snoozee

property tax is not totally based on the size of your house. it is based on annual value. To quote IRAS, "The AV of buildings is the estimated gross annual rent of the property if it were to be rented out, excluding furniture, furnishings and maintenance fees. It is determined based on estimated market rentals of similar or comparable properties and not on the actual rental income received." To put it simply, a 50 years old run down 6000sqf house will have a much lower AV than a brand new 6000sqf house since the brand new house will definitely fetch more rent compared to the old house.

I don't recall any fees involved. If there were any, the fees would have been parked under my construction cost as there was no additional fees I had to pay for the trench. 100k for a 20m trench doesn't seem high. I had to pay 80k+ for a 8m+ long 3m deep trench which involves ERSS works. you can choose not to build the trench, just design your house smaller and set it away from the sewer line. steel construction is supposed to cut down the construction period required since bolting/welding on steel beams and columns is faster than setting up the rebars, creating formwork and concrete pour. but I've seen some projects in my estate which used steel construction and the construction time seems to be the same as traditional construction. so i don't get why need to pay more but still end up waiting the same length of time. I don't think steel construction will be more prone to corrosion issues. Else BCA would not have approved this method which is also used in many commercial buildings. weight loading shouldn't be an issue since the steel beam sizing and design will be based on what PE mandates in the structure design.

every site is different so it depends on the location of the sewer line. from SIP, there will be a rough location of where the sewer line is so the PE can determine the foundation design. in any case, my PE designed the footings such that the RC trench for the sewer line running across my plot is situated between 2 sets of footings. cost of trench will depend on length of sewer which needs to be protected and depth of the sewer pipe. for anything that requires more than 1.5m in excavation, ERSS will need to be erected to prevent soil collapse so the ERSS is a big cost. if the sewer is more than 3m deep (up to 5m), the width of the trench will be bigger as well. so instead of a 1m wide trench, a 1.5m wide trench will be needed. this means the ERSS cost will go up as well. officially, there should not be anything done above the trench as it will need to be accessible for any works required by PUB. but I think most owners will just cover over the trench after inspection is done and approved. of cos, this is done at owner's own risk since the structure/furnishings above the trench will need to be hacked away should PUB request for it,

nowadays everything seems to need piling. my house was built with huge footings but my neighbouring 2 houses are rebuilt with piling required. so the soil test report sharing thing may or may not be true today. Anyway the cost savings is very marginal so i'd rather pay for that few K for a piece of mind cos one will never know whether there's major differences in soil conditions between the plots even if quite near to each other.

my railings are all using painted mild steel. birds don't die so easily when they crash into things. I've had birds flying into my glass doors and they just bounce off and fly away. the railings are meant to protect the occupants from fall and the design and materials need to be approved by BCA since submissions are needed. house needs regular cleaning and maintenance so it's either you spend some effort to clean and maintain or take the risk of fall injuries. you could build walls instead of having staricase railings if you don't want the maintenance. There's plenty of home lifts in the market ranging from cheap chinese brands to high end eurpoean brands. Also there's option of traction lift or platform lift. home lifts are usually customoised for the project to the cabin size will be customised as per requirements as well. get your QP to source for you and then once confirmed, the lift shaft design will be based on the shop drawings the lift contractor provides. make sure you confirm your lift specifications and then have your house designed around it rather than your QP putting in a generic lift shaft size which means you will be stuck with that size and narrow your options of lifts. worse case is you will need to hack your lift shaft if the dimensions are not catered for properly and the internal dimensions cannot fit the lift which was ordered for. another potential issue with no proper specifications is your lift shaft does not have enough overheight for the chosen lift which will also mean more hacking works. When choosing the lift supplier, get all the costing including future maintenance costs. The maintenance costs can vary quite a bit between suppliers even thought the upfront cost is similar. Maintenance is something you need to pay for the entire lifespan of the lift and needs to be done at a minimal quarterly and yearly inspections (for license renewal) with load testing done every few years as well.

you can get contractor to apply sealer to the marble after polishing to mitigate the stain issue. As long as the spill is not left for a long period before wiping away, it shouldn't cause staining. For light stains, there are ways to lighten or remove the stains. But cracked floor tiles are more problematic than stains. 3 phase 100A supply should be more than enough for any house unless you are running a data center doing crypto mining 24/7. You may want to consider building a small shed to store the swimming pool pump, balancing tank, etc. It could double up as storeroom as well.

since you have space to play around with, you can locate your lift wherever you want. The lift core itself is supposed to have its own air vent at the top and if you build a concrete lift shaft, it should be able to contain any fire/smoke for a while to allow for occupants to escape. Anyway smoke alarms are mandatory for all new developments so this will serve as the early warning should any fire breaks out within the house. Whether to do central aircon or individual units is up to your own preference. Just note that for central aircon, should the condenser breaks down, all will be affected compared to having individual units. I heard that VRV central systems is more energy efficient but I can't confirm. There's no such thing as maintenance free. The keyword should be ease of maintenance. If you want to be fully accessible, then design it with ramps where there's a drop in level. Some locations will have to have a drop in level (eg: wet kitchen) to allow for washing so instead of a hard step, incorporate a ramp instead. But in order to add ramps, you need a larger space so that the gradient of the ramp is more gentle. For toilets, you can design it to be level except for the shower area where there's just a minimal drop to prevent water flowing out. Try not to use homogeneous tiles for first storey as there will be temperature variations due to proximity to actual earth and the tiles may crack. My friend's house used large format tiles in the living room and cracks had appeared in many pieces of tiles. That's why I decided to pay more for actual marble to prevent such issues from happening. if you can live with cracked lines on the walls, then you can keep the walls paint free. Even painted walls will develop cracks as the house settle down after some time but at least can use paint to cover up. 700sqf is like a HDB 3 room flat size so you can design your house in this manner if you want. There have been designs where a single house is "split" into distinct "units" for different families staying in the same house. But take into consideration how workers need to move the bulky items up to the upper levels. So either you buy smaller fridges/washers or make sure your lift is big enough and your staircase is wide enough to move up the king size beds.

your QP has to submit the entire house design to URA for approval first. BCA approval is also needed with structural designs for new house and demolition plan from the PE. Some QP don't submit the HS plans to SCDF for approval initially and while this is not wrong, if there are issues with the design rectification work will be problematic. That's why I mentioned to get the QP to submit for HS approval at the start as well. If your house is going to be physically more than 3 storeys, then need to submit plans to SCDF for fire clearance as well. Standard minimum setback for houses is 7.5m at the front and 2m for the rear and sides. For detached houses, you are allowed up to 50 percent site coverage for houses outside GCB areas which means you will have bigger setbacks in order not to exceed the allowed site coverage. The appropriate setback is based on your own needs and you are allowed to have bigger setback if you want as long as the minimum is met.

if your PV panels is generating excess electricity in the day, wouldn't your normal aircon become powered by solar energy? unless your requirement is to not to enjoy aircon during the night and can only have AC when there's clear sky and sun. for fan in living room, i would suggest to install HVLS fans which can push great volume of air to cool down the room. If you have ample space, can install 2 or 3 sets as well. I have 1 set of 84 inch HVLS ceiling fan and it does a great job of cooling down my living room. if you retain your house as a semi-d, you will have a bigger roof area to place PV panels and generate more electricity. If you convert your semi-d to a detached, you are also reducing the house's footprint (and roof size) since detached houses has a maximum allowed site coverage on top of setbacks compared to semi-d which just need to comply with setbacks.

no development charge for private dwelling if convert from semi-d to detached. but you need to ensure your neighbour's plot of land can also qualify as a detached house before you can convert yours. no GFA limit for private dwelling. not sure what kind of water tank and pump you are referring to. if your house will be above the min height requirements for water tank, normally water tank will be placed on the roof top (gravity flow) and pump on the ground floor. it doesn't make sense to have the tank in the middle of the house since you may need an additional pump to push the water from the tank to the top floor. There's specific requirements on where the HS can be located from the boundary as well as the size (height and internal volume) of the HS. height limit is between 2.4m and 3.9m based on your first floor height of 4.3m, your HS must be located more than 7m from the boundary line. your architect should know the regulations and advise you better on where the HS can be placed within the house. Don't try to push the regulations for HS as you will likely to be asked to do rectifications (whether inside or outside) to comply with the regulations as BCA will send an officer down to inspect the HS before you are even allowed to apply for TOP. Get your QP to submit the HS design for clearance at the start so you know you are safe and don't end up having to do rectification works after the inspection. The worst nightmare is you may be asked to hack down the entire HS and relocate it to another location in the house to comply with requirements.

how many holes depends on what the PE requires of which land size also plays a part. mine only did one bore hole

Go hire an architect and let them arrange for you. The soil investigation needs to have instructions from a PE on what to do and this is not what a layman can scope out. topo survey needs to have cadastral map downloaded from SLA INLIS and additional plans purchased on INLIS as well so a QP will know what needs to be purchased and provided to the surveyor and the soil investigation team. I did both together for about 5K+ some years ago. Yours would likely cost more due to inflation as well as maybe additional holes need to be bored for the soil investigation due to bigger plot of land. Anyway below are the companies I used back then. soil investigation - ABV topo survey - CAK & FG Survey

Solar aircon only works in the day when there's sun. so what happens when you need it at night? Do up a proper PV system which is tied back to grid. During the day, if you need to turn on aircon, it will consume electricity generated from the PV system and any excess electricity generated will be sold back to the grid for income. At night when you need to turn on aircon, then electricity is imported from the grid to power up your appliances.

I have no idea how is your house layout. But 10 APs for an inter terrace seems overkill. Eg: is your study so huge that you need to have two APs to provide the coverage? or is the product quality so bad that 2 APs are needed to cover the area of the study? Same as for your attic. Do you need 3 APs to provide the coverage for 2 bedrooms? Of cos the sales rep will propose a solution to you so that there will be no complaints for poor reception at certain areas and he get the flack for not proposing enough equipment. But then with additional equipment, how much are you going to pay more upfront in equipment cost and running costs to keep the equipment turned on 24/7? While the cost of having an AP run 24/7 is about 10 cents a day, if you multiple this by 5 APs, that's an additional $15 per month you need to pay in electricity. If you're planning to install APs on the ceiling, then you may not need to have 10 APs at all. You will likely need 1 AP for your mezzanine study. Whether the AP in your study can provide some coverage for you living room will depend on what material you have as the wall which overlooks your living room. So how many APs are needed in your living room will depends on the mezzanine location. eg: if you have an AP in the middle of the study at the mezzanine (which is located at the rear of the house), the AP may provide coverage for the area immediately below and around it. Then you will need another AP to provide coverage for the front living area and car porch. For your 2nd storey with 4 bedrooms, you could install 1 AP to cover 2 bedrooms so just 2 APs should be enough. For attic, 1 AP right in the middle should be able to cover both bedrooms. If later on you find that certain spots are really bad, then you could add on those wall APs which are plugged into the wall RJ45 ports to cover the areas. The router which is proposed seems overkill as well for a home use environment. You could make do with a lower cost model or even make use of the existing one you have right now. the 24 ports POE switch will be more to provide power for your APs. You need to ask yourself if 24 ports are enough? if not, then you may want to add on another 24 ports non-POE switch. Again whether to link up all your 50 LAN ports now or later is up to you.

These are grounding points. By right not supposed to cover. Of cos you can do what you want as long as you are willing to take the risk and need to hack and expose them in future

If the type of workmanship was for my house, I would have given a piece of my mind to the QP and contactor and ask if this is acceptable for their own house. I do not know what that big chunk of white "box" coming out from the floor is but for a brand new rebuilt house, there shouldn't be this type of funny things jutting out at wierd locations. Even if there's no choice but to have something to come out of the floor, at least something can be done to make it more aesthetically pleasing rather than leave it like this. By right all networking items should be part of the initial design of the house together with electrical wiring. There's requirements from IMDA on where the network points need to be installed and so on. The phone line in the lift is needed for safety reasons. Imaging if one is using the lift breaks down when no one else is at home. By right the lift should be self-homing and goes down to the first floor and automatically open the doors if there's a problem. But there's always a chance things don't work when they should and hence the phone is needed to allow the passenger to call for help. Not sure how big your colleagues landed houses across the causeway are. But in SG, everything is maximised in the plot of land and the walls causes the WIFI signal to degrade. With mesh setup, the mesh nodes will require line of sight to work well but with walls in between, mesh doesn't work well. So one will still require mesh nodes or AP with wired backhaul to get the best WIFI signal. When I did my house, I had already planned for all my network and AP locations. I have a server rack in a designated location to house all my network equipment as well so that things will be tidy. The server rack which I bought 2nd hand cost me less than $500 which would be cheaper than having custom furniture built. The phone system you bought is not really a full fledged phone system. I guess you could daisy chain the telephone cables at the termination point such that the base units are all connected to the main incoming line. The PBX I'm using is a Panasonic KX-TES824 which I placed in my server rack. The digital phone line from my ISP's ONR is then connected to the PBX as the incoming line. For network equipment, I prefer HP Enterprise models as they usually come with limited lifetime warranty and some models don't burn a hole in my pocket. Of cos if you're the type who wants to upgrade often to get the latest technology then the lifetime warranty don't matter much. I would suggest you just plug in all the network points at the start and save your headache in future. From your photo, it doesn't look like your contractor had labeled the cables as well so you will not know which cable is for which point in your house unless you spend time to trace them. If your CCTV recorder comes with network points with POE, you may want to connect the CCTV network cables to the recorder directly rather than to the switch. Unless you require the use of POE devices on your network, you can get a normal gigabit switch which will be slightly cheaper than a POE switch. Alternatively is to buy 1 normal and 1 POE switch such that your POE devices can be connected to the POE switch and other devices connected to the normal switch.

is your photo your existing (old) setup or new setup in your new house? Cos if this is for a newly constructed house, i would be giving the contractor a lot of grief for this type of workmanship. WIFI setup should actually be planned before construction start since the cables should be laid in optimal locations and doing it after would likely mean you need to pull cables or have more access points to make up for the limited coverage wall lan points may provide. eg: if an AP is mounted on a wall, a whole level could get the WIFI signal from this single AP. but if a AP is placed on a desk next to a wall in a room, you may need another AP on another end of the level to provide coverage for poor/dead spots. Also, LAN cable termination plays a part in how the network equipment can be placed. With reference to the photo above, the termination is very short, maybe about 1.2m. This means you will either need to mount your data switch on the wall or have a small shelf/desk next to the bunch of cables to do the connections. With longer termination length, there is more option on how/where the network equipment can be placed. There's 2 sets of cables, data cable for networking/internet and telephone cables for your telephones usage. Nowadays, contractors also use CAT6 cables for telephone cabling so your contractor should have labeled the cable ends properly so you can identify which cable is for what. For network cables, you need to connect all the cable ends to a data switch. If you have less than 23 network cables, then a 24 port data switch will be enough. But if you have more than 24 network cables, then you need to decide if you want to buy a 48 ports switch or 2 sets of 24 ports switch. Note that a 24 port switch will need a "spare" port for the uplink which is to either connect between switches or connect to a router. So if you have 2 sets of 24 ports switch, you will need to cater for a total of 3 "spare" ports, 1 port on each switch to connect to each other and another port to connect to a router. TP Link is more of a small home use switch so it will work for your case but personally, I would prefer better brands of which some offer limited lifetime warranty. With limited lifetime warranty, you pay once and if the switch fails 5 years down the road, you get a replacement FOC (may get another model if existing model is no longer available). To get WIFI coverage, you will need at least one access point for each level. As I mentioned earlier, if you had not planned to have ceiling mounted APs at the start, you may need to buy more APs to provide more coverage. How many APs you need would be more of a trial and error testing now as you need to install an AP first, then use a mobile phone with a WIFI detection app to check the signal strength. If the signal strength is poor/low at certain areas, then you may want to consider adding another AP to provide coverage. At minimum, you would need at least 4 APs, one for each level. your level 2 with 4 bedrooms may require an additional AP if the WIFI signal is bad. Do note that a wireless AP (Access Point) is not the same as a router. Those equipment bundled by telcos are WIFI routers which have AP functionality built in. But a true AP simply receives and sends the network traffic to and from the router without doing any routing. While you can buy multiple WIFI routers to serve the same function, it would be best if you can configure these WIFI routers without the routing function so that they act just like an AP. Else if you have too many equipment performing the routing function, you may encounter performance issues and it's not easy to troubleshoot as well. As a general rule, one local network should have only one router. Now for the telephone cables. DO NOT connect your telephone cables to the data switches as they don't serve the same purpose. But you could technically convert the telephone point to become a data point if the correct ports/plugs are installed. By right each telephone cable can only be used for 1 telephone line. Meaning if you have 5 telephone cables, you will need 5 telephone lines to call out. However, you can use telephone line splitters to combine these lines and make do with one single outgoing telephone line. Another option is for you to install a PBX system at home. With a PBX, all telephone lines from the rooms will connect to the PBX. The PBX will then be connected to the main outgoing telephone line. With a PBX, you can also get the intercom, hold, call transfer functions etc. So it's basically like a office telephone system but installed at home. A small PBX system may cost a few hundred dollars so it's not that expensive to have one at home.

if your neighbour does not rebuilt, then there's no need to construct any new IC at all. everything can remain as it. It's only when the house undergoes rebuilt (and maybe reconstruction) that PUB will stipulate that the owner/developer construct a new IC so that the existing shared arrangement can be terminated. As for how much the new sewer connection will cost, it is subjective since many factors will come into play. As I've mentioned many times, you have every legal right to disallow any contractor to access your property to do any works. Even if you said OK today and changed your mind tomorrow, the contractor will not be able to hold to your original consent since you've already changed your mind to withdraw the consent to access your property.

it does not cost that much to construct a new IC. When I rebuilt my house, I shifted my last IC to another location and constructed another IC to connect to the last IC as well. I think the cost to construct an IC would be just a few K which might be cheaper than redoing all your outdoor tiles for your house. in any case, if I'm not wrong, every landed house must have its own last IC built within its own land lot. So there's no way to save the cost of construction of last IC. The only question is where this last IC will connect to. PUB regulations state that as much as possible/feasible, the connection must be done to the public sewer on public land. So in this case, when the QP submits the plan to PUB for approval, it is likely that the plan will be to connect the last IC to the public sewer pipe outside the private land lots. Unless there's compelling reasons why the connection on public land cannot be done, then PUB will allow for connection to be done on private land subjected to the land owner's consent.

I suppose you have the SIP on hand which is why you are able to provide the layout of your existing situation. As mentioned, you can deny them access. If I'm in your situation, I would not grant them access to hack my floor to do their sewer connection as well. However, since the existing sewer connection needs to be terminated properly, you have to grant them limited access to do this. Whether you want to let them open your manhole to perform CCTV survey is up to you. Your neighbour's new IC can be constructed in their driveway and then connect to the main sewer which is running through the public road/land. How they can do it is another question as a sewer connection should be direct so it could be challenging. Anyway, doing the connection outside is the only way they can do it since they can't touch your property at all. Of cos they will need to submit the plans to PUB for approval first. With regards to sealing of the existing connection, there's some standard procedures from PUB on how it should be done. If I were you, I would request for a method statement from the contractor and signed by a QP on how they are going to do the sealing. This is just to protect yourself in case something happens in future with the termination point. As the termination will actually be done inside the IC, any hacking (if needed) will be done inside the IC. I'm not sure if any hacking inside the IC will be done but there could be some minor hacking to roughen the surface of the IC so the cement could adhere properly. The exact details on how the sealing will be done should be described in the method statement from the contractor/QP.

if there's no tiles laid over the manhole and IC, then there's no need to hack the floor and tiles to access them at all. the IC cover and manhole cover can be opened freely and closed back without causing any damages unless you had laid tiles over them which will mean hacking will be needed. a manhole allows PUB or any authorised parties to access the sewer pipes so that pipe inspection could be done. IC connections are not done via the manhole. the IC in a house is the main connection point where all the sanitary pipes will connect to. If you have more than 1 IC in the house, there will be one last IC which will connect to the main public sewer pipe and all other ICs will connect to this last IC before discharge to the main public sewer pipe. Some old houses have shared last IC where 2 houses next to each other will share a common last IC to connect to the main public sewer (like in your case). If the house which is utilising the neighbour's IC undergoes redevelopment (as in your neighbour case now), the developer will need to create a new connection to the main public sewer and terminate the existing connection from the shared last IC. The connection to the main public sewer will be done in the new development and not via the neighbouring property. Unless you are so unlucky that the main public sewer does not run through your neighbour's property and only runs through your property then your neighbor's contractor will need to check the SIP on where the sewer pipe runs through and see if the connection can be done via public land behind the property. If you look at my drawing below, what could be the case is simply the contractor needs to open your manhole to do a pre-con CCTV survey now (and later a post-con CCTV survey). After their last IC is constructed, connected to the public sewer (NOT within your land) , your last IC will then need to be opened up so that the existing connection from the neighbour side to your last IC is terminated properly by pouring in concrete, etc to fill up the pipe. Again, IF you do not have tiles or any flooring sealing up the last IC and manhole in your house, there's NO need for the contractor to hack your floor at all to do their job. Before you jump into a fit and think of what you can demand on the contractor to fix your house, I would suggest you talk to the contractor and find out exactly what they need to do within your property. As I've mentioned, you have every right to deny them access to your house. The contractor will just have to find the next manhole to access to perform their CCTV survey and not bother you at all. However, as mentioned, if the termination is not done on your side, you may or may not be liable for your neighbour's property damage should the termination fail in future and your waste flows over to their side.

question is why is your manhole tiled over in the first place? the manhole doesn't belong to you even though it's in your property and anyone including PUB can request for access to the manhole for maintenance purpose. so if today the request if from PUB and not your neighbour's contractor, you would most likely need to hack the tiles to allow for the access to the manhole. On compensation, note again that the manhole and ICs should not be sealed up or tiled over since they are meant to be accessible. if you had chose to tile them over then it's your own fault for doing it in the first place. Imagine now your house has a sewage choke issue but because your IC and manhole is sealed up, you will be unable to open up either one to check and clear the choke. On your rights, owner consent will need to be obtained before any works can be done on your property. Since you are unlikely to grant consent, the contractor just have to suck thumb and find another manhole to access. I believe the contractor needs to access the manhole in your property mainly to do CCTV inspection of the sewer before construction begins. They will also need to do another CCTV inspection after the construction is completed as these CCTV footage needs to be submitted to PUB to show that nothing is damaged during the construction. Even if your neighbour is shifting or constructing a new IC, they can do the connection to the existing sewer on their side. the problem is the termination of the existing sewer connection from their side to your IC which in this case, will likely be only terminated on their side. However in the event of any chokes on your side in future and if the sewerage somehow goes through the termination point (failed), I do not know if you may be liable for any damages to their property since sewage will be flowing under their house due to the termination not being able to be done on your side. Even if you grant access for them to do the work, legally the contractor will only need to make good on what was damaged during the works. meaning if you want them to redo all the tiles for front and back yard, you need to negotiate with the contractor and pay them for the work and materials.

according to BCA regulations, each residential flat unit is allowed to have only ONE loft per unit. since you already have one built by the developer, by right you cannot have another one built. Of cos you can always go by left instead and do what you want as long as you don't get caught. In any case, the minimum ceiling height required by BCA is 2.4m meaning your floor to bottom of loft must be at least 2.4m. Assuming your loft decking is 25cm thick, this will leave you 2m in height from the loft floor deck to the bottom of your actual ceiling. Even if you do not require authorities submissions for less than 5sqm loft, please still get a professional engineer to design the structure of the loft. Make sure you see the drawing plans signed off by a professional engineer with the registration number. You don't want to engage a contractor who alibaba the structure and then one day find the loft collapsing on you due to it not being designed properly.

Nothing much you can do on your own about it unless you get the telcos to put an antenna on your roof. Mobile phone signals depends on the proximity to the cell station and if you're just nice on the boundary of the cell coverage, you will encounter poor receptions. You can always feedback to the telco which you're having issues with and see if they can sort it out. is the issue just with your phone or your family members as well? if just yourself, maybe try using another phone and test.

No harm buying the RLP as well since you will likely need it anyway if you end up buying the house.