snoozee

You referring to the balcony/roof terrace at attic level or the roof terrace ABOVE the attic? If it’s the former, then my architect did not count this as GFA. if your concern is about construction cost, then I can tell you contractors are not stupid. Even if this is not classified as GFA, the area will still be factored in their quotation.

since you have an accessible roof terrace, it will be counted as GFA for contractors since they will need to build an actual floor as opposed to just a simple roof. costing wise is very different from building a roof and a roof terrace. with a simple roof, one can get away with just using some simple steel columns and beams to build a lightweight roof. but with a roof terrace, the structure needs to be constructed like an actual floor since you will be accessing it for your normal usage. so your architect is not wrong to put that in as GFA since the contractor would need to based on how much floor they need to construct to quote you. the condo/strata definitions are more for URA to control the allowable GFA in a development as well as to charge DC to developers.

relocating an IC is not a trivial matter as this involved the connecting of all the waste water outlets in your house to a single point (IC) and then from then connecting to the public sewer. unless you are doing a full rebuilt where the new waste water outlets can be designed from scratch, I would say relocation an IC for an A&A or recon doesn't make sense especially if you are trying to minimize the amount of work. currently all the waste water pipes (from all bathrooms, toilets, kitchen) are going to your last IC in your kitchen before a pipe connects it to the public sewer. if you want to abandon this IC, then you will need to find some way to route the waste water from all the waste water pipes in your house to somewhere else and this would mean digging up the floor in various parts of the house up to soil level to re-run the pipes. if i didn't remember wrongly, PUB requires the bottom of the IC to be at least 75cm down from the floor level (to prevent backflow) so imagine how much digging needs to be done if you want to relocate the IC and run new pipes. PUB does allow for new connections to the public sewer with the requirement of post-CCTV survey being done to certify that the sewer is not damaged in any way after the construction. manhole is required for very specific scenarios and I don't think doing a new sewer connection will require one. do note that IC and manhole are different. also, is the public sewer within your land lot or outside? if inside, you will need to build an RC trench to protect the sewer (assuming there already isn't one) and you could try to plan to relocate the last IC in your kitchen (if you are willing to re-run all the waste water points). another consideration is where do you want to relocate the IC to? PUB required the connection from the last IC to the sewer to be a straight connection and with a minimum gradient. this will mean you cannot install the new IC wherever you want since the connection to the sewer needs to be considered based on where the sewer line is and how deep it is as well. for my corner terrace, I will be relocating my IC to the side where it would be outside the house. I am doing this because I will be doing a new rebuilt and I need to build a RC trench for the sewer which is running through my back yard so might as well relocate the IC since the land is going to be dug up anyway to lay new waste water pipes.

are you doing A&A or reconstruction? whether need submissions or not depends on what you are doing. based on what you described, it's hard to say whether need submission or not since the extent of the works isn't clear. but if you do need to do submissions to authorities, only qualified person (architect or professional engineer) can do the submissions and the fees quoted would be based on the extend of the QP's involvement in the project. if you feel the quote are expensive, can always get your ID to get quotes from other QPs or find another ID to do your project.

1. 1500W will draw about 6.5A so 10A should be safe 2. all electrical wiring must come with a neutral wire. else can't power up with just a live and earth wire as current flows from live to neutral wire.

Normally developers would have maxed out the allowed GFA when designing the development. if you want to build another loft bigger than 5sqm, you need URA approval. if you not sure, best is check with URA for confirmation. if allowed, you may need a PE to design the loft structure as well.

it depends on how old is your building plan as some old plans are not that accurate due to the lack of technology in the old days to get an accurate bearing of all the points which mark out your land boundary. if you can spare the thousand odd dollars, I would say it is betteris get a surveyor to work out your actual boundaries first before you do anything. you shouldn't need to do any submissions if you are not changing your entrance location as any entrance change will require LTA approval. the boundary wall itself is insignificant to require URA/BCA submissions.

I'm still in the process of doing my tender for the rebuilt. however preliminary estimate is that the trench can be done for around 20k. this is based on a trench which is about 9m long and 3m deep. not sure how much the actual cost will be once the digging starts.

The crimping of the earth wire isn’t done properly. But it should still be secure since the wire still seems to be crimped enough on the other side. As the wire is unlikely to be tugged from outside you can just leave it alone

your ID is talking nonsense. the stone wall is part of your property and can be removed or plastered over or anything you wish to do with it AS LONG as you have the approval from the relevant authorities. the existing wall does mark the boundary but do also note that the boundary might not be accurate depending on when the house was constructed. for example, my front boundary wall is actually encroaching into public land and when I do my rebuilt, I have to tear down the entire front wall and rebuilt it to be within my land boundary. so if you have a similar situation, you will have to shift the entire wall inside your land lot. Best is to engage a surveyor to do a site survey and get the actual land lot boundary of your house first. for boundary wall, it is limited to 1.8m in height. so normally it will be taking the height from the street level. if you want to go higher than 1.8m, you can try to do a submission to URA to see if they can approve something beyond 1.8m. but chances is that the max they could give you is to measure from your car porch access level which might be another 20 or 30cm higher depending on how you can justify your request.

well, you can either have a zigzag skirting with even distance from the wall or a straight skirting with uneven distance from the wall. I guess the main issue is that the wall isn't perfectly flat in the first place. hence the tiler have to do what he did to keep the skirting straight rather than leaving it zigzagged.

I would suggest you purchase the building plans from BCA first and consult a PE. adding almost an entire floor to the existing structure is not something trivial and you need to confirm that the existing structure is able to take the load of the new attic floor. secondly, the land is zoned for 1.4 GPR. adding a loft will be considered as GFA so you may not be able to build an entire attic floor as this may exceed the 1.4GPR which the land is zoned for.

"attic" is not obsolete and never will be. it depends on whether there is a need for the attic to be built or not. since your zoning allows you to built up to 3 storey, the attic becomes "optional" since normally 2 storey houses will add on an attic to get more space. do bear in mind that if you plan to build up additional storey, you will be subjected to the current envelope control so your additional floor and attic must be within the allowable buildable envelope. for $300k, budget seems quite tight to build an additional storey and attic. best is get some quotations from builders on whether the extensions can be done with this budget or not

if you look at your floor plan, the huge recess in the living room is actually due to the 2 columns and the beam running across the columns. so the concrete block wall which was built is aligned to take reference from the center line of the columns so that both you and your neighbor will end up having a similar unit size. else if the wall is built to be flush to the beam and columns, there will be a deeper recess on one size and both units will have different floor areas.

the bulge is most likely the columns for the building. if you have your house plan from HDB, you can refer to that to confirm whether they are the columns. for old flats, the concrete blocks for walls sometimes are not aligned to be flush with the columns and beams so you end up having like a 1cm difference between the wall and the columns/beams. so if someone try to fill up the difference just at where the joint is but not plastering the entire wall, it will end up something like what you see now. you can see from the tiles skirting (from 1st photo) that 1cm gap on the wall and almost zero gap on the columns (bulge). so if you want the wall to look nice, get someone to plaster the entire wall to be flush to the column.

wow! I presume both cassette and ducted are quoted with 2 sets of equipment?

the ducting will definitely cost money since we're taking about putting in galvanized steel ducts along with insulation materials plus labour. cost wise best is talk to an aircon installer to find out. then share with me?

http://www.coolserve.com.sg/htmdocs/products/products_details.aspx?id=3614&prodName='SUY-KA30VA / PEY-P30JA' this is ducted AC unit. normally this would be hidden inside the false ceiling and directly connected to the ductings.

I was searching on coolserve website on aircon pricing. the price difference between ducted and wall/celiing mounted units (supply and install) not much difference. best is find an aircon specialist to work out how much BTU required for your living room based on the layout then can work out how many units required so you can know the cost.

Hard to tell from your photo. Use your hand to press a piece of toilet paper on the ceiling and see if the toilet paper gets wet or not. Or just use your bare handed to feel the ceiling. A wet ceiling will feel much colder than a normal dry ceiling. Also compare that part with the rest of the ceiling. Normally after the water dries off will leave a water mark which is slightly different color than the original ceiling paint

If you know how to plaster the wall can DIY. But best is get the pros to do it as plastering an entire wall needs skill

actually the lift is still make of metal. just that the shaft will be made of glass panels which is more expensive than using bricks/concrete blocks to build the lift core/shaft. with glass lift shaft, you can basically see all the lift mechanisms compared to everything hidden for normal brick/concrete walls for the lift shaft. edit: just saw some pics of lifts with glass panels so additional cost could be for tempered glass for the lift panels as well

Can share the contacts of your lift suppliers you got quotes from? I’m also looking for lift for my new house and hope to get a few more quotes. I guess the higher cost could be due to the glass lift shaft which I presume the lift supplier of providing. If you change to non-glass might be cheaper.

GST or no GST registration shouldn't make any difference since you will end up paying the GST for the supplied building materials. it's just whether you are paying the GST directly or indirectly. GST registered companies can claim GST back from IRAS for materials they buy and they pay IRAS the GST which they charge you. Non-GST registered companies CANNOT claim GST from IRAS but the materials they buy will most likely be subjected to GST which will in turn be paid by you since you can't expect them to absorb the GST for these supplies right?

are you engaging the ID directly or through your builder? if through the builder, it depends on what is the arrangement of scope of work between the builder and her since the builder would be the one paying her. most likely her fees had been squeezed very low by the builder hence the minimal work done. for furniture, you will be the one paying for them so you should be able to choose what colour you want instead of following her design. if the ID is engaged through the builder, i'll suggest you talk to your builder about this and see what can be done. either cut her off and have the portion of the fees deducted from your payment to the builder or ask your builder to get another ID or find one yourself. it is unlikely the ID will do much more work so best is find someone to take over to avoid delays to your house completion.