snoozee

Mezzanine should not be considered as an additional storey. But you need to check that you have enough headroom for the new mezzanine and the floor directly below it. Need to clear at least 2.4m else can’t pass BCA

Pete has mentioned that best is change the plumbing and electrical if house is old. reason is because the materials may deteriorate over time. Eg: a water pipe valve may not be leaking now. But after you turn off and on since it has not been used for so long, the valve may start to leak so you will need to change it If you have already signed and excercised the OTP, you can arrange for builders to go in to see, subjected to convenience of the seller also. Else not nice to keep bringing people in if nothing has been signed. no point taking to neighbors since each house is different

the cylinder lock seems to be engaged partially hence preventing it from being slide out. you will need to find someway to use the key to turn the cylinder to the neutral position. else have to get a locksmith who can pick cylinder locks and have the cylinder turned back to the neutral position so you can slide it out. search online to see how the cylinder looks like and works and you will understand what i'm saying.

depends on whether you are redoing the entire house's electrical, plumbing and sanitary or not. assuming you are redoing everything, 100k may or may not be enough for the plumbing and electrical sub-contractors. do note that you still need to set aside a sum for light fittings and sanitary fittings. electrical contractor may include light switches and power sockets in the contract but this would be limited to the basic (aka cheapest) range of switches and sockets. if you want designer stuff which costs like $50 per switch, then it's separate quote. sanitary fittings can also run up to a few thousand dollars. a WC can be a few hundred dollars and you need to buy multiple which total to a few k already. if you are into those brands like toto, roca, duravit, hansgrohe, etc, be prepared to spend more than 10k on sanitary ware

posts kept getting hidden PE will cost more than 3k. high tens of low to mid twenty thousands you also need to cater for RTO fees (a few thousands), topo survey fees and PUB and/or SP services fees if you need to relocate or upgrade water meter or electrical supply.

PE will cost you more than 3K. I guess somewhere around high tens or low twenties. authorities fees will be URA - $3210 or $6420 depending on A&A or Reconstruction BCA - submission of plans and buying of existing plans NParks (may or may not be needed) SCDF (may not be needed unless you add additional attic which could mean need to clear fire code since become 4 storeys building) PUB (if need to relocate water meter) SP services (if need to upgrade electrical supply) professional fees architect PE RTO other admin fees topo survey - about 2k soil investigation - about 3k do note that if your project involved the external public road area, then LTA will be involved as well. however, submissions and clearance from LTA and PUB does not involved any fees. also, if the house is already fibre ready, make sure your contractor does not cut the fibre, etc. else you need to pay Netlink trust 1k+ to redo the fibre optic cable.

checking of illegal structures would be good. but if you do not know the rules and regulations, then it's hard for you to catch/see illegal structures. don't rely on your property agent to do so for you as most of them would not have an idea of the regulations. if you want to know more, go to URA website and look for the residential handbook and read through it. it is a guide for professionals on what can or cannot be done for a housing development. the basic things to look out for are these 1. illegal extensions. some owners extend or cover up open areas like balconies to create additional interior space. even if a balcony is not fully enclosed, some canopies which fully shelter the balcony is illegal as well. 2. mezzanine floors or loft inside the house. there is a limit on the loft size allowed. if you see any, check if they have been declared or submitted to BCA for approval 3. enclosed car porch roof terrace. similar to 1 above, it is illegal to fully enclose or have a full canopy for the car porch roof terrace 4. illegal canopies. roof canopies can only be extended up to 1m from the boundary line. so for the rear of the house, if you see the canopy all the way to the boundary, chances is it is illegal. but some estates allow the building to be all the way to the boundary so look at the neighbours to see how their houses are built. again as mentioned, you will need someone familiar with the rules and regulations to catch all these. else make sure your OTP has a clause which allows you to back out if illegal structures are found or you can request for the owner to rectify them before the completion.

usually architect would have some preferred PE to work with. the PE still not that bad as they need to sign on the drawings and their professional practice is at stake. builder and RTO should be independent since RTO is supposed to check on builder's works. however nowadays BCA limits the number of projects a RTO can handle so quite hard to find part time RTOs now.

to get the most accurate building height, you will need to engage a surveyor to perform a site survey. this means someone would need to climb up to the roof or below the roof with an instrument where another person can use a laser level to determine the height difference between the roof and know points on the ground. of cos the other alternative is just buy from BCA as the building plans will contain this information since after the house is build, as-built drawings need to be submitted to BCA. if you are not intending to add another attic level on top of your existing 3rd storey, then height doesn't really matter. but I guess a survey would still be done by the contractors on the existing building itself DIP and SIP can be purchased now. no need to be owner to buy. one tip for others is that DIP and SIP should be purchased before signing of OTP so that you can decide not to buy the house in the event that the house is affected by drainage reserves and/or has a sewer running through it. cos one you sign the OTP, you would lose your deposit if you decide to back out of the purchase. lateral extension may also require soil investigation, especially on the area where the extension is to be done. however this is determined by the risk appetite of your PE. It is better to pay about 3k for the soil investigation rather than be sorry later when the foundation for the extension fails/sinks due to the lack of soil data for a proper foundation design.

from the building plan, it should show the current house's height. again need to get authorisation from owner if need to buy from BCA. don't think BCA will accept neighbour's soil investigation report. but if direct next door, maybe can try your luck. PE don't do soil investigation. it is done by a sub-contractor. the PE will then interpret the data and determine the building's structure requirements. however chicken and egg issue here. normally PE will give the requirements for soil investigation. so if you don't engage a PE, you can get this done by the SI company. but before you can engage a PE, you need to decide whether you want to go the direct builder route or go through an architect/PE. I don't know if PEs are willing to do direct for house owners as they usually do through architect or builders. so this part you need to sort out first then can get the PE involved and do the soil investigation.

first, confirm if your house is a 2.5 storey house or a 3 storey house. some layman would think that a 2.5 storey house is a 3 storey house as they look similar from outside but are classified differently. second, check if your house is in what kind of zone. easiest way is to look at the neighbours house to see how many storeys the highest one you see have. the more accurate method is to check URA's landed housing master plan. Assuming that your house is actually a 2.5 storey house is a 2 storey landed housing zone, then you can't built your house upwards anymore. but if your existing house has not been built to it's allowed boundaries, then you could extend your house at the rear and maybe the front (depending on existing house footprint). if your house is a 3 storey house in a 3 storey landed housing zone, then you can add on another attic storey to the house. BUT this is depending on whether the existing house's total height as URA's envelope control only allows a maximum of 15.5m building height for 3 storey landed houses which is lower than the previous 17.7m height for 3 storey houses. so if your existing house already is near or exceed 15.5m, it is unlikely you will be able to add another attic storey above it. if you had already exercised your OTP, you can arrange with the current owners to allow you to engage a surveyor to do a topo survey of the house. this will come out with a proper plan of the existing house as well as the property's boundaries so you can see how much you can build your house to. for inter terrace houses, there is a 2m rear set back and a 7.5m front set back. unless URA has special planning permissions for your estate/area, then the set back might be different. if the seller has the existing house's plans, get a copy from them. else try to see if they are willing to authorise you to purchase a set of building plans from BCA. ONLY building owners or their authorised personnel is allowed to purchase from BCA. even if you had exercised the OTP, you are not the legal owner yet until the completion of sale and purchase so you can't do it now. go to PUB website and purchase a set of DIP and SIP for your house. this will let you know if your house is subjected to drainage reserves and/or whether there is a public sewer line running though your land. drainage reserves will affect your building's setback. if there is a sewer line running through your house, then you cannot build anything near or over the sewer line unless you build an RC trench to protect the sewer. depending on how deep and length of the sewer, this can add a few ten thousands or up to more than 100k for the RC trench. Assuming that you can build another storey, then you may need to perform a soil investigation to check on the existing soil conditions. This will allow the professional engineer to determine whether the house's columns and beams need to be enlarged/strengthened to cater to the additional storey. of cos you will need to find an architect and/or PE to work on your house's submissions. URA only accept submissions from registered architect or PE. then you will also need to find a builder/contractor to build your house. some builders offer all-in-one service but it's up to you to accept this or not. normally they will just get an architect or PE to do the submissions for a small fee. but of cos if anything happens, it's just you against the builder compared to when you engage an architect or PE directly, you have another party to project manage and protect your interest. anyway, above should cover the basic steps needed before starting on the reconstruction. do note that there are quite a number of fees that need to be paid to authorities and such so do buffer at least 20k cash for all the fees.

What are you planning to do to the house after the completion of purchase? Tear down to rebuilt, major A&A or minor A&A?

aiyo, everyone looking for thread starter who hasn't logged on to here since march 2017.

There are many home lift contractors in Singapore. Just do a search on Google and you can find them. cost wise depends on what type of lift you want as well as the design. The range can be from 30k+ and up there are a few common types of home lift, traction lift, hydraulic lift, platform lift. Each type are based on different technologies and price also varies. my suggestion is that you get your floor plans and then find a lift contractor for them to propose a solution. Retrofitting a lift in a house is not the same as provisioning when the house is being built as you will have to fit the lift around what is already constructed. If hacking is involved, you may need to engage a PE to check on the proposed solution as well.

since HIP was just completed, you better check with HDB on whether the toilet can be renovated or not. There might be a clause where owner cannot renovate the toilet for x number of years like new flats due to warranty issues. your photo is quite blur so can't see the pipe you mentioned. But the layout looks similar like my parents place so from what I remember, there is a water pipe running across the bathroom to provide water for the basin outside. then inside the toilet, there is another 50mm PVC pipe which is at about half a metre in height and that is the vent pipe for the floor trap inside the toilet. unless HDB allows you to do a full hacking of the toilet (due to HIP), else you won't be able to do anything to shift the pipes now.

architects either charge by lump sum or by percentage of construction cost. since your job is small, the 20% may sound excessive to you but it's seems to be around the normal range the architect would quote if you base on dollar value. on whether the builders can provide all the services you require, I guess it all depends on the builder. at the end of the day, you need to understand that a builder is not an architect or a ID. there may be builders who have an eye for design, etc but it all depends on your luck on whether you can find one or not. your airwell and skylight may require submission to BCA and involve a PE as well so do take note and put aside some $$ for this.

you can keep your existing rain gutter. however the responsibility is on you to keep it clear of any blockages which may cause stagnant water and lead to mosquito infestation. you can argue that it's up on the roof so how can you check on it. but unfortunately, since you decide to keep it, you have to be responsible for it. cos you will need to answer to NEA if any mosquito breeding is found in your premises.

do note that rain gutters are banned in Singapore. if the house has an existing rain gutter, any renovation works (A&A or reconstruction) that involve the roof structure will require the rain gutter to be removed and alternative methods of rain water redirection to be implemented.

last time landed estates normally have open drains outside the houses. so between the road and drain will be either concrete pavement or grass verge. so chances are most of them were concrete before so that pedestrians can walk. sometimes if the road is very narrow, they leave them as low concrete kerbs so cars can park over them. i'm sure there are considerations on what to change to grass or concrete and not random selection.

basically this DIP is telling you this 1. your house (which falls under general development) must be at least 4.0m above the Singapore Height Datum. 2. if your house is already 4.0m above the Singapore Height Datum, then your house must be at least 300mm above the adjacent ground/road level. this 300mm is the level required to prevent water from flowing from the ground/road into your property PUB will give your the MPL (minimum platform level) which your house needs to be built. the MPL is the level where the 1st storey must be location at or above. so now if they tell you your house must be 1m above road level, it means your existing ground/road is only at 3.0m above the Singapore Height Datum. so your 1st storey must be at 1m above road level. anything below this 1m can be considered as a basement if you choose to build a basement. building height of 12m will be computed from this MPL. there is no way you can escape this clause since PUB is unlikely to grant you clearance if your design is below the MPL. if PUB don't give you clearance, URA will not give you PP or WP and BCA won't give you permit so you can't do anything. edit: above the table already has the clause "The Minimum Platform Level for development on the selected area shall not be lower than the highest level shown in the table". so it's take whichever level is highest. the other clause of owner accepting risk is only applicable if there are site constraints. you need to read the DIP in the entire context and not pick and choose which ones you want. quote from my own DIP, "If the minimum platform cannot be complied with due to site constraints or other technical reasons, the owner/developer shall make the following endorsement on the building plan: “The Owner/Developer has given due consideration to PUB’s advice on the minimum platform level and is aware that the lower existing/proposed platform level may subject the development to flood risks”."

grass patch belongs to nparks or LTA. cannot suka suka pave over. unless the original was already concrete and authorities converted some to grass verge then it's a different story.

landed housing zone has only height restrictions, no GFA. height is based on URA envelope design. 3 storey house is able to go up to 15.5m. 2 storey is able to go up to 12m.

ura website will explicitly mention whether it is 2 storey mixed, 3 storey mixed, 2 storey bunglows, 2 storey semi-d etc. if your house is in an area not marked, then most likely it is in a 1.4 residential zone which means your house would be limited by GFA instead of storey height. you can check this in the master plan on the same URA site.

Most of the houses in the area are built quite some time back. Only those built in recent years need to add the extra 1m as PUB had increased the minimum platform level by 1m.

1. look for picture framing shop to see if they can sell you 1 piece based on your required size 2. see if any of the tile shops is willing to sell you a piece of 30cm by 30cm marble or granite 3. no idea what this is so no suggestions