, I don’t think this would be possible.

IRAS don't play with them. they can do claw backs and add on penalties. So better be good and just do the proper documentation for them and avoid the problems. Also remember that property tax remission only lasts 2 years from date of demolition completion. So you must get TOP within 2 years else your property tax will be very high.

Congrats on your journey. Remember to inform IRAS on the demolition if you have not done so and also apply for property tax remission

usually if the development needs the tree(s) to be cut down, the developer needs to replace the tree at his own cost unless nparks say there's no need for any replacement yes you can get approval from them to chop down a tree. but whether the replacement cost is borne by nparks or not needs to be confirmed. also, by right landed house owners need to seek permission from nparks first before using the planting strip for their gardening activities. and this application for use does not include planting of trees in the planting strip.

prices have definitely went up over the last year or so. when i got a quote from geospecs for my SI back in late 2017, the quoted price (before GST) was almost 25% lower than what you paid for. But I didn't go with them as another company quoted me cheaper

if yours is a HDB flat, then you are not allowed to do any form of concealed wirings.

Shouldn’t your main con be covering this? anyway I often see Peck Brothers doing piling around my area for rebuilding houses

under BCA e-services, you can go to permit to start work option. slowly go through the months and years and look for your builder. from there you will be able to see how many big projects (which require BCA approval) they are handling at this moment

as long as you are willing to pay for the ERSS, you could build until very near to your boundary. if money is not a concern, technically your basement retaining wall can be built right at the boundary and the metal plates used for shoring the soil abandoned and left there for good. there is a corner terrace near my place and the owner had rebuilt the entire house to be 2.5 storey with a basement. I passed by the site during construction and the basement is almost the size of the entire site. the construction cost was in excess of 2M with I think a major chunk being used to pay for the ERSS.

even though singapore banned the use of asbestos in construction, it is not mandatory to remove them in existing buildings. asbestos is generally fine unless it starts to break down due to damage and the dust that comes out can cause cancer. that's why SLA did not remove everything in the chip bee gardens estate several years ago. nowadays, removal of asbestos can only be done by specialists and needs to be declared to authorities. long gone are the days where contractors may alibaba and just remove and dispose of asbestos. it cost me a 5 figure sum to have the asbestos in my house removed by specialist contractors before it could be torn down. basically the specialist contractor had to wrap up the areas with asbestos with plastic sheets to enclose the site and set up decontamination stations for personnel exiting the site. So basically everything was done in a proper manner and with a plan drawn up for the project as well.

nparks have officers going around landed estates to check/look at the trees on the planting strips. so if the tree requires pruning, they will arrange for their contractors to do it. so it's just a question of when they deem appropriate to prune the tree. maybe to save costs, have to wait for more trees around the estate to be overgrown and prune all at one go.