snoozee

You need to check your structural plans first. If the underground beams for the rear is not at the same level as the front, the only way for you to level out at 3.2m is to tear down and rebuilt. Can’t hack away the underground beams as that is what is holding the columns and preventing them from collapsing. the other option for you to achieve a same level is to top up the front. But you end up with low ceilings height everywhere which won’t be ideal

firstly, a car porch balcony/terrace is supposed to be an open to sky unenclosed area with railings/parapets up to 1m high. if you install a roof over it, it would contravene the regulations since the area is no longer open to sky if you install railings which are more than 1m high, it would also not meet the requirements since the height exceeded the allowed 1m. to prevent fall from height, it is best to restrict access to this kind of areas for children. of cos there's always SAF rule number 7 if you know what I mean.

you can install if you really want. just that the mixer will be protruding out from the wall more since all the pipes and joints will be outside the wall. also, most brands of instant water heater isn't recommended for rain showers due to low water pressure. if you have a storage water heater, then still can since the water pressure would be higher than instant heaters.

if you're planning to buy a house with 3 storeys and an attic, there would already be a stairs leading up to the attic. so no need to build another stairs. if your plan is to rebuilt the entire house, you will need to adhere to the new regulations where fire alarms are to be installed within the house with minimum of 1 alarm for each storey. also since it is a 3.5 storey house, your QP would need to submit to SCDF for fire safety clearance as well regardless of what the new regulations say about fire alarms only for new house, it is good to have them installed in your house just in case. best is get those alarms which can be interconnected so that if one goes off, all alarms will go off.

the whole thing (gate and mechanism) is part of the contract for my house rebuilt. so main contractor coordinated the subcons. had initially planned for sliding gate but changed to 3 panels (2 panels bifold and 1 single panel) gate instead due to site constraints. the whole gate takes about 20 seconds to open/close. I didn't want to have any track or center stopper in my driveway so this mechanism fulfills my requirements.

My 3 panel trackless bifold gate mechanism is done by Yong fong. Gate is done by someone else

When my QP submitted for mine previously, we got a reply immediately the next day with written directions. Subsequent submission took more than 1 week as the BCA officer who processed our application had to route it up to the superior for approval for issue of TOP hope your case is due to waiting for TOP approval hence the no updates.

still waiting for TOP? BCA requires all agencies to give clearance before issuing TOP. Also because of COVID-19 situation, BCA doesn't really go down to perform physical inspection. They just get the QP to take a lot of photos and submit to them and do self-declaration. if agencies all cleared and everything submitted to BCA (without issues), should be able to get TOP in about 1 week or so after submission to BCA.

Like what Pete said, you need to work with your builder and also decide what you want to have in your house in terms of amenities and finishing. Since you are asking about rebuilt, get yourself an architect first if you haven’t. Ballpark figure of rebuilding an inter-terrace is about 1.2m and semi-d about 1.5m. Don’t be too fixated on the psf price as once the house design is out, overall construction cost can be estimated. Then from there you amend the design or change the finishing specs to bring down the cost if necessary

normally party walls are about 200mm thick after the plastering of the wall. if budget is not an issue, then by all means go with what your builder suggested. do note that if the boundary wall is demolished, it should be totally be torn down rather than only for a certain part. else if the new wall is joined to the old wall, the wall may develop cracks over the years at the joint area. do also note that to rebuilt boundary walls is going to cost you another few tens of thousands. somehow I have the feeling that your builder suggested this so that the cost of the boundary walls can be borne by you rather than him. since you are building a sunken pool (I believe end to end), there needs to be digging down into the soil to build the pool and there is a high chance that the boundary wall will collapse due to the digging as the foundation of the boundary wall may not be deep enough. eg: foundation for wall is 500mm deep but you are digging 1.2m deep for your pool. anyway, work out with your builder on the cost of the pool with or without tearing down the boundary wall and then decide from there.

based on my understanding, GFA refers to the amount of built up space for internal. but things like stairs, lift shaft, balcony are calculated/considered differently. this is based on URA's definition. how builders calculate the cost is not really based on GFA though the 300/350psf is like a "magical" guide number. by right the builder will take the floor plans and calculate the cost based on the plans. eg: how much bricks walls is needed, how much wall surface there are to plaster and paint, how much floor space is needed to pour concrete and lay tiles, etc. this calculation will also include the external works for car porch floor, party/boundary walls, drains, etc. the builder will then breakdown the cost into various sections in the quotation for you to review. why the psf rate is based on total quotation cost divided by the built up GFA(excluding external) is something I don't know. maybe it has been the market practise for this all along so it's more convenient to use this method. also since external areas are not factored into the GFA, it's hard to add this in and then do a division again. so my guess is that it's more convenient to just use a number which is already available rather than trying to calculate everything again to get a more accurate number.

nowadays a lot of electricity retailers and no longer limited to SP. many retailers are selling your electricity based on fixed rates on a contract basis. eg: 16cts per KW on a 12 month contract. wholesale electricity is offered by SP services for all homes. they will install a smart meter which can take the readings every 30 minutes and the electricity per KW rate is adjusted every 30 minutes based on the demand in the market. so far the rates has been lower than the other retailers and there's no contract for it as well so can terminate and switch anytime

how low is low? 2.4m? 3m? 4m? what do you want to fix it? you can't change the beam without major wok like reconstruction or rebuilt. the beam is supporting the floor above and is cast together with the floor during construction.

builders will sure ask you to do more so they can earn more. whether value will increase or not will also depend on the market conditions when you want to sell the house. there is no guarantee that what you put in for the additional work will give you more returns. the only guarantee is that the builder's wallet will become fatter as your scope of work increases. if you already have plans made for the near future, just stick to your plans.

Bondek floor will normally still be cast with a layer of concrete on top. So it don’t feel any different. If you do a layer of false ceiling below, then won’t even know it’s bondek

just found out that PUB has piloted smart meters a few years ago. rollout starting this year to premises. not sure how the meters are being powered though. just don't ask me to pay for the smart meter's electrical usage. hahaha

yes, for electricity, there is smart meters. if your house doesn't have one currently, you can pay SP for it to be changed. or if you upgrade from single phase to 3 phase supply, the meter would be changed. for water meter, there is no such thing and SP services still needs to physically look at the number on the water meter to take the readings. or you can choose to submit the meter readings yourself every month. it is not mandatory to change or relocate the meters. just that you need to have someone at home to open the door/gate for SP to come in and take the readings every once in 2 months. with SP smart meter, one can also apply for wholesale electrical rates from SP as well as the meter reading is taken every 30minutes by SP. I am using wholesale rates and it is cheaper than the 3rd party retailers and definitely much cheaper than the normal tariff that SP is charging consumers.

ah. must be those houses with super long driveways like one of my friend's parents' place near chomp chomp can't really comment on bank valuation as from what I know, valuers normally base the valuation based on similar sized and type of houses around the area. so if nearby don't have similar sized and type, then the valuers will look at data from further out and this may affect your house's valuation. anyway for loan purpose, normally the valuations will end up as the same number as what the bank is looking for.

if your house has 3-phase 63A supply, it shouldn't cause any issues. if you're concerned, then apply for 3-phase 100A supply. the LEW will design the circuits such that the loading would be spread evenly over all 3-phases. can't have everything all hooked up to 1 single phase as this will definitely cause trips.

staining is unlikely to happen if you maintain your floor regularly. you will need to have drains within your house to channel the surface water out into the public drains. best is talk to an architect on how to design the roof for water drainage

is your land irregular sized? cos your frontage of 12m would mean a site depth of 47m which is not the usual case for regular sized plots if you intend to maximise the GFA, then keep it as a semi-d for detached house, you are limited to a site coverage of 50 percent. assuming your house is in a 2 storey zone, the max GFA you can have for the house would be 3000 x 2.5 = 7500sqf. compared to leaving it as a semi-d, your max GFA would be 4060 x 2.5 = 10150sqf one advantage of a detached house is that you can have cross ventilation throughout the whole house on all sides compared to a semi-d which wind can only enter/leave via 3 sides. also, because of the limit on site coverage, you can have a big garden or open area outside your house. whether 8m is too narrow or not is subjective. it all depends on how the architect designs and layout the house. if the architect designs the house such that the stairs and common access is in the middle, then you are left with room sizes of about 3m wide on both sides of the stairs. but if the stairs are pushed to the sides, then you can have rooms which are 5m to 6m wide. so it's all based on the design.

Just tell the electrician to install a 32A isolator at the front porch. Later on any charging point can be connected to this isolator.

If there is a roof terrace, then there would be rain water down pipes to drain the water down from the open terrace/ balcony. the roof water channeling is up the the design of the architect. If no design means free fall off the edge of the roof.

your photo seems to be sheet metal roof stamped to look like tiles. my house is designed to try to maximise the attic as much as possible based on the envelope control which can be only achieved by having a flat root so clay roofing tiles was never considered. I think there's some formula for calculating the runoff and required slope. Also different roof materials would require different amount of slope. if you look around existing houses, normally clay tiled roof would have pitched roofs. these are also older houses. those newer ones with flat roofs would usually have metal roofs. from information gleaned online, it does suggest that interlocking clay tiles should have a slope of about 20 degrees depending on location and length of roof. assuming that your building depth is 20m and the top of the roof is at halfway point (10m), at a slope of 20 degrees, there would be a drop of about 3.64m from the apex of the roof to the bottom. of cos you can always choose to install at a lower gradient than specified/recommended but whether the supplier/manufacturer would honour the warranty in this case would be another question.

i'm using metal roof (Lysaght Klip_Lok system) for my main roof and car porch roof. roof has been installed for more than 1 year and so far no signs of rust (touchwood) no problems with sound or heat unless you are just installing with just a single piece of metal sheet as the roof. my metal roof is installed with multiple layers, metal roofing sheet, bitumen sheet, Zinc sheet, rockwool insulation, aluminium foil, wiremesh. another layer of plasterboard is installed inside the house as ceiling. for car porch, calcium silicate boards are used as the ceiling. I guess any roof system which is done properly should last at least 10 to 20 years without much maintenance. The things you need to decide are what kind of roof profile you want so that the proper type of roofing material can be chosen. metal roof should be able to be done for any type of roof profile. but if you prefer clay tiles, I think you need to do pitched roof else the water run off would pose a problem with clay tiles on flat roofs. another type of roofing material is aluminium composite panels (like public sheltered walkway) but due to the size of the panels, you will end up with a lot of joints which may not look as nice or seamless. do note that even for flat roofs, the roof should be done at a slight angle to direct the water run off somewhere. this is to prevent water ponding from occurring on "perfectly flat" roofs. also NEA does not allow for roof gutters to be installed anymore on new developments as gutters may get choked and cause mosquito breeding. as such, all roof water run off should be channeled properly as well in the design.